And it shows in the sales number. But since there was not much to begin with, it still is negligible.
Companies buy MacBooks Pro or iMacs anyway, the need for a mini tower is a myth. In the past year or two I encountered a lot more of iMacs being used in a corporative environment, yeah it's mostly web 2.0 startups and kinda has the stench of hipsters but nonetheless, a lot more.
Not to mention there are Macs exclusive companies now, which is unthinkable 5 years ago saving certain niche trades.
One common scenario is one company have to purchase a few to develope its own iPhone apps, turns out the assigned employee actually like Macs a lot, besides the exchange support really helps. Several months later, MacBooks everyone! A lot of happy faces.
Apple's nonexistent corporate service is a big problem though, driving down to an Apple Store is neither professional nor pleasant enough.
Walk around any airport and check out the laptops the execs are carrying these days. Now that the Mac can run whatever the office throws at it, there's no reason for them to have to stick with the Win platform. These guys can use their Mac side whenever they want, and their peecee side whenever they must. Same goes for home use. With an iMac, they can have it all. Of course, these are the same guys who make the business decisions at work. They'll get the desktop Macs first, and the drones will be forced to stick with whatever they now have. Kinda like those old Sun workstations. Whatever rings your bell, man.
Our own company matches this foray into everything Mac to a tee. We've opened up our infrastructure to iPhones, and we're looking at expanding support for Mac's in general.
Looks to be another good year for Apple.
We have integrated our Macs into our AD environment and it actually works pretty well. There are a few things still lacking though.
1. Really good cross-platform inventory software, ugh! All solutions out there are really good at one or the other but not both.
2. Outlook for Mac with support for distribution lists & full public folders support. Not holding much hope for Outlook 2010 but Microsoft may surprise.
3. That darn keychain password needs to change when you change password during login, gosh that's annoying! Our users get prompted to change but if they do it when prompted then they are stuck having to go & manually change keychain to match!
4. Single Sign On is such a pain in OS X, I so wish they had better tools for setting it up.
5. I don't want .file all over my windows file shares!!! Come on Apple, let OS X recognize that when connected to an SMB share it should never create the stupid things unless it's a home folder sync!!
5. I don't want .file all over my windows file shares!!! Come on Apple, let OS X recognize that when connected to an SMB share it should never create the stupid things unless it's a home folder sync!!
I thought that was resolved natively with Snow Leopard. Regardless, here are the solutions I am aware of for preventing these files from being created and how to clean them up after the fact.[INDENT]
Windows bogging down is never an issue with me or work because we don't let people goof off and like I said I don't download programs out the yingyang and any person at work who installs something beyond what we tell them is subject to termination depending on frequency of violations and content, so we don't really have many software related issues from Windows. In the past 2 years we've had a total of 3 security vulnerabilities two of which were caused by the same person and thus terminated.
Our short term costs and lifetime expectancy are part of the equation when we buy, we don't keep our computers and they end up getting donated to local charities/ NPO's so we recoup some of the costs of upgrading. Its rare to get a critical hardware failure like the cpu going, usually its a power supply or hard drive going. These are on about 700 a piece machines, but we are going to have to scale back due to budget cuts and will be getting 500 dollar bare bone machines that are just tower only.
We could easily extend our buying schedule to 7 years but top brass likes to keep things up to date with all our resorts. Also we don't get new monitors when we get new PCs, so were still rocking CRTs from 01 lol. I think we have about a 40/60 ratio of lcd to crt monitors right now, can't speak for other resorts though.
Anyways a pc spec'd the same as a mac isn't going to get dusted significantly their performance is comparable and usually its a back and forth with the pc or mac winning in certain categories, its not some landslide completely favoring one over the other.
Most of our help tickets extend from something in our database going down not on our end or some moron guest trying to be "uber hacker", we don't have many serious issues because were well established but a resort we just added into the family was a damn nightmare getting everything right, it was a nightmare becuase they were running archaic hardware and still on windows 2000 or XP, when all our resorts were on Vista and had newer up to date servers.
I'm behind a pretty strict firewall in my corporation. Users aren't allowed to download nor install just any willy nilly program. Yet there are still downtime issues due to Microsoft's core products - Windows and Office.
I'm behind a pretty strict firewall in my corporation. Users aren't allowed to download nor install just any willy nilly program. Yet there are still downtime issues due to Microsoft's core products - Windows and Office.
Before we got brought under our new owners not even a couple years ago we used to have some serious downtime due to three things, personal email checking idiots clicking attachments, unsanctioned internet surfing and for some god forsaken reason Office 07 on Vista acting like a real jackass, work one day and the next were scratching our heads trying to figure out wtf is going on and why it won't open certain file formats, and some days Aloha makes you want to take the computer terminal and throw it off the roof (powered by windows)
The real question is can iWork replace Microsoft Office?
Even Office for Mac is pathetic when compared to Windows' version.
Replace Office for Mac, no, but I don?t think that is Apple?s goal right now(or perhaps ever) with iWork. I think it?s more in tune to MobileMe as being ?Exchange for the rest of us?, Apple is putting iWork up as the ?office suite for the rest of us.? I certainly don?t need to use any of the apps that Office has. It?s just too extensive and complex for my simple needs. Google Docs and other open office suites have their place but they aren?t as robust as Office and aren?t as well designed for ease-of-use as iWork.
PS: I am looking forward to Outlook for Mac. Entourage simply doesn?t cut it and Mail is not designed for corporate use. My biggest issue with Mail is that while the frameworks for AddressBook and iCal are tied into the Mail there is no option to view my AddresBook and iCal within the app. Having three separate apps when I want one synergistic app. I am suggesting that AddressBook and iCal be removed, just give me the option to view them with Mail natively.
Furthermore, I hope iPhone OS v4.0 will allow for multiple email accounts to be integrated into one view, like in the desktop Mail app, with the option to go back and into a specific account in the same manner one does this on the iPhone OS? Address Book app for different groups.
I love how the miracle windows operators come out of the woodwork in these kinds of discussions
There is no Apple tax. You can buy a quality machine, or you can buy cheaper less capable hardware. If you want a stripped, bare bones experience, congratulations - there are plenty of Windows PC vendors who are happy to oblige you.
2) There wasn?t even a 13? aluminium unibody MacBook in 2007
3) Apple upgrades the HW in their machines about every 200 days.
4) Your comparing a notebook that is updated with faster and higher capacity components for essentially the same price with a monitor that has increased in size while still maintaining the same resolution which means it has LESS pixels-per-inch than the model from two years prior. That isn?t a bad thing but it?s not a herculean task of computing to make bigger pixels that cover more area, but in computing going smaller and denser is more difficult.
5) If we do use pricing from the aluminium MacBook from October 2008, it was $1,300 for the 2.0GHz model. Today, a 2.26GHz 13? MacBook Pro with a lot more stuff, including an IPS display, FW800 and many better and faster components, including a much longer battery is $100 cheaper. Going back to the 2007 MacBook we have a plastic shell that used a Merom CPU so you couldn?t even address 4GB RAM for the system and would have to spend at least $1,500, $300 more than the current 13? MBP, to get an inferior product in every major category.
I'm Apple's biggest fan, from the first 512k days. I've met just about all the top Apple brass one time or another over the many years.
Apple knows, as well as I know, that OS X reigns as a supreme OS ONLY as long as Windows is crap. Windows 7 so far isn't crap and that is bad news for OS X and Mac's.
Except that windows isn't as crappy as folks say. So OSX has been succeeding by being better.
Quote:
I use OS X, Vista, XP, Win 7, Chrome and Ubuntu all at the same time in Fusion. You can thank Apple for making me OS neutral, I used to only use OS X because it was the only thing that ran on Mac's.
Then you've been overpaying and should by a HP and run Ubuntu and VirtualBox.
Quote:
Good for you. Ubuntu doesn't get viruses neither for that matter.
Too bad OSX is much better than Ubuntu for folks that like to get work done as opposed to wondering wtf Pulse Audio just hosed up their sound or how to repair a borked up xconfig after updating.
And please no WorksForMe (tm) rebuttals. Both Jaunty and Karmic has upgrade problems for folks.
Quote:
Microsoft can make that little change to make their OS so it's just as secure as Unix, Linux or OS X. It's called file permissions. Then it may be secure enough to nearly erase the reason for getting a Mac for security.
NTFS has had file permissions since day 1.
Quote:
Microsoft moves, but it moves slowly and clumsy, eventually stumbling in the right direction. It eventually erodes all the reasons one would need a Mac over a Windows PC.
MS was not executing well with Vista...much like Intel's debacle with the P4. With win7 they should do fairly well but the reason to get a Mac over a Windows PC is simply how much better the Mac product as been from an integrated usability standpoint. Something that MS cares about but does is a different way.
Quote:
I actually hope Windows 7 becomes the virus laden POS it deserves to be, just to keep Mac sales and adoption strong.
Deserves to be?
In any case, the sales of apple laptops has been vastly improving as noted. I see a lot of MBPs at meetings and a lot of folks considering a MBP purchase rather than Dell or HP. The biggest downsides of the OSX in a corporate environment is Entourage. For which Parallels works reasonably well with a locked down XP install.
Corporate deployment of something like Ubuntu on the desktop remains nearly zero. Every major deployment attempt of Linux on the desktop has been a freaking disaster. Like Munich for example. In 6 years they managed to convert a mere 15.7% (2200 out of 14,000) of their desktops to Linux (target goal was 100% and reduced to 80%). 12 million euros to convert 2200 machines to Linux.
It would have been cheaper just to buy everyone a MBP or iMac.
The corporate purchasers will wipe the drive and install Win XP Pro on it before handing it over to their people. There is a complete disconnect between their purchase of new laptops and Win 7 being shipped with them. They need new laptops to replace the old and/or broken and worn out ones or to provide to new hires as they grow the business. The laptops could just as easily have DOS installed on them. It wipes just as easily as Win 7. In point of actual fact the corporations would just as soon not have anything installed on their purchases as it is wasted money when paying for Vista or Win 7 that ships with the units.
1. Really good cross-platform inventory software, ugh! All solutions out there are really good at one or the other but not both.
We are starting to like the add-ons from Quest. They extend SCCM and make the Mac pretty much a peer - they look just like the Windows machines in the reporting and you can push software packages to them. We haven't played with their single sign on - our smartcard vendor has Mac support as well so that is handled from their end, but if you aren't using smartcards I understand the Quest tools for single sign on also solve the issues you are having.
The corporate purchasers will wipe the drive and install Win XP Pro on it before handing it over to their people. There is a complete disconnect between their purchase of new laptops and Win 7 being shipped with them.
Not an issue for us - all machines we order have our image on them - from the vendor. We let the vendors keep the images patched and up to date as well as maintain the drivers. Why should our techs waste time imaging machines when the vendors can do it so much better and more efficiently?
This is another key deficiency for Apple with business customers.
Windows bogging down is never an issue with me or work because we don't let people goof off and like I said I don't download programs out the yingyang and any person at work who installs something beyond what we tell them
There is no such thing as a static Windows install. Windows software patches, software patches for installed programs, new versions of programs - Windows rots over time.
Quote:
Anyways a pc spec'd the same as a mac isn't going to get dusted significantly their performance is comparable and usually its a back and forth with the pc or mac winning in certain categories, its not some landslide completely favoring one over the other.
Agreed. But there isn't this huge "apple tax" that gets continually overblown.
And on the high end, the real irony is Apple is cheaper. If you compare the boutique items like the MacBook Air and the Mac Pro's, they are cheaper then their PC counterparts. And in the Mac Pro, faster too (just google for the "fastest windows box" articles) Granted it's a special use case, but many of our scientists have been switching to MacPro's because they beat the Sun workstations they had been traditionally using for decades. They still run Unix underneath, and are far more expandable with peripherals then anything they had previously. And they can run Windows, if needed too. Ultimate flexibility!
I think we are on the same page - Mac's aren't always a fit for someone, but neither are they never relevant in the corporate space.
Where I see the largest potential for Mac's is in the small and medium business space where companies don't traditionally have internal IT support. To their credit, Microsoft has a really good product in Small Business Server (SBS) - I run several SBS servers for charities I volunteer with and it's a great product. Apple really needs to wrap some more management stuff around OSX Server - with the new mini server and some more automation, they could take SBS on. With the work they are doing with ActiveSync on the iPhone and AD integration in general who knows - perhaps it's already in the pipeline for 10.7. A mini with a Drobo Pro for storage - the potential is huge!
Not an issue for us - all machines we order have our image on them - from the vendor. We let the vendors keep the images patched and up to date as well as maintain the drivers. Why should our techs waste time imaging machines when the vendors can do it so much better and more efficiently?
This is another key deficiency for Apple with business customers.
Indeed!
You have a good arrangement (and relationship) with your vendor. That is much better than one business I know which took delivery on 300 new machines and their IT people had to do the work.
Apple has some programs that are pretty decent with their edu customers, but the business/enterprise side of things is rather lacking. It is too bad that Apple did not purchase SUN and turn them into the Apple Business Unit. Perhaps Steve ought to create an Apple Business Unit on his own and spend some money on airline tickets sending Apple people around to prospective customers, find out what their needs are and DELIVER.
Corporate America probably feels slighted by the migration from XP to Windows 7. It is a wipe and install move. With Office on the Mac and no CALs necessary plus Exchange integration corporations must see Apple as a good alternative. Plus the machines can be dual booted with bootcamp.
If corporate needs to deal with bootcamp, and support 2 OS-es, choice is unfortunately simple - supporting Windows only is easier than supporting Windows and OSX, no matter how OSX is simple to support.
If client can do everything OSX, well, then, it is a different story.
Situation with CALs is a bit more complicated. Replacing PCs with Macs does not mean that core infrastructure (server farms) will be also replaced from Windows Server to OS server. I'm not sure if OSX servers can cope with same demands as Windows servers, especially for big, complex corporate/government networks. If Win servers are still in play, I'd say you still need CALs for Exchange, TS environment...
Isn't it obvious? The only people who are die-hard Windows and Microsoft fans are clearly not users, but IT professionals who've built careers on developing for and supporting the crappy Windows ecosystem. With numerous case studies showing that companies have drastically reduced the size of their IT/support departments by switching to Macs, is it surprising to learn that IT/support people love Microsoft and hate Apple?
You forgot the other Apple haters.
The garden-variety Microsoft users who are insanely jealous of those of us who purchased AAPL, whether it be March 2009, early 2005, or earlier. The ROI of AAPL has stomped MSFT over the past five years (trust me, I know -- I own both stocks).
Even worse, Microsoft fanboys are despondent in realizing that Steve Ballmer is a bull-headed visionless blatherer who talks the talk, but can't walk the walk. Don't get me wrong, Ballmer provided years of world-class servitude as Bill's hatchet man, but Steve has zero leadership ability himself.
Real Microsoft fanboys should be SCREAMING at the Microsoft Board of Directors to replace the CEO.
The Microsoft fanboys who complain about Apple are shortsighted. Microsoft's biggest challenges come from inside.
(Note: it's worth pointing out that Apple sales have traditionally seen a bump after recent Microsoft Windows debuts. Odd but true.)
Comments
And it shows in the sales number. But since there was not much to begin with, it still is negligible.
Companies buy MacBooks Pro or iMacs anyway, the need for a mini tower is a myth. In the past year or two I encountered a lot more of iMacs being used in a corporative environment, yeah it's mostly web 2.0 startups and kinda has the stench of hipsters but nonetheless, a lot more.
Not to mention there are Macs exclusive companies now, which is unthinkable 5 years ago saving certain niche trades.
One common scenario is one company have to purchase a few to develope its own iPhone apps, turns out the assigned employee actually like Macs a lot, besides the exchange support really helps. Several months later, MacBooks everyone! A lot of happy faces.
Apple's nonexistent corporate service is a big problem though, driving down to an Apple Store is neither professional nor pleasant enough.
Our own company matches this foray into everything Mac to a tee. We've opened up our infrastructure to iPhones, and we're looking at expanding support for Mac's in general.
Looks to be another good year for Apple.
We have integrated our Macs into our AD environment and it actually works pretty well. There are a few things still lacking though.
1. Really good cross-platform inventory software, ugh! All solutions out there are really good at one or the other but not both.
2. Outlook for Mac with support for distribution lists & full public folders support. Not holding much hope for Outlook 2010 but Microsoft may surprise.
3. That darn keychain password needs to change when you change password during login, gosh that's annoying! Our users get prompted to change but if they do it when prompted then they are stuck having to go & manually change keychain to match!
4. Single Sign On is such a pain in OS X, I so wish they had better tools for setting it up.
5. I don't want .file all over my windows file shares!!! Come on Apple, let OS X recognize that when connected to an SMB share it should never create the stupid things unless it's a home folder sync!!
5. I don't want .file all over my windows file shares!!! Come on Apple, let OS X recognize that when connected to an SMB share it should never create the stupid things unless it's a home folder sync!!
I thought that was resolved natively with Snow Leopard. Regardless, here are the solutions I am aware of for preventing these files from being created and how to clean them up after the fact.[INDENT]
Windows bogging down is never an issue with me or work because we don't let people goof off and like I said I don't download programs out the yingyang and any person at work who installs something beyond what we tell them is subject to termination depending on frequency of violations and content, so we don't really have many software related issues from Windows. In the past 2 years we've had a total of 3 security vulnerabilities two of which were caused by the same person and thus terminated.
Our short term costs and lifetime expectancy are part of the equation when we buy, we don't keep our computers and they end up getting donated to local charities/ NPO's so we recoup some of the costs of upgrading. Its rare to get a critical hardware failure like the cpu going, usually its a power supply or hard drive going. These are on about 700 a piece machines, but we are going to have to scale back due to budget cuts and will be getting 500 dollar bare bone machines that are just tower only.
We could easily extend our buying schedule to 7 years but top brass likes to keep things up to date with all our resorts. Also we don't get new monitors when we get new PCs, so were still rocking CRTs from 01 lol. I think we have about a 40/60 ratio of lcd to crt monitors right now, can't speak for other resorts though.
Anyways a pc spec'd the same as a mac isn't going to get dusted significantly their performance is comparable and usually its a back and forth with the pc or mac winning in certain categories, its not some landslide completely favoring one over the other.
Most of our help tickets extend from something in our database going down not on our end or some moron guest trying to be "uber hacker", we don't have many serious issues because were well established but a resort we just added into the family was a damn nightmare getting everything right, it was a nightmare becuase they were running archaic hardware and still on windows 2000 or XP, when all our resorts were on Vista and had newer up to date servers.
I'm behind a pretty strict firewall in my corporation. Users aren't allowed to download nor install just any willy nilly program. Yet there are still downtime issues due to Microsoft's core products - Windows and Office.
I'm behind a pretty strict firewall in my corporation. Users aren't allowed to download nor install just any willy nilly program. Yet there are still downtime issues due to Microsoft's core products - Windows and Office.
Before we got brought under our new owners not even a couple years ago we used to have some serious downtime due to three things, personal email checking idiots clicking attachments, unsanctioned internet surfing and for some god forsaken reason Office 07 on Vista acting like a real jackass, work one day and the next were scratching our heads trying to figure out wtf is going on and why it won't open certain file formats, and some days Aloha makes you want to take the computer terminal and throw it off the roof (powered by windows)
Even Office for Mac is pathetic when compared to Windows' version.
The real question is can iWork replace Microsoft Office?
Even Office for Mac is pathetic when compared to Windows' version.
Replace Office for Mac, no, but I don?t think that is Apple?s goal right now(or perhaps ever) with iWork. I think it?s more in tune to MobileMe as being ?Exchange for the rest of us?, Apple is putting iWork up as the ?office suite for the rest of us.? I certainly don?t need to use any of the apps that Office has. It?s just too extensive and complex for my simple needs. Google Docs and other open office suites have their place but they aren?t as robust as Office and aren?t as well designed for ease-of-use as iWork.
PS: I am looking forward to Outlook for Mac. Entourage simply doesn?t cut it and Mail is not designed for corporate use. My biggest issue with Mail is that while the frameworks for AddressBook and iCal are tied into the Mail there is no option to view my AddresBook and iCal within the app. Having three separate apps when I want one synergistic app. I am suggesting that AddressBook and iCal be removed, just give me the option to view them with Mail natively.
Furthermore, I hope iPhone OS v4.0 will allow for multiple email accounts to be integrated into one view, like in the desktop Mail app, with the option to go back and into a specific account in the same manner one does this on the iPhone OS? Address Book app for different groups.
I love how the miracle windows operators come out of the woodwork in these kinds of discussions
There is no Apple tax. You can buy a quality machine, or you can buy cheaper less capable hardware. If you want a stripped, bare bones experience, congratulations - there are plenty of Windows PC vendors who are happy to oblige you.
c.
2007 sharp 1080p 32 in ..... $ 1400.
2007 MBP 13 in base model $ 1200.
2009 sharp 1080p 42 in ... ...$ 800.
2009 MBP 13 in base model $ 1200'
something is fishy with apple pricing
for all my apple love
apple does charge
2007 sharp 1080p 32 in ..... $ 1400.
2007 MBP 13 in base model $ 1200.
2009 sharp 1080p 42 in ... ...$ 800.
2009 MBP 13 in base model $ 1200'
something is fishy with apple pricing
for all my apple love
apple does charge
There is something fishy with your research.
1) There was no 13? MacBook Pro in 2007.
2) There wasn?t even a 13? aluminium unibody MacBook in 2007
3) Apple upgrades the HW in their machines about every 200 days.
4) Your comparing a notebook that is updated with faster and higher capacity components for essentially the same price with a monitor that has increased in size while still maintaining the same resolution which means it has LESS pixels-per-inch than the model from two years prior. That isn?t a bad thing but it?s not a herculean task of computing to make bigger pixels that cover more area, but in computing going smaller and denser is more difficult.
5) If we do use pricing from the aluminium MacBook from October 2008, it was $1,300 for the 2.0GHz model. Today, a 2.26GHz 13? MacBook Pro with a lot more stuff, including an IPS display, FW800 and many better and faster components, including a much longer battery is $100 cheaper. Going back to the 2007 MacBook we have a plastic shell that used a Merom CPU so you couldn?t even address 4GB RAM for the system and would have to spend at least $1,500, $300 more than the current 13? MBP, to get an inferior product in every major category.
I'm Apple's biggest fan, from the first 512k days. I've met just about all the top Apple brass one time or another over the many years.
Apple knows, as well as I know, that OS X reigns as a supreme OS ONLY as long as Windows is crap. Windows 7 so far isn't crap and that is bad news for OS X and Mac's.
Except that windows isn't as crappy as folks say. So OSX has been succeeding by being better.
I use OS X, Vista, XP, Win 7, Chrome and Ubuntu all at the same time in Fusion. You can thank Apple for making me OS neutral, I used to only use OS X because it was the only thing that ran on Mac's.
Then you've been overpaying and should by a HP and run Ubuntu and VirtualBox.
Good for you. Ubuntu doesn't get viruses neither for that matter.
Too bad OSX is much better than Ubuntu for folks that like to get work done as opposed to wondering wtf Pulse Audio just hosed up their sound or how to repair a borked up xconfig after updating.
And please no WorksForMe (tm) rebuttals. Both Jaunty and Karmic has upgrade problems for folks.
Microsoft can make that little change to make their OS so it's just as secure as Unix, Linux or OS X. It's called file permissions. Then it may be secure enough to nearly erase the reason for getting a Mac for security.
NTFS has had file permissions since day 1.
Microsoft moves, but it moves slowly and clumsy, eventually stumbling in the right direction. It eventually erodes all the reasons one would need a Mac over a Windows PC.
MS was not executing well with Vista...much like Intel's debacle with the P4. With win7 they should do fairly well but the reason to get a Mac over a Windows PC is simply how much better the Mac product as been from an integrated usability standpoint. Something that MS cares about but does is a different way.
I actually hope Windows 7 becomes the virus laden POS it deserves to be, just to keep Mac sales and adoption strong.
Deserves to be?
In any case, the sales of apple laptops has been vastly improving as noted. I see a lot of MBPs at meetings and a lot of folks considering a MBP purchase rather than Dell or HP. The biggest downsides of the OSX in a corporate environment is Entourage. For which Parallels works reasonably well with a locked down XP install.
Corporate deployment of something like Ubuntu on the desktop remains nearly zero. Every major deployment attempt of Linux on the desktop has been a freaking disaster. Like Munich for example. In 6 years they managed to convert a mere 15.7% (2200 out of 14,000) of their desktops to Linux (target goal was 100% and reduced to 80%). 12 million euros to convert 2200 machines to Linux.
It would have been cheaper just to buy everyone a MBP or iMac.
Apple's nonexistent corporate service is a big problem though, driving down to an Apple Store is neither professional nor pleasant enough.
If they want Apple products, corporate customers can wait in line like the rest of us.
If they want Apple products, corporate customers can wait in line like the rest of us.
Getting the machines is no problem at all, order online and packages arrive almost always on time.
But when you need something under warranty fixed, on site service kinda is essential in a corporate environment.
1. Really good cross-platform inventory software, ugh! All solutions out there are really good at one or the other but not both.
We are starting to like the add-ons from Quest. They extend SCCM and make the Mac pretty much a peer - they look just like the Windows machines in the reporting and you can push software packages to them. We haven't played with their single sign on - our smartcard vendor has Mac support as well so that is handled from their end, but if you aren't using smartcards I understand the Quest tools for single sign on also solve the issues you are having.
The corporate purchasers will wipe the drive and install Win XP Pro on it before handing it over to their people. There is a complete disconnect between their purchase of new laptops and Win 7 being shipped with them.
Not an issue for us - all machines we order have our image on them - from the vendor. We let the vendors keep the images patched and up to date as well as maintain the drivers. Why should our techs waste time imaging machines when the vendors can do it so much better and more efficiently?
This is another key deficiency for Apple with business customers.
Windows bogging down is never an issue with me or work because we don't let people goof off and like I said I don't download programs out the yingyang and any person at work who installs something beyond what we tell them
There is no such thing as a static Windows install. Windows software patches, software patches for installed programs, new versions of programs - Windows rots over time.
Anyways a pc spec'd the same as a mac isn't going to get dusted significantly their performance is comparable and usually its a back and forth with the pc or mac winning in certain categories, its not some landslide completely favoring one over the other.
Agreed. But there isn't this huge "apple tax" that gets continually overblown.
And on the high end, the real irony is Apple is cheaper. If you compare the boutique items like the MacBook Air and the Mac Pro's, they are cheaper then their PC counterparts. And in the Mac Pro, faster too (just google for the "fastest windows box" articles) Granted it's a special use case, but many of our scientists have been switching to MacPro's because they beat the Sun workstations they had been traditionally using for decades. They still run Unix underneath, and are far more expandable with peripherals then anything they had previously. And they can run Windows, if needed too. Ultimate flexibility!
I think we are on the same page - Mac's aren't always a fit for someone, but neither are they never relevant in the corporate space.
Where I see the largest potential for Mac's is in the small and medium business space where companies don't traditionally have internal IT support. To their credit, Microsoft has a really good product in Small Business Server (SBS) - I run several SBS servers for charities I volunteer with and it's a great product. Apple really needs to wrap some more management stuff around OSX Server - with the new mini server and some more automation, they could take SBS on. With the work they are doing with ActiveSync on the iPhone and AD integration in general who knows - perhaps it's already in the pipeline for 10.7. A mini with a Drobo Pro for storage - the potential is huge!
Not an issue for us - all machines we order have our image on them - from the vendor. We let the vendors keep the images patched and up to date as well as maintain the drivers. Why should our techs waste time imaging machines when the vendors can do it so much better and more efficiently?
This is another key deficiency for Apple with business customers.
Indeed!
You have a good arrangement (and relationship) with your vendor. That is much better than one business I know which took delivery on 300 new machines and their IT people had to do the work.
Apple has some programs that are pretty decent with their edu customers, but the business/enterprise side of things is rather lacking. It is too bad that Apple did not purchase SUN and turn them into the Apple Business Unit. Perhaps Steve ought to create an Apple Business Unit on his own and spend some money on airline tickets sending Apple people around to prospective customers, find out what their needs are and DELIVER.
Cheers
Corporate America probably feels slighted by the migration from XP to Windows 7. It is a wipe and install move. With Office on the Mac and no CALs necessary plus Exchange integration corporations must see Apple as a good alternative. Plus the machines can be dual booted with bootcamp.
If corporate needs to deal with bootcamp, and support 2 OS-es, choice is unfortunately simple - supporting Windows only is easier than supporting Windows and OSX, no matter how OSX is simple to support.
If client can do everything OSX, well, then, it is a different story.
Situation with CALs is a bit more complicated. Replacing PCs with Macs does not mean that core infrastructure (server farms) will be also replaced from Windows Server to OS server. I'm not sure if OSX servers can cope with same demands as Windows servers, especially for big, complex corporate/government networks. If Win servers are still in play, I'd say you still need CALs for Exchange, TS environment...
Isn't it obvious? The only people who are die-hard Windows and Microsoft fans are clearly not users, but IT professionals who've built careers on developing for and supporting the crappy Windows ecosystem. With numerous case studies showing that companies have drastically reduced the size of their IT/support departments by switching to Macs, is it surprising to learn that IT/support people love Microsoft and hate Apple?
You forgot the other Apple haters.
The garden-variety Microsoft users who are insanely jealous of those of us who purchased AAPL, whether it be March 2009, early 2005, or earlier. The ROI of AAPL has stomped MSFT over the past five years (trust me, I know -- I own both stocks).
Even worse, Microsoft fanboys are despondent in realizing that Steve Ballmer is a bull-headed visionless blatherer who talks the talk, but can't walk the walk. Don't get me wrong, Ballmer provided years of world-class servitude as Bill's hatchet man, but Steve has zero leadership ability himself.
Real Microsoft fanboys should be SCREAMING at the Microsoft Board of Directors to replace the CEO.
The Microsoft fanboys who complain about Apple are shortsighted. Microsoft's biggest challenges come from inside.
(Note: it's worth pointing out that Apple sales have traditionally seen a bump after recent Microsoft Windows debuts. Odd but true.)