Java and ASP.NET are both well-established, high-performance alternatives to PHP. Every major website (like your that of your bank) probably uses one or the other for their backend heavy lifting. What advantages would Swift bring as a server-side language over JavaEE?
Java was well established when ASP.NET came into existence... it did not stop it. I do know that facebook has translated PHP to C++ and written tools to do it (although I suspect a system language directly would give them more efficiency) -- when you are running across that many servers - your electrical bills savings can be in the millions (and hardware deployment costs). On percentage terms it is small, but it makes it worth it in absolute costs to do the change. If Swift (or another system language) can make developing server applications as easy and efficient development-wise (or better yet better - there is a lot of boilerplate code in java - which is a development and maintenance cost to itself) -- while giving a significant performance increase..... it could be useful to enough of a development community to make it worth it. There is always room for improvement.
Man, you made me chuckle: It depends on the implementation -- I don't know how many times I used those same words when I worked for IBM.
From the way you answered the question, I assume that a modern SQL DB does nothing to detect or resolve the situation. If that is true, then both customer's transactions, in my example, will fail (timeout) with possible locks in place and the DB will have quantities reserved that were not sold. This will require some application code to cleanup the DB.
An even more frustrating case can happen for the customer who already has a product reserved and can't reserve another. Even if the app detects the fatal embrace , likely, the transaction fails and is backed out by the app -- the customer has lost the product reservation he had and it is now out of stock. The customer was never allowed to switch his second request to a different item to avoid the deadlock. I'm looking at you Apple Online Store!
I know that it is not just an issue with databases -- but I suspect that databases are a major cause of the issue. My point is that the database and the programming language can do a lot more to rigorously confront and resolve the situation in a consistent manner.
What are the odds of your situation really? If your talking about resource depletion on a low volume item, and now you have two customers fighting over different parts? Not only that they are ordering one item, checking out, then going back and ordering part b?
High volume the issue would not be great since yes, it failed - but it is self resolving in short-order.
In the systems I have worked on an order is atomic in nature - it either succeeds or it fails in whole (bank/brokerage/mutual fund/Term Deposit aka CDs). In other words you just process the order optimistically and if you deplete the resource - you rollback to the beginning of the transaction. If you are holding items after someone adds them to a basket - but has not committed the order but you are "reserving it for them" usually that is time based.... on airline terminals you add the ticket, and you have a time-based hold for 10 minutes or so. Just because someone adds it to their basket - does not mean that they will order it, and if they don't order it but die at the terminal... you would have to timeout at a certain point anyway. If you have not committed the order by then the hold is released. (have a few cases of those in financial systems as well). I just to understand how this is a big database issue related to SQL databases.... (although almost all my SQL database experience is Oracle).
It just has never occurred to me that this is a major issue. The only deadlock issues I have really run into were programming issues.
Which one.... I have many different accounts for different countries....
IBM was only able to hold onto me for about 6 months until I made them agree to "package" me off (I was trying to make my way back to the company that they sold (part of a company that they bought) of and contractually blocked from hiring me for a certain time - and irritated the new "CEO" until they finally waived it).
Now that is what I call a real fatal embrace... being bought by IBM.... they would buy companies because they wanted what they made.... but then suffocated them with the IBM way... which kills the reason why they bought that part to begin with. Thought they should have approached it more like a VC.
Man, you made me chuckle: It depends on the implementation -- I don't know how many times I used those same words when I worked for IBM.
From the way you answered the question, I assume that a modern SQL DB does nothing to detect or resolve the situation. If that is true, then both customer's transactions, in my example, will fail (timeout) with possible locks in place and the DB will have quantities reserved that were not sold. This will require some application code to cleanup the DB.
An even more frustrating case can happen for the customer who already has a product reserved and can't reserve another. Even if the app detects the fatal embrace , likely, the transaction fails and is backed out by the app -- the customer has lost the product reservation he had and it is now out of stock. The customer was never allowed to switch his second request to a different item to avoid the deadlock. I'm looking at you Apple Online Store!
I know that it is not just an issue with databases -- but I suspect that databases are a major cause of the issue. My point is that the database and the programming language can do a lot more to rigorously confront and resolve the situation in a consistent manner.
What are the odds of your situation really? If your talking about resource depletion on a low volume item, and now you have two customers fighting over different parts? Not only that they are ordering one item, checking out, then going back and ordering part b?
High volume the issue would not be great since yes, it failed - but it is self resolving in short-order.
In the systems I have worked on an order is atomic in nature - it either succeeds or it fails in whole (bank/brokerage/mutual fund/Term Deposit aka CDs). In other words you just process the order optimistically and if you deplete the resource - you rollback to the beginning of the transaction. If you are holding items after someone adds them to a basket - but has not committed the order but you are "reserving it for them" usually that is time based.... on airline terminals you add the ticket, and you have a time-based hold for 10 minutes or so. Just because someone adds it to their basket - does not mean that they will order it, and if they don't order it but die at the terminal... you would have to timeout at a certain point anyway. If you have not committed the order by then the hold is released. (have a few cases of those in financial systems as well). I just to understand how this is a big database issue related to SQL databases.... (although almost all my SQL database experience is Oracle).
It just has never occurred to me that this is a major issue. The only deadlock issues I have really run into were programming issues.
I'm talking about lots (thousands, millions?) of customers, concurrently ordering multiple items -- some of which are in high demand. My most recent experience was getting up at midnight to try and order 6 Apple watches (1 for each family member and 1 for development) from the Apple online store. The app kept crashing/hanging/timing out -- i'd lose what was in my cart and view the ship times grow before my eyes. I eventually placed 6 separate orders for models/bands that were not our first choices -- just because they were the ones that were most readily available. On the last order, I was afraid to add AppleCare -- lest it cause the order to fail.
I suspect that the financial digital data transactions, you describe, present less of a problem than physical items. We have multiple banking accounts, credit card accounts, brokerage accounts, etc. Every transaction, I can think of, involves a single item, e.g., transfer money from checking to kids savings, pay credit card from checking, buy 100 shares of AAPL. The likelihood of success is high, the penalty of failure (backout) of a single item is straight-forward, the customer frustration is minimal -- just try again.
Similarly, the iTunes store or app store are one-off purchases of items with an infinite quantity.
In my (Pre-SQL/Pre-Web) DB/DC days at IBM I was often called upon to trouble-shoot [hierarchical] DB problems for companies like Kraft and Figi's* who processed large volumes of orders containing multiple items in high demand and limited quantities. This was a major problem back then, and I suspect it is even greater today, with the advent of the web.
* Figi's is a mail-order company who experiences a tremendous blip in the volume of orders for the holidays -- starting in August and lasting through January. You can't imagine how much fun it is to spend a few weeks in Marshfield, WI in February to try and figure out what happened and prevent it from happening again ... Great curd cheese, though.
Today, Amazon seems to handle this better than most ... Although, I've been finessed by Amazon partners where an item in stock when ordered -- suddenly becomes backordered.
I'm talking about lots (thousands, millions?) of customers, concurrently ordering multiple items -- some of which are in high demand. My most recent experience was getting up at midnight to try and order 6 Apple watches (1 for each family member and 1 for development) from the Apple online store. The app kept crashing/hanging/timing out -- i'd lose what was in my cart and view the ship times grow before my eyes. I eventually placed 6 separate orders for models/bands that were not our first choices -- just because they were the ones that were most readily available. On the last order, I was afraid to add AppleCare -- lest it cause the order to fail.
That sounds just simply like their store was overwhelmed - not a locking problem. I doubt they hold any items, it is just first come first serve.
I believe that they have just in many cases grown beyond the capacity of the technology they are using in the cloud and are probably trying to hold things together with bailing wire until redevelopment efforts are completed. Just a guess though... happens often.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum
I suspect that the financial digital data transactions, you describe, present less of a problem than physical items. We have multiple banking accounts, credit card accounts, brokerage accounts, etc. Every transaction, I can think of, involves a single item, e.g., transfer money from checking to kids savings, pay credit card from checking, buy 100 shares of AAPL. The likelihood of success is high, the penalty of failure (backout) of a single item is straight-forward, the customer frustration is minimal -- just try again.
Probably the case in the majority, but not all is infinite.... there is things like inventory where you have a certain amount to sell to your customers. You have dependencies on credit depending on the value of your account and any account that is guaranteeing or acting as collateral.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum
Today, Amazon seems to handle this better than most ... Although, I've been finessed by Amazon partners where an item in stock when ordered -- suddenly becomes backordered.
That just sounds like FIFO - first come first serve.... that does not sound like handling your situation at all. One would be backordered on A and one backordered on B
FWIW, some digital transactions can encounter similar problems to those involving physical items -- where there are a finite amount of resources available.
One classic example is Class Scheduling.
Here's a good tutorial that shows how to handle transactional issues in Class Scheduling using FoundationDB in a Python app:
@fdb.transactional def drop(tr, s, c): rec = attends.pack((s, c)) if not tr[rec].present(): return # not taking this class tr[course.pack((c,))] = bytes(int(tr[course.pack((c,))]) + 1) del tr[rec]
for i in range(ops): class_count = len(my_classes) moods = [] if class_count: moods.extend(['drop', 'switch']) if class_count < 5: moods.append('add') mood = random.choice(moods)
try: if not all_classes: all_classes = available_classes(db) if mood == 'add': c = random.choice(all_classes) signup(db, student_ID, c) my_classes.append(c) elif mood == 'drop': c = random.choice(my_classes) drop(db, student_ID, c) my_classes.remove(c) elif mood == 'switch': old_c = random.choice(my_classes) new_c = random.choice(all_classes) switch(db, student_ID, old_c, new_c) my_classes.remove(old_c) my_classes.append(new_c) except Exception as e: print e, "Need to recheck available classes." all_classes = []
def run(students, ops_per_student): threads = [ threading.Thread(target=indecisive_student, args=(i, ops_per_student)) for i in range(students)] for thr in threads: thr.start() for thr in threads: thr.join() print "Ran", students * ops_per_student, "transactions"
if __name__ == "__main__": init(db) print "initialized" run(10, 10)[/CODE]
I'm talking about lots (thousands, millions?) of customers, concurrently ordering multiple items -- some of which are in high demand. My most recent experience was getting up at midnight to try and order 6 Apple watches (1 for each family member and 1 for development) from the Apple online store. The app kept crashing/hanging/timing out -- i'd lose what was in my cart and view the ship times grow before my eyes. I eventually placed 6 separate orders for models/bands that were not our first choices -- just because they were the ones that were most readily available. On the last order, I was afraid to add AppleCare -- lest it cause the order to fail.
That sounds just simply like their store was overwhelmed - not a locking problem. I doubt they hold any items, it is just first come first serve.
It's been my experience at the Apple Store, if you put something of high demand in your cart the quoted shipping date is honored -- if the order completes. From that, I imply they are reserving items until the transaction completes or times out.
I believe that they have just in many cases grown beyond the capacity of the technology they are using in the cloud and are probably trying to hold things together with bailing wire until redevelopment efforts are completed. Just a guess though... happens often.
I suspect that the financial digital data transactions, you describe, present less of a problem than physical items. We have multiple banking accounts, credit card accounts, brokerage accounts, etc. Every transaction, I can think of, involves a single item, e.g., transfer money from checking to kids savings, pay credit card from checking, buy 100 shares of AAPL. The likelihood of success is high, the penalty of failure (backout) of a single item is straight-forward, the customer frustration is minimal -- just try again.
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Probably the case in the majority, but not all is infinite.... there is things like inventory where you have a certain amount to sell to your customers. You have dependencies on credit depending on the value of your account and any account that is guaranteeing or acting as collateral.
I can see a finite quantity in $ available to loan, Stocks available to sell, etc. Wouldn't the dependencies be checked before the transaction item reserved ... "You don't have enough funds in your brokerage account to buy 10,000 shares of AAPL, please adjust ...". You appear to understand this well -- please enlighten me.
Today, Amazon seems to handle this better than most ... Although, I've been finessed by Amazon partners where an item in stock when ordered -- suddenly becomes backordered.
That just sounds like FIFO - first come first serve.... that does not sound like handling your situation at all. One would be backordered on A and one backordered on B
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It's not as simple as that. Last year, for graduation, we bought my granddaughter some expensive camera gear through Amazon ---> B&H Photo and others. There was the camera body itself, 3 lenses, 2 tripods, bags & misc. gear. Wouldn't you know it the camera showed as in-stock when ordered -- but, mysteriously became back-ordered a day later.
I'm enjoying our back and forth and learning a lot!
I can see a finite quantity in $ available to loan, Stocks available to sell, etc. Wouldn't the dependencies be checked before the transaction item reserved ... "You don't have enough funds in your brokerage account to buy 10,000 shares of AAPL, please adjust ...". You appear to understand this well -- please enlighten me.
Dependencies can be checked, but then bugs crop up even in simple solutions now that I remember. You have two orders coming in and being processed on different threads for the same finite resource (in this case it was found in overnight processing where there is substantially more orders happening at one time) where two orders were checking the balance of a given resource both came back with enough resource available, then both orders bought that resource.... ending up in an oversubscribed position.... if this was retail they would have just probably done exactly what you had happen to you... first timestamped order gets it and the other one goes to backorder status. (only locked optimistically when updating)
The two possible solutions is that since there were a limited pool of threads processing we could just route the order for specific resources based on a graph of what limited resources that were being ordered - which in the end were processed in queue fashion.
The other possible solution was to create a reservation / hold in progress table (the database was the only common entry-point) where any reserved items were held after checked then the next one would do the same.... if the balance went negative the last one would be rolled back with insufficient quantity. The first one receives what is necessary. If the first one failed because of other requirements you could end up with both orders failed, but it is a rare possibility. Failed orders would be queued and could have been resubmitted automatically, but we had no process for that. Most customers wanted certain orders to either be rejected or sit in a queue for review and resolution later (so they would not have to re-enter the details - just modify what was necessary and resubmit).
Most cases were processed first come first serve without regard to component interdependencies on order - but I can not think of many places which would have that situation..... most would just sell the component ordered on a first come bases and not try to do anything fancy like redirect so one would get a full order and the other would get nothing.
PHP was created by someone that does not like programming and it is one big hack. It is widely used in on the web, and it is widely a security issue on the web. Personally, I would never use it for any substantive project.
Ok, I was exaggerating but these are the types of excuses companies will give to not bring in Macs. As for a $2000 computer. Are you suggesting companies will actually pay $2000 for a Windows PC desktop, complete with 15" monitor? I'd say they're going after rock bottom throwaways in the $500 range.
?
I don't think $$$ is the reason companies don't use Mac's.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Macky the Macky
Furthermore, if most new computers in an enterprise are mobile, then Apple is the way to go for a better experience, and IBM is eager to push that,
Enterprises already have great mobile products. Apple would have to compete with the Thinkpads, X1 Carbon's, HP Z workstations, Surface Pro 3 and a other high quality PC's and notebooks. And that is not an easy battle. And the "better Apple experience" I have seen is based on using other Apple devices. How is that experience when you enter the mixed environments of enterprises?
I don't think $$$ is the reason companies don't use Mac's.
Enterprises already have great mobile products. Apple would have to compete with the Thinkpads, X1 Carbon's, HP Z workstations, Surface Pro 3 and a other high quality PC's and notebooks. And that is not an easy battle. And the "better Apple experience" I have seen is based on using other Apple devices. How is that experience when you enter the mixed environments of enterprises?
You lost me when with some of what you have mentioned - my other workplace is an HP shop - not good. IBM employees all had Thinkpads and yet given the choice - they are flocking to Macs when given the choice -- even though Thinkpads might have had the edge due to nostalgia.
I have worked with some top developers out there before and given the choice..... Windows is the LAST (absolute last option). Many prefer Linux, many prefer Macs - just the simple pleasure of having a nice bash shell as part of the operating system is something many cannot do without.
And Outlook on Windows - A demonstration on poor user interface design at it's finest. First, when I use an application I really want it focused on what I am doing... in this case emailing or messaging.... don't fill it with crap. Two - why put 30+ buttons around the screen - you only end up getting lost. Three - The bloody send button is on the wrong bloody side of the screen if you are not arabic. Flow right to left is what most people expect.... so why put it on the left side.... just that one little thing really out of place is quite irritating. The problem is that they just don't sit back and think....
Install windows - run the computer and walla ... eventually it slows down and they have to call up someone that knows computers to help speed it up again.... why, oh why can't they make an operating system that is self correcting, self optimizing. People are building AI applications that are pretty advanced, and Windows still has issues doing simple stuff.
Are you kidding? Apple doesn't even run Mac servers in their own data centers. From the few pictures I've seen, they appear to be HP servers. Apple doesn't even make servers. Why would IBM implement a Mac server program when they have been pushing Linux in all their enterprise solutions for a long time? Makes no sense. Go read the IBM website. All their enterprise solutions are Linux or IBM AIX. IBM does not offer any Windows based server products so I'm not sure what your squeezing out MS comment is about.
Nobody cares what OS any future dedicated Apple backend will run on, as long as it starts pushing MS aside. OSX Server itself is not a viable server anyway, considering all the issues it currently has, which seemingly aren't getting fixed for now.
Apple is in this for the long run. They never did not want to be in the enterprise. But they concluded they themselves were not the one suited ( ;-) to make that push. In the enterprise something has to have your back but it better not be Microsoft. IBM has my vote.
^ It gets very confusing when people keep on referring to server/hosts that might serve as application backends or databases as Mac or Apple servers.... they are just servers. Linux does the job superbly, much better than Windows.... but they are not proprietary - they are just acting as servers. All the servers we have don't even run GUIs - they are just hosts.... servers for applications for any computer.
There is no benefit to trying to push Linux/BSD/UNIX aside - it is battle tested.
You lost me when with some of what you have mentioned - my other workplace is an HP shop - not good. IBM employees all had Thinkpads and yet given the choice - they are flocking to Macs when given the choice -- even though Thinkpads might have had the edge due to nostalgia.
I have worked with some top developers out there before and given the choice..... Windows is the LAST (absolute last option). Many prefer Linux, many prefer Macs - just the simple pleasure of having a nice bash shell as part of the operating system is something many cannot do without.
And Outlook on Windows - A demonstration on poor user interface design at it's finest. First, when I use an application I really want it focused on what I am doing... in this case emailing or messaging.... don't fill it with crap. Two - why put 30+ buttons around the screen - you only end up getting lost. Three - The bloody send button is on the wrong bloody side of the screen if you are not arabic. Flow right to left is what most people expect.... so why put it on the left side.... just that one little thing really out of place is quite irritating. The problem is that they just don't sit back and think....
Install windows - run the computer and walla ... eventually it slows down and they have to call up someone that knows computers to help speed it up again.... why, oh why can't they make an operating system that is self correcting, self optimizing. People are building AI applications that are pretty advanced, and Windows still has issues doing simple stuff.
HP have good and not so good systems, same as Apple. Maybe a MBP is better than an Elitebook, but a Z- Workstation is far ahead compared to a Mac Pro. And from what I have read, IBM is not flocking to Apple. They are acquire Apple products, as part of their agreement, and giving the option to users. And ThinkPad's have many advantages over Apple, like keyboards, which are great and better than any Apple keyboard. Other example the X1 Carbon, which has a better screen, construction and keyboard than the Macbook Air. ThinkPads are not only a "nostalgia" thing.
And maybe in your environment Windows is the last option, but that's exactly what Apple PC's and notebooks are in the enterprise, the last option. Maybe that's the reason Apple is using IBM to push it. Enterprise is much more than bash shells. They have ERP's, CRM, manufacturing application, BI and the list goes on. And Windows + Office integrate with those applications in a way OS X + iWorks can't.
Since you don't like Windows + Outlook, what do you suggest? OS X + Mac Mail? Outlook maybe overwhelming for you, but is the most complete mail client available. And it integrates without issues with enterprise applications from Sage, SAP and Oracle, among others. How many enterprise applications integrate with Mac Mail?
So Windows gets slow with time, and this don't happens in OS X, right? Enjoy the reading,
Nobody cares what OS any future dedicated Apple backend will run on, as long as it starts pushing MS aside. OSX Server itself is not a viable server anyway, considering all the issues it currently has, which seemingly aren't getting fixed for now.
Apple is in this for the long run. They never did not want to be in the enterprise. But they concluded they themselves were not the one suited ( ;-) to make that push. In the enterprise something has to have your back but it better not be Microsoft. IBM has my vote.
I don't get how IBM gets your vote over MS, since they also have great applications for iOS and OS X, plus a management infrastructure to deploy and manage those devices. IMO, both are doing great with Apple.
Since you don't like Windows + Outlook, what do you suggest? OS X + Mac Mail? Outlook maybe overwhelming for you, but is the most complete mail client available. And it integrates without issues with enterprise applications from Sage, SAP and Oracle, among others. How many enterprise applications integrate with Mac Mail?
This is a comparison of Mac Mail and Outlook for Windows as I mentioned (which is actually worse than Outlook for Windows). When I use email - I use email.... Microsoft Outlook is like Microsoft's answer to iTunes.... stuff the thing with peripheral functionality - clutter up the user interface and walla - you have crap. Once I write my email the send button is in about the last spot anyone looks.... to the side of - not at the top, not within the flow, basically in a random location that is not intuitive.
It is different functionality with little if any overlap - why the need on creating one app to do everything. If I need email to go into other systems - they go into other systems, but for correspondence.... I don't need all the other stuff stuffed into one application. Makes no real sense.
Ask me how many enterprise applications anyone uses with mail? I have never in my decades used other applications embedded in mail.
I do remember one company (consulting - very good) force me to change over from emailing a spreadsheet with time and expenses and plug them into Lotus Notes. What went from a fairly easy task went into a slow over engineered app that just managed to slow down the process. They would have been better served setting up a mailbox where I just email the spreadsheet and it take the attached spreadsheet and inputted and validated the data and responded with rejection or acceptance. Most of my time was mostly the same projects for weeks on end with maybe 5 different project codes which does not need to be over complicated (and it was the same with all the consultants).
I actually use email to send email. The contacts app is separate because it is separate functionality but integrates seamlessly from email or whatever app uses it. If I have a corporate video conferencing or chat application it could also use contacts but then why would you bury it in email.... At that rate why not make any business application all in the same application - Word Excel Powerpoint Outlook everything in one.
I suspect what has happened is Microsoft politics have pitted Outlook group against another and to demonstrate it should be part of their group they just stuffed everything into the same app.
This is a comparison of Mac Mail and Outlook for Windows as I mentioned (which is actually worse than Outlook for Windows). When I use email - I use email.... Microsoft Outlook is like Microsoft's answer to iTunes.... stuff the thing with peripheral functionality - clutter up the user interface and walla - you have crap. Once I write my email the send button is in about the last spot anyone looks.... to the side of - not at the top, not within the flow, basically in a random location that is not intuitive.
It is different functionality with little if any overlap - why the need on creating one app to do everything. If I need email to go into other systems - they go into other systems, but for correspondence.... I don't need all the other stuff stuffed into one application. Makes no real sense.
Ask me how many enterprise applications anyone uses with mail? I have never in my decades used other applications embedded in mail.
I do remember one company (consulting - very good) force me to change over from emailing a spreadsheet with time and expenses and plug them into Lotus Notes. What went from a fairly easy task went into a slow over engineered app that just managed to slow down the process. They would have been better served setting up a mailbox where I just email the spreadsheet and it take the attached spreadsheet and inputted and validated the data and responded with rejection or acceptance. Most of my time was mostly the same projects for weeks on end with maybe 5 different project codes which does not need to be over complicated (and it was the same with all the consultants).
I actually use email to send email. The contacts app is separate because it is separate functionality but integrates seamlessly from email or whatever app uses it. If I have a corporate video conferencing or chat application it could also use contacts but then why would you bury it in email.... At that rate why not make any business application all in the same application - Word Excel Powerpoint Outlook everything in one.
I suspect what has happened is Microsoft politics have pitted Outlook group against another and to demonstrate it should be part of their group they just stuffed everything into the same app.
Here is the problem, Outlook is a PIM, which includes an email client. What you call clutter is useful for many people, including enterprise users (that's the point of the article).
Having contacts, calendar and tasks integrated in Outlook (again, PIM application) makes it very easy to manage. For many people, including me, contacts, calendars and tasks are as important as emails. IMO, doesn't makes sense to have separate applications. For example, Outlook integration with ERP's or CRM goes thru email, contacts and calendars, in one application. Based in your preference, I'll need to integrate it with separate applications (mail, contact, calendar, tasks) making it more complex to work with. You want a simple email client? Use the browser.
Your point of having Word, Excel and PowerPoint as a single application don't makes sense. Outlook is a PIM, not only mail client. So it's suppose to have mail, contacts, calendar and task integrated.
And maybe in your environment Windows is the last option, but that's exactly what Apple PC's and notebooks are in the enterprise, the last option. Maybe that's the reason Apple is using IBM to push it. Enterprise is much more than bash shells. They have ERP's, CRM, manufacturing application, BI and the list goes on. And Windows + Office integrate with those applications in a way OS X + iWorks can't.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DanVM
Here is the problem, Outlook is a PIM, which includes an email client. What you call clutter is useful for many people, including enterprise users (that's the point of the article).
Having contacts, calendar and tasks integrated in Outlook (again, PIM application) makes it very easy to manage. For many people, including me, contacts, calendars and tasks are as important as emails. IMO, doesn't makes sense to have separate applications. For example, Outlook integration with ERP's or CRM goes thru email, contacts and calendars, in one application. Based in your preference, I'll need to integrate it with separate applications (mail, contact, calendar, tasks) making it more complex to work with. You want a simple email client? Use the browser.
Your point of having Word, Excel and PowerPoint as a single application don't makes sense. Outlook is a PIM, not only mail client. So it's suppose to have mail, contacts, calendar and task integrated.
PIM is just a collection of applications shoved into one app. What you need is a well defined Mail API Interface, Contacts API Interface, etc. That when someone is writing an application they don't know what application you have installed (Lotus Notes [if it still exists], Outlook, or whatever [without bodily function implications]). There is already one to a certain extent in Windows - you can call "send to email" from any application in Windows. Each of those functions that you talk about have well defined boundaries. Each of those applications (assuming they are separate) could be pinned to the dock for speed of access). Each of those applications can continue running with limited resources in the background when closed for speed of loading. There are many applications that would and could use "contacts" in their application - since you don't want a separate contacts list for each application in the system. In fact in an CRM/Enterprise setting you might not even want to use the "contacts" in outlook - you probably would want a more robust contacts that is customized for your enterprise. When you integrate "contacts" into a specific application and not independent you get into the mess that many banks have to deal with. They have many different systems and each of those systems have their own copy of "customers" (which are glorified contacts), and to make it seem like it is one system they have to copy that between systems intermittently. Things do go wrong though and sometimes they get out of sync between systems and you have this reconciliation process that has to check to make sure the data in each of those systems match.
Now that you have a unified "Contacts". Your ERP system uses the same contacts - which may actually be from the ERP vendor themselves. Your email uses contacts - so if you want to send to John Doe - you just type them in (OS X, iOS they are separate apps) but they work seamlessly when using email. If I want to add a contact from email then it uses the services from "contacts". If I am in a web page or other application and I highlight a name and address in a format that is recognizable - and say add contact it can parse that data and add it to contacts - where you can clean it up if you want.
You don't need them in one application - there is a well defined boundary. What you need is services that allow seamless use of data between systems and keeping one copy.
You use spreadsheets in word, but you don't need to add all the functionality of Excel to word because Word and Excel can interoperate since they have a well defined API.
Just renaming a collection of apps does not magically make things different.
OS X does have Contacts, it does have email, it does have Calendars - they all can be connected to an the Microsoft server - if your corporation uses a Microsoft server. Or they can be connected to Google if you have outsourced them or many others. They work seamless together, but they are separate apps.
When I worked at a consulting company we use to use Lotus Notes -- not outlook.... and wow you might be amazed to hear - but we had an ERP system that .... was integrated in. I wonder how they did it without having to rely on Outlook.....
I don't know if they still use Notes, but I am pretty sure they still use the ERP system - and they allowed their employees to choose OS X or Windows (was 100% Windows before) - and more that 90% chose "OSX"/Apple. That was maybe 3 to 5 years ago? I wonder.... how can an ERP system work without Windows? Hmmm.....
Pretty sure Apple has a 3rd party ERP system, IBM uses and ERP system.... how come this ERP system is such a big deal?
PIM is just a collection of applications shoved into one app. What you need is a well defined Mail API Interface, Contacts API Interface, etc. That when someone is writing an application they don't know what application you have installed (Lotus Notes [if it still exists], Outlook, or whatever [without bodily function implications]). There is already one to a certain extent in Windows - you can call "send to email" from any application in Windows. Each of those functions that you talk about have well defined boundaries. Each of those applications (assuming they are separate) could be pinned to the dock for speed of access). Each of those applications can continue running with limited resources in the background when closed for speed of loading. There are many applications that would and could use "contacts" in their application - since you don't want a separate contacts list for each application in the system. In fact in an CRM/Enterprise setting you might not even want to use the "contacts" in outlook - you probably would want a more robust contacts that is customized for your enterprise. When you integrate "contacts" into a specific application and not independent you get into the mess that many banks have to deal with. They have many different systems and each of those systems have their own copy of "customers" (which are glorified contacts), and to make it seem like it is one system they have to copy that between systems intermittently. Things do go wrong though and sometimes they get out of sync between systems and you have this reconciliation process that has to check to make sure the data in each of those systems match.
Now that you have a unified "Contacts". Your ERP system uses the same contacts - which may actually be from the ERP vendor themselves. Your email uses contacts - so if you want to send to John Doe - you just type them in (OS X, iOS they are separate apps) but they work seamlessly when using email. If I want to add a contact from email then it uses the services from "contacts". If I am in a web page or other application and I highlight a name and address in a format that is recognizable - and say add contact it can parse that data and add it to contacts - where you can clean it up if you want.
You don't need them in one application - there is a well defined boundary. What you need is services that allow seamless use of data between systems and keeping one copy.
You use spreadsheets in word, but you don't need to add all the functionality of Excel to word because Word and Excel can interoperate since they have a well defined API.
Just renaming a collection of apps does not magically make things different.
OS X does have Contacts, it does have email, it does have Calendars - they all can be connected to an the Microsoft server - if your corporation uses a Microsoft server. Or they can be connected to Google if you have outsourced them or many others. They work seamless together, but they are separate apps.
When I worked at a consulting company we use to use Lotus Notes -- not outlook.... and wow you might be amazed to hear - but we had an ERP system that .... was integrated in. I wonder how they did it without having to rely on Outlook.....
I don't know if they still use Notes, but I am pretty sure they still use the ERP system - and they allowed their employees to choose OS X or Windows (was 100% Windows before) - and more that 90% chose "OSX"/Apple. That was maybe 3 to 5 years ago? I wonder.... how can an ERP system work without Windows? Hmmm.....
Pretty sure Apple has a 3rd party ERP system, IBM uses and ERP system.... how come this ERP system is such a big deal?
First of all, I posted ERPs (and CRM) as an example of a type of application being used in enterprises, and one that is very common of being integrated with contacts, mail, calendar and tasks in Outlook. And yes, there are ERP's and CRM that don't requiere Windows.
Second, I'm not saying your preferences are wrong. But people and business have different needs. What you call simplicity, for other people is limited. And what you call, crap or bloat, for other people is useful or even a requirement to finish their work.
The Mail application in OS X and iOS are very simple, and that's the reason many people prefer Outlook (OS X, Windows and iOS), Google Inbox, Wunderlist, Sunrise and other clients. Would you call "Crap" those applications since they are more complex and have more functionality than Mac Mail / iOS Mail?
Comments
Java and ASP.NET are both well-established, high-performance alternatives to PHP. Every major website (like your that of your bank) probably uses one or the other for their backend heavy lifting. What advantages would Swift bring as a server-side language over JavaEE?
Java was well established when ASP.NET came into existence... it did not stop it. I do know that facebook has translated PHP to C++ and written tools to do it (although I suspect a system language directly would give them more efficiency) -- when you are running across that many servers - your electrical bills savings can be in the millions (and hardware deployment costs). On percentage terms it is small, but it makes it worth it in absolute costs to do the change. If Swift (or another system language) can make developing server applications as easy and efficient development-wise (or better yet better - there is a lot of boilerplate code in java - which is a development and maintenance cost to itself) -- while giving a significant performance increase..... it could be useful to enough of a development community to make it worth it. There is always room for improvement.
Man, you made me chuckle: It depends on the implementation -- I don't know how many times I used those same words when I worked for IBM.
From the way you answered the question, I assume that a modern SQL DB does nothing to detect or resolve the situation. If that is true, then both customer's transactions, in my example, will fail (timeout) with possible locks in place and the DB will have quantities reserved that were not sold. This will require some application code to cleanup the DB.
An even more frustrating case can happen for the customer who already has a product reserved and can't reserve another. Even if the app detects the fatal embrace , likely, the transaction fails and is backed out by the app -- the customer has lost the product reservation he had and it is now out of stock. The customer was never allowed to switch his second request to a different item to avoid the deadlock. I'm looking at you Apple Online Store!
I know that it is not just an issue with databases -- but I suspect that databases are a major cause of the issue. My point is that the database and the programming language can do a lot more to rigorously confront and resolve the situation in a consistent manner.
What are the odds of your situation really? If your talking about resource depletion on a low volume item, and now you have two customers fighting over different parts? Not only that they are ordering one item, checking out, then going back and ordering part b?
High volume the issue would not be great since yes, it failed - but it is self resolving in short-order.
In the systems I have worked on an order is atomic in nature - it either succeeds or it fails in whole (bank/brokerage/mutual fund/Term Deposit aka CDs). In other words you just process the order optimistically and if you deplete the resource - you rollback to the beginning of the transaction. If you are holding items after someone adds them to a basket - but has not committed the order but you are "reserving it for them" usually that is time based.... on airline terminals you add the ticket, and you have a time-based hold for 10 minutes or so. Just because someone adds it to their basket - does not mean that they will order it, and if they don't order it but die at the terminal... you would have to timeout at a certain point anyway. If you have not committed the order by then the hold is released. (have a few cases of those in financial systems as well). I just to understand how this is a big database issue related to SQL databases.... (although almost all my SQL database experience is Oracle).
It just has never occurred to me that this is a major issue. The only deadlock issues I have really run into were programming issues.
I'm looking at you Apple Online Store!
Which one.... I have many different accounts for different countries....
IBM was only able to hold onto me for about 6 months until I made them agree to "package" me off (I was trying to make my way back to the company that they sold (part of a company that they bought) of and contractually blocked from hiring me for a certain time - and irritated the new "CEO" until they finally waived it).
Now that is what I call a real fatal embrace... being bought by IBM.... they would buy companies because they wanted what they made.... but then suffocated them with the IBM way... which kills the reason why they bought that part to begin with. Thought they should have approached it more like a VC.
I'm talking about lots (thousands, millions?) of customers, concurrently ordering multiple items -- some of which are in high demand. My most recent experience was getting up at midnight to try and order 6 Apple watches (1 for each family member and 1 for development) from the Apple online store. The app kept crashing/hanging/timing out -- i'd lose what was in my cart and view the ship times grow before my eyes. I eventually placed 6 separate orders for models/bands that were not our first choices -- just because they were the ones that were most readily available. On the last order, I was afraid to add AppleCare -- lest it cause the order to fail.
I suspect that the financial digital data transactions, you describe, present less of a problem than physical items. We have multiple banking accounts, credit card accounts, brokerage accounts, etc. Every transaction, I can think of, involves a single item, e.g., transfer money from checking to kids savings, pay credit card from checking, buy 100 shares of AAPL. The likelihood of success is high, the penalty of failure (backout) of a single item is straight-forward, the customer frustration is minimal -- just try again.
Similarly, the iTunes store or app store are one-off purchases of items with an infinite quantity.
In my (Pre-SQL/Pre-Web) DB/DC days at IBM I was often called upon to trouble-shoot [hierarchical] DB problems for companies like Kraft and Figi's* who processed large volumes of orders containing multiple items in high demand and limited quantities. This was a major problem back then, and I suspect it is even greater today, with the advent of the web.
* Figi's is a mail-order company who experiences a tremendous blip in the volume of orders for the holidays -- starting in August and lasting through January. You can't imagine how much fun it is to spend a few weeks in Marshfield, WI in February to try and figure out what happened and prevent it from happening again ... Great curd cheese, though.
Today, Amazon seems to handle this better than most ... Although, I've been finessed by Amazon partners where an item in stock when ordered -- suddenly becomes backordered.
I'm talking about lots (thousands, millions?) of customers, concurrently ordering multiple items -- some of which are in high demand. My most recent experience was getting up at midnight to try and order 6 Apple watches (1 for each family member and 1 for development) from the Apple online store. The app kept crashing/hanging/timing out -- i'd lose what was in my cart and view the ship times grow before my eyes. I eventually placed 6 separate orders for models/bands that were not our first choices -- just because they were the ones that were most readily available. On the last order, I was afraid to add AppleCare -- lest it cause the order to fail.
That sounds just simply like their store was overwhelmed - not a locking problem. I doubt they hold any items, it is just first come first serve.
I believe that they have just in many cases grown beyond the capacity of the technology they are using in the cloud and are probably trying to hold things together with bailing wire until redevelopment efforts are completed. Just a guess though... happens often.
I suspect that the financial digital data transactions, you describe, present less of a problem than physical items. We have multiple banking accounts, credit card accounts, brokerage accounts, etc. Every transaction, I can think of, involves a single item, e.g., transfer money from checking to kids savings, pay credit card from checking, buy 100 shares of AAPL. The likelihood of success is high, the penalty of failure (backout) of a single item is straight-forward, the customer frustration is minimal -- just try again.
Probably the case in the majority, but not all is infinite.... there is things like inventory where you have a certain amount to sell to your customers. You have dependencies on credit depending on the value of your account and any account that is guaranteeing or acting as collateral.
Quote:
Today, Amazon seems to handle this better than most ... Although, I've been finessed by Amazon partners where an item in stock when ordered -- suddenly becomes backordered.
That just sounds like FIFO - first come first serve.... that does not sound like handling your situation at all. One would be backordered on A and one backordered on B
One classic example is Class Scheduling.
Here's a good tutorial that shows how to handle transactional issues in Class Scheduling using FoundationDB in a Python app:
[URL=https://foundationdb.com/key-value-store/documentation/class-scheduling.html]https://foundationdb.com/key-value-store/documentation/class-scheduling.html[/URL]
I've never used Python or FoundationDB -- but I can understand what's going on (see code below).
IMO. if Swift is to succeed as a new System and Application language, it should incorporate things like DB into the language/APIs.
[CODE]
import itertools
import fdb
fdb.api_version(300)
####################################
## Initialization ##
####################################
# Data model:
# ('attends', student, class) = ''
# ('class', class_name) = seats_left
db = fdb.open()
scheduling = fdb.directory.create_or_open(db, ('scheduling',))
course = scheduling['class']
attends = scheduling['attends']
@fdb.transactional
def add_class(tr, c):
tr[course.pack((c,))] = bytes(100)
# Generate 1,620 classes like '9:00 chem for dummies'
levels = ['intro', 'for dummies', 'remedial', '101',
'201', '301', 'mastery', 'lab', 'seminar']
types = ['chem', 'bio', 'cs', 'geometry', 'calc',
'alg', 'film', 'music', 'art', 'dance']
times = [str(h) + ':00' for h in range(2, 20)]
class_combos = itertools.product(times, types, levels)
class_names = [' '.join(tup) for tup in class_combos]
@fdb.transactional
def init(tr):
del tr[scheduling.range(())] # Clear the directory
for class_name in class_names:
add_class(tr, class_name)
####################################
## Class Scheduling Functions ##
####################################
@fdb.transactional
def available_classes(tr):
return [course.unpack(k)[0] for k, v in tr[course.range(())]
if int(v)]
@fdb.transactional
def signup(tr, s, c):
rec = attends.pack((s, c))
if tr[rec].present(): return # already signed up
seats_left = int(tr[course.pack((c,))])
if not seats_left: raise Exception('No remaining seats')
classes = tr[attends.range((s,))]
if len(list(classes)) == 5: raise Exception('Too many classes')
tr[course.pack((c,))] = bytes(seats_left - 1)
tr[rec] = ''
@fdb.transactional
def drop(tr, s, c):
rec = attends.pack((s, c))
if not tr[rec].present(): return # not taking this class
tr[course.pack((c,))] = bytes(int(tr[course.pack((c,))]) + 1)
del tr[rec]
@fdb.transactional
def switch(tr, s, old_c, new_c):
drop(tr, s, old_c)
signup(tr, s, new_c)
####################################
## Testing ##
####################################
import random
import threading
def indecisive_student(i, ops):
student_ID = 's{:d}'.format(i)
all_classes = class_names
my_classes = []
for i in range(ops):
class_count = len(my_classes)
moods = []
if class_count: moods.extend(['drop', 'switch'])
if class_count < 5: moods.append('add')
mood = random.choice(moods)
try:
if not all_classes:
all_classes = available_classes(db)
if mood == 'add':
c = random.choice(all_classes)
signup(db, student_ID, c)
my_classes.append(c)
elif mood == 'drop':
c = random.choice(my_classes)
drop(db, student_ID, c)
my_classes.remove(c)
elif mood == 'switch':
old_c = random.choice(my_classes)
new_c = random.choice(all_classes)
switch(db, student_ID, old_c, new_c)
my_classes.remove(old_c)
my_classes.append(new_c)
except Exception as e:
print e, "Need to recheck available classes."
all_classes = []
def run(students, ops_per_student):
threads = [
threading.Thread(target=indecisive_student, args=(i, ops_per_student))
for i in range(students)]
for thr in threads: thr.start()
for thr in threads: thr.join()
print "Ran", students * ops_per_student, "transactions"
if __name__ == "__main__":
init(db)
print "initialized"
run(10, 10)[/CODE]
It's been my experience at the Apple Store, if you put something of high demand in your cart the quoted shipping date is honored -- if the order completes. From that, I imply they are reserving items until the transaction completes or times out. I can see a finite quantity in $ available to loan, Stocks available to sell, etc. Wouldn't the dependencies be checked before the transaction item reserved ... "You don't have enough funds in your brokerage account to buy 10,000 shares of AAPL, please adjust ...". You appear to understand this well -- please enlighten me.
That just sounds like FIFO - first come first serve.... that does not sound like handling your situation at all. One would be backordered on A and one backordered on B
[/CONTENTEMBED]
[/quote]
It's not as simple as that. Last year, for graduation, we bought my granddaughter some expensive camera gear through Amazon ---> B&H Photo and others. There was the camera body itself, 3 lenses, 2 tripods, bags & misc. gear. Wouldn't you know it the camera showed as in-stock when ordered -- but, mysteriously became back-ordered a day later.
I'm enjoying our back and forth and learning a lot!
I can see a finite quantity in $ available to loan, Stocks available to sell, etc. Wouldn't the dependencies be checked before the transaction item reserved ... "You don't have enough funds in your brokerage account to buy 10,000 shares of AAPL, please adjust ...". You appear to understand this well -- please enlighten me.
Dependencies can be checked, but then bugs crop up even in simple solutions now that I remember. You have two orders coming in and being processed on different threads for the same finite resource (in this case it was found in overnight processing where there is substantially more orders happening at one time) where two orders were checking the balance of a given resource both came back with enough resource available, then both orders bought that resource.... ending up in an oversubscribed position.... if this was retail they would have just probably done exactly what you had happen to you... first timestamped order gets it and the other one goes to backorder status. (only locked optimistically when updating)
The two possible solutions is that since there were a limited pool of threads processing we could just route the order for specific resources based on a graph of what limited resources that were being ordered - which in the end were processed in queue fashion.
The other possible solution was to create a reservation / hold in progress table (the database was the only common entry-point) where any reserved items were held after checked then the next one would do the same.... if the balance went negative the last one would be rolled back with insufficient quantity. The first one receives what is necessary. If the first one failed because of other requirements you could end up with both orders failed, but it is a rare possibility. Failed orders would be queued and could have been resubmitted automatically, but we had no process for that. Most customers wanted certain orders to either be rejected or sit in a queue for review and resolution later (so they would not have to re-enter the details - just modify what was necessary and resubmit).
Most cases were processed first come first serve without regard to component interdependencies on order - but I can not think of many places which would have that situation..... most would just sell the component ordered on a first come bases and not try to do anything fancy like redirect so one would get a full order and the other would get nothing.
PHP was created by someone that does not like programming and it is one big hack. It is widely used in on the web, and it is widely a security issue on the web. Personally, I would never use it for any substantive project.
IBM and I would beg to differ.
Ok, I was exaggerating but these are the types of excuses companies will give to not bring in Macs. As for a $2000 computer. Are you suggesting companies will actually pay $2000 for a Windows PC desktop, complete with 15" monitor? I'd say they're going after rock bottom throwaways in the $500 range.
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I don't think $$$ is the reason companies don't use Mac's.
Furthermore, if most new computers in an enterprise are mobile, then Apple is the way to go for a better experience, and IBM is eager to push that,
Enterprises already have great mobile products. Apple would have to compete with the Thinkpads, X1 Carbon's, HP Z workstations, Surface Pro 3 and a other high quality PC's and notebooks. And that is not an easy battle. And the "better Apple experience" I have seen is based on using other Apple devices. How is that experience when you enter the mixed environments of enterprises?
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I don't think $$$ is the reason companies don't use Mac's.
Enterprises already have great mobile products. Apple would have to compete with the Thinkpads, X1 Carbon's, HP Z workstations, Surface Pro 3 and a other high quality PC's and notebooks. And that is not an easy battle. And the "better Apple experience" I have seen is based on using other Apple devices. How is that experience when you enter the mixed environments of enterprises?
You lost me when with some of what you have mentioned - my other workplace is an HP shop - not good. IBM employees all had Thinkpads and yet given the choice - they are flocking to Macs when given the choice -- even though Thinkpads might have had the edge due to nostalgia.
I have worked with some top developers out there before and given the choice..... Windows is the LAST (absolute last option). Many prefer Linux, many prefer Macs - just the simple pleasure of having a nice bash shell as part of the operating system is something many cannot do without.
And Outlook on Windows - A demonstration on poor user interface design at it's finest. First, when I use an application I really want it focused on what I am doing... in this case emailing or messaging.... don't fill it with crap. Two - why put 30+ buttons around the screen - you only end up getting lost. Three - The bloody send button is on the wrong bloody side of the screen if you are not arabic. Flow right to left is what most people expect.... so why put it on the left side.... just that one little thing really out of place is quite irritating. The problem is that they just don't sit back and think....
Install windows - run the computer and walla ... eventually it slows down and they have to call up someone that knows computers to help speed it up again.... why, oh why can't they make an operating system that is self correcting, self optimizing. People are building AI applications that are pretty advanced, and Windows still has issues doing simple stuff.
Are you kidding? Apple doesn't even run Mac servers in their own data centers. From the few pictures I've seen, they appear to be HP servers. Apple doesn't even make servers. Why would IBM implement a Mac server program when they have been pushing Linux in all their enterprise solutions for a long time? Makes no sense. Go read the IBM website. All their enterprise solutions are Linux or IBM AIX. IBM does not offer any Windows based server products so I'm not sure what your squeezing out MS comment is about.
Nobody cares what OS any future dedicated Apple backend will run on, as long as it starts pushing MS aside. OSX Server itself is not a viable server anyway, considering all the issues it currently has, which seemingly aren't getting fixed for now.
Apple is in this for the long run. They never did not want to be in the enterprise. But they concluded they themselves were not the one suited ( ;-) to make that push. In the enterprise something has to have your back but it better not be Microsoft. IBM has my vote.
^ It gets very confusing when people keep on referring to server/hosts that might serve as application backends or databases as Mac or Apple servers.... they are just servers. Linux does the job superbly, much better than Windows.... but they are not proprietary - they are just acting as servers. All the servers we have don't even run GUIs - they are just hosts.... servers for applications for any computer.
There is no benefit to trying to push Linux/BSD/UNIX aside - it is battle tested.
You lost me when with some of what you have mentioned - my other workplace is an HP shop - not good. IBM employees all had Thinkpads and yet given the choice - they are flocking to Macs when given the choice -- even though Thinkpads might have had the edge due to nostalgia.
I have worked with some top developers out there before and given the choice..... Windows is the LAST (absolute last option). Many prefer Linux, many prefer Macs - just the simple pleasure of having a nice bash shell as part of the operating system is something many cannot do without.
And Outlook on Windows - A demonstration on poor user interface design at it's finest. First, when I use an application I really want it focused on what I am doing... in this case emailing or messaging.... don't fill it with crap. Two - why put 30+ buttons around the screen - you only end up getting lost. Three - The bloody send button is on the wrong bloody side of the screen if you are not arabic. Flow right to left is what most people expect.... so why put it on the left side.... just that one little thing really out of place is quite irritating. The problem is that they just don't sit back and think....
Install windows - run the computer and walla ... eventually it slows down and they have to call up someone that knows computers to help speed it up again.... why, oh why can't they make an operating system that is self correcting, self optimizing. People are building AI applications that are pretty advanced, and Windows still has issues doing simple stuff.
HP have good and not so good systems, same as Apple. Maybe a MBP is better than an Elitebook, but a Z- Workstation is far ahead compared to a Mac Pro. And from what I have read, IBM is not flocking to Apple. They are acquire Apple products, as part of their agreement, and giving the option to users. And ThinkPad's have many advantages over Apple, like keyboards, which are great and better than any Apple keyboard. Other example the X1 Carbon, which has a better screen, construction and keyboard than the Macbook Air. ThinkPads are not only a "nostalgia" thing.
And maybe in your environment Windows is the last option, but that's exactly what Apple PC's and notebooks are in the enterprise, the last option. Maybe that's the reason Apple is using IBM to push it. Enterprise is much more than bash shells. They have ERP's, CRM, manufacturing application, BI and the list goes on. And Windows + Office integrate with those applications in a way OS X + iWorks can't.
Since you don't like Windows + Outlook, what do you suggest? OS X + Mac Mail? Outlook maybe overwhelming for you, but is the most complete mail client available. And it integrates without issues with enterprise applications from Sage, SAP and Oracle, among others. How many enterprise applications integrate with Mac Mail?
So Windows gets slow with time, and this don't happens in OS X, right? Enjoy the reading,
http://www.engadget.com/2015/07/21/heres-what-our-readers-think-of-os-x-yosemite/
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6646592
http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/yosemite-bogs-down-slows-down-after-some-time.1814416/
http://www.macworld.co.uk/feature/mac-software/os-x-mavericks-vs-os-x-yosemite-speed-testing-3598975/
Let me know if you need additional articles...
Nobody cares what OS any future dedicated Apple backend will run on, as long as it starts pushing MS aside. OSX Server itself is not a viable server anyway, considering all the issues it currently has, which seemingly aren't getting fixed for now.
Apple is in this for the long run. They never did not want to be in the enterprise. But they concluded they themselves were not the one suited ( ;-) to make that push. In the enterprise something has to have your back but it better not be Microsoft. IBM has my vote.
I don't get how IBM gets your vote over MS, since they also have great applications for iOS and OS X, plus a management infrastructure to deploy and manage those devices. IMO, both are doing great with Apple.
Since you don't like Windows + Outlook, what do you suggest? OS X + Mac Mail? Outlook maybe overwhelming for you, but is the most complete mail client available. And it integrates without issues with enterprise applications from Sage, SAP and Oracle, among others. How many enterprise applications integrate with Mac Mail?
This is a comparison of Mac Mail and Outlook for Windows as I mentioned (which is actually worse than Outlook for Windows). When I use email - I use email.... Microsoft Outlook is like Microsoft's answer to iTunes.... stuff the thing with peripheral functionality - clutter up the user interface and walla - you have crap. Once I write my email the send button is in about the last spot anyone looks.... to the side of - not at the top, not within the flow, basically in a random location that is not intuitive.
It is different functionality with little if any overlap - why the need on creating one app to do everything. If I need email to go into other systems - they go into other systems, but for correspondence.... I don't need all the other stuff stuffed into one application. Makes no real sense.
Ask me how many enterprise applications anyone uses with mail? I have never in my decades used other applications embedded in mail.
I do remember one company (consulting - very good) force me to change over from emailing a spreadsheet with time and expenses and plug them into Lotus Notes. What went from a fairly easy task went into a slow over engineered app that just managed to slow down the process. They would have been better served setting up a mailbox where I just email the spreadsheet and it take the attached spreadsheet and inputted and validated the data and responded with rejection or acceptance. Most of my time was mostly the same projects for weeks on end with maybe 5 different project codes which does not need to be over complicated (and it was the same with all the consultants).
I actually use email to send email. The contacts app is separate because it is separate functionality but integrates seamlessly from email or whatever app uses it. If I have a corporate video conferencing or chat application it could also use contacts but then why would you bury it in email.... At that rate why not make any business application all in the same application - Word Excel Powerpoint Outlook everything in one.
I suspect what has happened is Microsoft politics have pitted Outlook group against another and to demonstrate it should be part of their group they just stuffed everything into the same app.
This is a comparison of Mac Mail and Outlook for Windows as I mentioned (which is actually worse than Outlook for Windows). When I use email - I use email.... Microsoft Outlook is like Microsoft's answer to iTunes.... stuff the thing with peripheral functionality - clutter up the user interface and walla - you have crap. Once I write my email the send button is in about the last spot anyone looks.... to the side of - not at the top, not within the flow, basically in a random location that is not intuitive.
It is different functionality with little if any overlap - why the need on creating one app to do everything. If I need email to go into other systems - they go into other systems, but for correspondence.... I don't need all the other stuff stuffed into one application. Makes no real sense.
Ask me how many enterprise applications anyone uses with mail? I have never in my decades used other applications embedded in mail.
I do remember one company (consulting - very good) force me to change over from emailing a spreadsheet with time and expenses and plug them into Lotus Notes. What went from a fairly easy task went into a slow over engineered app that just managed to slow down the process. They would have been better served setting up a mailbox where I just email the spreadsheet and it take the attached spreadsheet and inputted and validated the data and responded with rejection or acceptance. Most of my time was mostly the same projects for weeks on end with maybe 5 different project codes which does not need to be over complicated (and it was the same with all the consultants).
I actually use email to send email. The contacts app is separate because it is separate functionality but integrates seamlessly from email or whatever app uses it. If I have a corporate video conferencing or chat application it could also use contacts but then why would you bury it in email.... At that rate why not make any business application all in the same application - Word Excel Powerpoint Outlook everything in one.
I suspect what has happened is Microsoft politics have pitted Outlook group against another and to demonstrate it should be part of their group they just stuffed everything into the same app.
Here is the problem, Outlook is a PIM, which includes an email client. What you call clutter is useful for many people, including enterprise users (that's the point of the article).
Having contacts, calendar and tasks integrated in Outlook (again, PIM application) makes it very easy to manage. For many people, including me, contacts, calendars and tasks are as important as emails. IMO, doesn't makes sense to have separate applications. For example, Outlook integration with ERP's or CRM goes thru email, contacts and calendars, in one application. Based in your preference, I'll need to integrate it with separate applications (mail, contact, calendar, tasks) making it more complex to work with. You want a simple email client? Use the browser.
Your point of having Word, Excel and PowerPoint as a single application don't makes sense. Outlook is a PIM, not only mail client. So it's suppose to have mail, contacts, calendar and task integrated.
And maybe in your environment Windows is the last option, but that's exactly what Apple PC's and notebooks are in the enterprise, the last option. Maybe that's the reason Apple is using IBM to push it. Enterprise is much more than bash shells. They have ERP's, CRM, manufacturing application, BI and the list goes on. And Windows + Office integrate with those applications in a way OS X + iWorks can't.
Here is the problem, Outlook is a PIM, which includes an email client. What you call clutter is useful for many people, including enterprise users (that's the point of the article).
Having contacts, calendar and tasks integrated in Outlook (again, PIM application) makes it very easy to manage. For many people, including me, contacts, calendars and tasks are as important as emails. IMO, doesn't makes sense to have separate applications. For example, Outlook integration with ERP's or CRM goes thru email, contacts and calendars, in one application. Based in your preference, I'll need to integrate it with separate applications (mail, contact, calendar, tasks) making it more complex to work with. You want a simple email client? Use the browser.
Your point of having Word, Excel and PowerPoint as a single application don't makes sense. Outlook is a PIM, not only mail client. So it's suppose to have mail, contacts, calendar and task integrated.
PIM is just a collection of applications shoved into one app. What you need is a well defined Mail API Interface, Contacts API Interface, etc. That when someone is writing an application they don't know what application you have installed (Lotus Notes [if it still exists], Outlook, or whatever [without bodily function implications]). There is already one to a certain extent in Windows - you can call "send to email" from any application in Windows. Each of those functions that you talk about have well defined boundaries. Each of those applications (assuming they are separate) could be pinned to the dock for speed of access). Each of those applications can continue running with limited resources in the background when closed for speed of loading. There are many applications that would and could use "contacts" in their application - since you don't want a separate contacts list for each application in the system. In fact in an CRM/Enterprise setting you might not even want to use the "contacts" in outlook - you probably would want a more robust contacts that is customized for your enterprise. When you integrate "contacts" into a specific application and not independent you get into the mess that many banks have to deal with. They have many different systems and each of those systems have their own copy of "customers" (which are glorified contacts), and to make it seem like it is one system they have to copy that between systems intermittently. Things do go wrong though and sometimes they get out of sync between systems and you have this reconciliation process that has to check to make sure the data in each of those systems match.
Now that you have a unified "Contacts". Your ERP system uses the same contacts - which may actually be from the ERP vendor themselves. Your email uses contacts - so if you want to send to John Doe - you just type them in (OS X, iOS they are separate apps) but they work seamlessly when using email. If I want to add a contact from email then it uses the services from "contacts". If I am in a web page or other application and I highlight a name and address in a format that is recognizable - and say add contact it can parse that data and add it to contacts - where you can clean it up if you want.
You don't need them in one application - there is a well defined boundary. What you need is services that allow seamless use of data between systems and keeping one copy.
You use spreadsheets in word, but you don't need to add all the functionality of Excel to word because Word and Excel can interoperate since they have a well defined API.
Just renaming a collection of apps does not magically make things different.
OS X does have Contacts, it does have email, it does have Calendars - they all can be connected to an the Microsoft server - if your corporation uses a Microsoft server. Or they can be connected to Google if you have outsourced them or many others. They work seamless together, but they are separate apps.
When I worked at a consulting company we use to use Lotus Notes -- not outlook.... and wow you might be amazed to hear - but we had an ERP system that .... was integrated in. I wonder how they did it without having to rely on Outlook.....
I don't know if they still use Notes, but I am pretty sure they still use the ERP system - and they allowed their employees to choose OS X or Windows (was 100% Windows before) - and more that 90% chose "OSX"/Apple. That was maybe 3 to 5 years ago? I wonder.... how can an ERP system work without Windows? Hmmm.....
Pretty sure Apple has a 3rd party ERP system, IBM uses and ERP system.... how come this ERP system is such a big deal?
PIM is just a collection of applications shoved into one app. What you need is a well defined Mail API Interface, Contacts API Interface, etc. That when someone is writing an application they don't know what application you have installed (Lotus Notes [if it still exists], Outlook, or whatever [without bodily function implications]). There is already one to a certain extent in Windows - you can call "send to email" from any application in Windows. Each of those functions that you talk about have well defined boundaries. Each of those applications (assuming they are separate) could be pinned to the dock for speed of access). Each of those applications can continue running with limited resources in the background when closed for speed of loading. There are many applications that would and could use "contacts" in their application - since you don't want a separate contacts list for each application in the system. In fact in an CRM/Enterprise setting you might not even want to use the "contacts" in outlook - you probably would want a more robust contacts that is customized for your enterprise. When you integrate "contacts" into a specific application and not independent you get into the mess that many banks have to deal with. They have many different systems and each of those systems have their own copy of "customers" (which are glorified contacts), and to make it seem like it is one system they have to copy that between systems intermittently. Things do go wrong though and sometimes they get out of sync between systems and you have this reconciliation process that has to check to make sure the data in each of those systems match.
Now that you have a unified "Contacts". Your ERP system uses the same contacts - which may actually be from the ERP vendor themselves. Your email uses contacts - so if you want to send to John Doe - you just type them in (OS X, iOS they are separate apps) but they work seamlessly when using email. If I want to add a contact from email then it uses the services from "contacts". If I am in a web page or other application and I highlight a name and address in a format that is recognizable - and say add contact it can parse that data and add it to contacts - where you can clean it up if you want.
You don't need them in one application - there is a well defined boundary. What you need is services that allow seamless use of data between systems and keeping one copy.
You use spreadsheets in word, but you don't need to add all the functionality of Excel to word because Word and Excel can interoperate since they have a well defined API.
Just renaming a collection of apps does not magically make things different.
OS X does have Contacts, it does have email, it does have Calendars - they all can be connected to an the Microsoft server - if your corporation uses a Microsoft server. Or they can be connected to Google if you have outsourced them or many others. They work seamless together, but they are separate apps.
When I worked at a consulting company we use to use Lotus Notes -- not outlook.... and wow you might be amazed to hear - but we had an ERP system that .... was integrated in. I wonder how they did it without having to rely on Outlook.....
I don't know if they still use Notes, but I am pretty sure they still use the ERP system - and they allowed their employees to choose OS X or Windows (was 100% Windows before) - and more that 90% chose "OSX"/Apple. That was maybe 3 to 5 years ago? I wonder.... how can an ERP system work without Windows? Hmmm.....
Pretty sure Apple has a 3rd party ERP system, IBM uses and ERP system.... how come this ERP system is such a big deal?
First of all, I posted ERPs (and CRM) as an example of a type of application being used in enterprises, and one that is very common of being integrated with contacts, mail, calendar and tasks in Outlook. And yes, there are ERP's and CRM that don't requiere Windows.
Second, I'm not saying your preferences are wrong. But people and business have different needs. What you call simplicity, for other people is limited. And what you call, crap or bloat, for other people is useful or even a requirement to finish their work.
The Mail application in OS X and iOS are very simple, and that's the reason many people prefer Outlook (OS X, Windows and iOS), Google Inbox, Wunderlist, Sunrise and other clients. Would you call "Crap" those applications since they are more complex and have more functionality than Mac Mail / iOS Mail?
God. Yes. It still exists. I "get" to use it every day.