Mac OS X Gaining Ground In Corporate Environs

nonsuchworks writes "MacWorld quotes a Jupiter Research report on the increasing penetration of Mac OS X in the business world. From the article: 'The report found that in businesses with 250 employees or more, 17 percent of the employees were running Mac OS X on their desktop computer at work. In Businesses that had 10,000 or more employees, 21 percent of employees used Mac OS X on their desktop work computer.' Analyst Joe Wilcox adds, 'Companies that were considering Linux are now buying Mac OS X instead.'"

Great!

[davecrusoe (861547)]

Wow, first comment! If MacOSX overtakes Linux, well, at least a platform that adopts some open standards will overtake Windows eventually. It's better than Windows/MS dominating the market place, and might force innovation. In the end, innovation benefits the end user....

Re:Great!

[Egorn (82375)]

I gotta say, since I bought my Mac with OS X, I'm much more comfortable in Linux/Shell enviroments. I'd be more likely to run Linux now than ever.

Re:Great!

[ericdano (113424)]

So wait. You think of OS X has a stepping stone to Linux?

Why go any further? OS X has just about everything you'd want. Plus it runs Office. Woohoo!

Seriously, I think OS X is way less daunting than Linux.

Re:Great!

[MBCook (132727)]

Depends. Now that I've used both, I've got to say they both have their place.

OS X is for desktops, Linux is for servers. It's that simple. Those who want Linux as a desktop could have it, but that's the overall picture as I see it.

I also must say I'm a bit worried about OS X for servers after that report that showed such terrible performance for MySQL (was it at Anadtech?). But then again, I would either run a server headless (why use OS X) or if you are small enough that you need a box to do double duty

Re:Great!

[ciroknight (601098)]

Maybe because every user doesn't want to fight with 8 configuration files dealing with graphics, two to get a network card running, and be responsible for ensuring every piece of hardware works correctly right after being installed.

Face it, Linux is difficult. It's getting better, but OS X is already where Linux needs to be (though artificially; you control the hardware, you control the software). And it's worth it to us to pay the premium to get a machine that works.

Oh, and the eye candy's definitely better ;).

Can be summarized as...

[Mr. Cancelled (572486)]

"When I want to tweak and hack, I can do so to my hearts content. But when I need to work, it's ready to go, no tweaking needed".

I'm paraphrasing someone else's observations, but it's always stuck with me, and it describes why I decided to plop down money on a dual G5 about 1.5 years ago. While I still like to hack Linux on occasion, or try to squeeze a few more cycles out of my box, I don't have to just to do everyday things.

In fact, what also made me see the light was realizing how many hours I'd spend tweaking together a Linux distro, or an XP installation, just to get it the way I wanted it. I multiplied that by the hourly rate I charge others to work on their PC's, and immediately realized that I'd be time and therefore money ahead by getting a Mac and just having it work.

Re:Great!

[Anonymous Coward]

Right...

That's why those built-in Dell wireless network cards work so well. Or maybe those great Linksys ones so many people already have that "just work" with Windows.

Oh wait, they don't. Sure, it's Broadcoms fault, but that doesn't make it work. The point is there is always an excuse and nothing ever works right the first time or stays working.

A *lot* of stuff doesn't work, looks crappy (love those Linux fonts -- what? steal the MS ones?), use different widget sets (how come firefox doesn't match the theme I just installed. Oh wait, neither do any of the gnome apps!), and on and on.

I love Linux for servers, but if you can't admit Mac OS X "just works", you aren't being honest. If price is a factor, then its a factor, but don't BS everyone about it being a PITA.

As for those interested in Mac OS X, look into the "Missing Manual, Tiger Edition" book. It has a lot of useful information you might not figure out on your own.

And before you say "don't use it then", already been there done that. I use Linux for servers and am moving to Mac OS X for the desktops.

Re:Great!

[dloose (900754)]

"If the average user could have a fully configured Linux system that "just worked" placed in front of them I think they would forget Windows and OS X rather quickly." I think you may be a bit out of touch with the "average user". If a Linux system "just worked" then yeah, maybe they'd choose it over OS X or Windows. But Linux is never going to "just work" that way. The mere existence of multiple windowing systems means that applications will be targeted at one of them. Sure, if the average user decides he likes Gnome best, he can still use KDE applications, but the little inconsitencies in the interface will start to wear on him. Why is that? Because the inconsistencies lead to things not "just working". Users don't want to have to know 3 different ways to paste something based on what toolkit the app is based on. They just want to go to Edit -> Paste (the more savvy ones may know Control+V) and have it work. I'm not saying choice is a bad thing. It's a great thing when you know what you're doing. When you don't know what you're doing, you want the simplest thing that will get the job done. Linux still needs a lot of work to be that thing.

Re:Great!

[ThinkingInBinary (899485)]

It helps you feel more comfortable because you start out with something that is completely working, and you aren't always doing system administration using it. First, it's good because you aren't depending on your shell skills to run the system. It's a comfortable way to experiment because, if something isn't working or you can't figure it out, you can always go back to the GUI. Second, it's good because system administration doesn't have to be done in the shell. I run Gentoo, and I've b0rked my system a couple times by doing something dumb like downgrading glibc. On Mac OS X, that's not really a problem because administration tasks like software updates are done in the GUI. In other words, using a shell is not essential to administrating the system. What Mac OS X provides you with is a fully-functional GUI layered on top of a Unix core that you can directly access at your own leisure. It lets you tinker without asking anything in return.

Re:Great!

[soft_guy (534437)]

Maybe because you can get use out of a Macintosh without any Unix knowledge and then learn Unixy things at your own pace.

Re:Great!

[Rude Turnip (49495)]

"Most OS X users probably don't even know they're running a flavor of Linux"

I think that would be news to everyone, including the OS X developers.

Re:+1 Informative, -1 Redundant

[plazman30 (531348)]

Actually BSD is NOT Unix. The original BSD source that was released by Berkely had everything removed from it that made it UNIX, hence the stripping and lawsuits. All BSDs prior to the release of BSD under the BSD license (such as SunOS), are UNIX. All BSD after the release (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, etc.) are all Unix-like or *nix operating systems.

These days, the only way something can be called UNIX, is if it undergoes validation testing with and certification with the Open Group, which costs a pretty penny, from what I understand.

Re:Great!

[RUFFyamahaRYDER (887557)]

You are exactly right.... so for all you out there who hate Apple you should think about this: If Mac's gain more market, Microsoft has to work harder FOR YOU to make a better operating system than it had before. Competition is a wonderful thing.

Re:Great!

[apoc.famine (621563)]

Not only is competition a wonderful thing, but I'd much rather Apple lead the way in "*nix becomes a common common on the desktop, and is therefore a target for malware, botnet attacks, and viruses". Why? Because they have the funds and marketing ability to pull through it, much like MS has done while their security has been under attack from all sides.

Linux can learn from Apple's mistakes in the "major desktop player" arena, and continue to get better, without having to be on the front lines. It will ma

But ..

[karvind (833059)]

But you told me One Third of All Studies Are Nonsense [slashdot.org]

Why does that sound a little off?

[Oculus Habent (562837)]

Is it perhaps that in those businesses, 17% and 21% had people using Macs?

I'm a Mac user, and at my company we have about 10% Mac users.

I'm not saying it's impossible that TWENTY ONE PERCENT of the businesses out there exclusively use Macs... I think it's unlikely, and that the article is misrepresenting the data...

But then, I haven't read the Jupiter report.

Re:Why does that sound a little off?

[Nightlily (140378)]

At one point I would have agreed with you completely. At my current job I'm the Mac OS X tech / SysAdmin. Some types of businesses are almost exclusively Mac. I work at a university and the newspaper is a Mac only shop, because newspapers are primarily Mac shops. Graphic artists, marketing, etc... use Macs too. So if we take most newspapers, graphic artists (who may have a few employees other than him or herself, marketing and then add a few other business - we may actual reach 17%.

That's not what the report is saying...

[Space cowboy (13680)]

It says that in businesses with >250 employees, 17% of the employees used macs. So if the business did have 250 employees, 42 of them would be using macs (17% of 250). Likewise for the 21% figure.

It doesn't say that 17% of all the companies who were polled exclusively use macs, at least that's not how I read it...

Simon

I think they meant....

[Skip Head (262362)]

"in businesses with 250 employees or more, 17 percent of the companies had one or more employees who were running Mac OS X on their desktop computer at work. In Businesses that had 10,000 or more employees, 21 percent of the companies had one or more employees who used Mac OS X on their desktop work computer."

That sounds more likely.

Re:I think they meant....

[ecklesweb (713901)]

The fact is we have no idea what they meant. Proprietary research bugs me a bit because you can read press articles about it, but you can't actually read the report yourself to determine whether the reporter mangled the conclusions of the study or whether the study was worth the paper it was printed on in the first place. Forget about being able to detect any bias.

What really suprises me is that although the Macworld article is dated July 21, there's no press release from JupiterResearch announcing the study (see http://www.jupiterresearch.com/bin/item.pl/press:r eleases/ [jupiterresearch.com]), and on the analyst's page - well, the analyst quoted in the macworld article - there's no mention of the report at all (see http://www.jupiterresearch.com/bin/item.pl/company :analyst/jup/id=4569/ [jupiterresearch.com]).

So, we have second hand information that is impossible to confirm in any way, shape, or form.

Nothing to see here, move along.

eh?

[nickos (91443)]

Why does the share of employees running Mac OS X increase as the company gets bigger?

didn't poll us obviously...

[boomerny (670029)]

out of 7000 users we have 3 Macs(in the graphics arts dept of course). If they polled who had a Mac at home the number would be significantly higher, I can count at least 10 people in my immediate area who use Macs at home(including me). You can't trust these reports.

A new world for Apple

[chia_monkey (593501)]

I've been noticing the trend for enterprise acceptance for Macs for a while now. It started with some of the industry mags (not just MacWorld and Mac Addict) writing about Macs. Perhaps it was the introduction of XServe with its UNIX power, Mac ease of use, and cheaper licensing. Or maybe it was an offshoot of the move to Linux. Whatever the case, I've seen more and more actual stories in the different magazines that weren't simply bashing the Mac as in the days of old. Rather, the writers were talking about each new Mac OS release, the performance, etc.

I find it especially funny how it contrasts the "market share" numbers published. This is certainly higher than the 3-4% you commonly see. One could say "well these numbers are business numbers so they must have higher acceptance in the enterprise than for home users", which once again goes against everything we've been taught over the years. "If you want a home machine, a Mac is ok. But for business, you need a PC".

This isn't a surprise.

[Captain Scurvy (818996)]

'Companies that were considering Linux are now buying Mac OS X instead.'

Of course they are. Why? Because there are a lot of legacy applications that write closed format documents with versions for Mac and Windows, but not Linux. This means that if a company wants to get the benefits that Mac and Linux offer over Windows, it will either have to buy Mac, or find some way to port its library of legacy documents over to an open format.

There are certaintly ways to do this in many cases, but going the Mac route would probably be easier, and maybe even cheaper or at least as expensive if you take man hours into consideration. Plus you have a strong corporate label backing your Mac setup, which you don't necessarily have with Linux, and this is very important to people.

Makes Sense

[WatertonMan (550706)]

I just converted my primary machine from Windows to Mac. I'd been using Macs again since 10.2, but with 10.4 it was finally good enough. No more virus worries, Word works if anything better on the Mac, you have all the benefits of Linux with none of the costs.

I'd tried Linux for the desktop so many times but it always was a very frustrating experience. OSX has some related problems. The fact is that SAMBA browsing of Windows networks isn't anywhere near as easy as using a Windows box. If I was on a Windows network where all the IP addresses were dynamic, I might think twice about a Mac or Linux. But once you get past the networking problems, the Mac simply is a better experience.

I wish Linux well. But configuration is simply too hard. It still feels like things are 90% done with that last 10% being too frustrating! I think many people won't mind. But for many people the effort just isn't worth it.

Re:Makes Sense

[Fahrvergnuugen (700293)]

What makes you say that browsing a windows network doesn't work well on a mac? I find that it works better with OSX than it does with windows...

I click Network in the Finder, then select the domain I want. Then I double click on the machine I want to connect to. All of my passwords are stored in my keychain so the share just mounts.

I can't count how many times I've gotten the "could not map drive because of conflicting credentials" error message in windows...

In other news

[glsunder (241984)]

After publishing a questionable study about macs, Jupiter Research's exposure went up dramatically.

This report has to be wrong

[Redundant offtopic t (603262)]

Or at least the report of the report.

On the face of it, if that large a percentage were using Macs, Apple would have shown tremendous market share gains in its past several quarterly announcements, and its share would now be somewhere in the neighborhood of HP/Compaq. (The ~33% gain of this last announcement was Apple's own year over year--terrific, and I'm glad I own stock--but not against the industry as a whole.)

I agree with an earlier post, that the percentages must be the amount of businesses that have at least one Mac, not the percentage of employees using Macs.

Follow the Leader

[ndansmith (582590)]

I think that the example of some high profile companies (read: Google) using Mac and Linux predominantly has helped Mac OS X gain ground in the business world. For instance, if you read on Google's job opportunities pages, you find that Mac OS X skills are valued as much or more than Windows skills.

Just thought I would add: 100 computers on my network, two of which are Macs (graphic design and music recording).

Terminal

[twistedcubic (577194)]

I have to admit that I love the terminal program on OSX. The computer lab I use has 100 windows PCs and 8 Macs, which are never used, and not having to stand in line is the reason I started using the Mac away from home. It's amazing how much work I can get done comfortably because Mac OSX comes with SSH and GNU Screen already installed. I'm almost tempted to buy a Mac, but there is just too much useful software that works in GNU/Linux w/o a compatibility layer, that I would definitely miss.

We would in a heartbeat...

[raddan (519638)]

...if only our intranet apps would run on OSX. Isn't that ironic? Our web based applications won't run in another web browser. Hell, they won't run on Windows XP SP2! Where's the value? Whenever I use this line of reasoning with anyone around here, all I get is angry looks. This sh*t would have been more portable if it had been written in C!

But I would love to switch our regular desktop users over to OSX, especially remote users. We could get rid of that totally cruddy and barely functional POS that is is Checkpoint, and switch to the simpler and easier-to-understand SSL tunnels. Once you see the beauty that is timed startups & shutdowns + radmind, you'd never want to go back to Windows...

As for linux... Yeah, linux is fun and all, but it ain't ready for regular people. I'd much sooner roll out a BSD than linux -- and this is why I ditched linux myself -- I am sick and tired of dealing with dependency hell. Even my 'easy' Gentoo box sucked days of my life from me...

learn some english, please. i'm begging you.

[illtron (722358)]

I'm sure this will be labelled as trolling, but the illiterate person who submitted this item is apparently unaware that "environs" is not the same thing as "environment." "Environs" is the area surrounding something. So apparently Mac OS X is hanging out somewhere near corporations, perhaps in the parking lots.

"Environs" [reference.com]

switch 1/4 of the office

[pherein (901977)]

sun solaris servers, and 1/4 of the office was switched to mac ox, 3/4 use windows xp.
Mac os x has made a huge difference in our corporation.
Techs actually learn unix.
downtime is reduced 80%
no compatibility problems
opensource resources are outstanding
job performance increased 40%
no real security worries
wireless is almost flawless
bluetooth KB, mouse, phone work as well as windows
greatly reduced cost
the list just goes on, and we have plans to switch the entire 200 person corp. in 1 year
I got to say any director of IT who is not looking into this is just negligent. Network engineering is not a preference. You have to use what works at the time.
We estimate windows longhorn will be at this lvl in 2009.
Most users are diehard windows user, but using this OS have changed everyones opinion. Going to the apple store and people actually care about helping them, at no charge, and simple stuff like finding a file written 3 years ago in 20 secs.
I personally think that the os ranting is very childish. You ask urself what companies space suit you would wear on the moon. I guaranty most would be using the apple or sun space suit right now. Those wearing the MS space suit would die at the first freeze of the OS running the space suit. I can't bet my life or my business on what I like, I use what gives it the best chance for survival. Thats my job.

Hmm...17 percent of the employees...

[greymond (539980)]

I wonder if that is 17% of actual employees or 17% of actual systems. 17% seems high...

The place I work at has 4 main offices, each with ±40 people. Of the ±40 at each office we have ±4 people in the marketing departments at each who use Apple systems exclusively. That's a solid 10% for Employees/Mac Users. But how many Apple machines is that?

Well if each of the ±40 people have 1 PC, this includes the Marketing dept, since their web related stuff is done on PC's, then the ±4 users each have a Mac, now include the ±3 PC servers in each office (Mail, Marketing, CompanyShare) we have ±47 machines in each building ±4 of which are Mac that leaves us with Macs being 8.5% of the total amount of systems in the office.

Now obviously my company isn't the same as everyone else, but I'd be willing to bet that either that number is fudged in Apples favor a bit, or the numbers reflect PC's being tossed out while unused Macs sit around in inventory for a while. Which I believe could influence the numbers since at my work we only USE 4 systems for the 4 people, but there are 4 G4's that are sitting in storage as "backups" in case one of the G5's goes down, and we don't keep old PC's at all. They get donated soon as they are unplugged.

Linux for server/special projects - OS X for desk

[Listen Up (107011)]

I will preface this post by saying that I have +20 years of computing experience as both a developer and administrator. I have developed or administered almost every kind of UNIX out there (including NeXtStep and OpenStep) and every edition of Windows. While the Macintosh was not the greatest in the 1990's, Mac OS X changed everything. I have used Linux as both a desktop and a server since Redhat's Mother's Day release in the early 1990's.

Linux is perfect for background servers and special cost sensitive, in-house specially developed projects where licensing fees are important. Mac OS X is the perfect UNIX for the desktop and is beginning to make in-roads into enterprise rack servers.

The Linux community brings it on themselves. Linux will always be a niche in the desktop computing world. And while it is sometimes fun and interesting to try Linux on the desktop, Mac OS X is what Linux will always wish it could be.

Mac OS X is all the UNIX you could want with a simply brilliantly designed, fully featured, and consistent user interface, exceptional ease of use and administration with an excellent unified package management system. Everything you always wish you could have had on UNIX is now here on Mac OS X. Absolutely brilliant.

If you bash on Mac OS X it is because you have never used it before or you are too afraid to admit it kicks Linux's ass on the desktop. Linux zeolots are afraid to admit that Linux on the desktop sucks. All of the Linux zeolots I have listened to over the years all live in their own little world. And if they never realize it and never change their views, and if they don't get their act together and all work towards a common unified platform for desktop computing, Linux on the desktop will always suck. And they will continue to live in their own little world. End of the story.

Re:Linux for server/special projects - OS X for de

[Listen Up (107011)]

And for most people, Linux is only a hobby OS and nothing more. Something to play with when you have spare time to tinker around with it.

Entry by Stealth

[Nice2Cats (557310)]

We're a Windows-only shop (about 200 people), by contract, it seems, but the number of people using Macs at home is skyrocketing -- including, I should say, the head systems administrator, who uses iMovie on his Mac Mini to burn DVDs of his kids. It is common for people to come back home from vacation and press F9 (Expose) or, increasingly, F12 (Dashboard), and then stare at the screen, waiting for things to happen. Personally, I miss Spotlight most of all.

Anyway, by now we have achieved a sort of critical mass -- if you randomly ask somebody about a virus problem, you are just as likely to get a shrug, a smile, and a response along the lines of "what's a virus?" And every time our Windows servers go down, you get a stream of sarcastic comments. The interesting thing: The Windows people don't defend Windows -- it seems they use it, but have no love for it, either.

Sooner or later, this all is going to have an effect on management. I don't think we're going to switch our main systems anytime soon -- too expensive -- but if there are secondary things that need to be installed, Apple might have themselves a bridgehead.

Re:Less is not more?

[Colonel Panic (15235)]

The only thing that surprises me about this statement is that companies are willing to spend 2x as much on the hardware and the additional money on the OS.

The perception is that the extra money up-front is worth it in the long term especially when compared to the Virus maintenance required for Windows boxen.

Also, the perception in businesses is that it's worthwhile to pay extra as compared to running Linux on cheap PCs because they don't believe that Linux will be cost effective to maintain when compared to OS X (this may or may not be true, like I said it's a perception). While Linux has made huge strides toward the desktop in recent years, it's still got a ways to go to be as usable as OS X.

Re:Less is not more?

[tolkienfan (892463)]

Please!

The collective term for Unix systems is boxen.

The collective term for Windows is "crap"

Re:Less is not more?

[technomancerX (86975)]

Yeah, in corporate environments it's probably not as big of a deal but when you are talking 25+ of 10k+ machines that's a lot of cash you could have saved by going w/cheaper hardware and a free OS.

10k+? A loaded dual G5 with dual 30" displays doesn't even come out to 10k. Apples are a bit more expensive than Wintel machines, but they're not THAT expensive.

2X where do you get that number?

[MushMouth (5650)]

You have to look at what companies are buying for machines. Something like a Dell Laptop (extremely popular) is comperable in price to an Apple Laptop

Dell Precision M70 1.6GHz/80Gig/256Mb/15.4" lcd $2,400 + (Tax everywhere)

Apple G4 1.5GHz/80Gig/512Mb/15.2" lcd $2,000 + (tax in california only)

Re:2X where do you get that number?

[rsborg (111459)]

And arguably, the G4 is a faster CPU

As a noted Apple apologist, I'd like to say: this is completely impossible. The P-M is much faster than a G4 of the same or even greater clockspeed... in fact probably on par with an Athlon 64 for non-64bit operations.

Now, all those nice virii/spyware/company anti-virus-defense cruft that your Windows box will attract... now that may make it seem like the Mac with the G4 is much faster :-)

Re:Less is not more?

[the_rev_matt (239420)]

Clearly you don't do purchasing for large enterprises. I'm in an organization known for being cheap and the 'low end' machines they buy are in the $900-$1200 range (though with bulk discounts I'm sure it's less than that). A high end machine will be $1800-$2500. Gee, that's what a G5 tower costs.

Fortune 1000 companies don't build their own boxes from parts they find on pricewatch, and they don't buy eMachines boxes. They buy mid range and high end Dell/HP/Gateway boxes and pay the same price they'd pay for an Apple box.

Re:Less is not more?

[Lumpy (12016)]

Dude have you ever seen a rack full of apple servers?

it makes the crap from Dell,HP and IBM look like throwback toys from 1989.

The local Apple dealer had a 7 foot rack full of them with their apple flatpanel + pullout keyboard tray that also looked to be the "brushed aluminum" n their lobby as a demo... IT guys for miles were drooling and messing their pants.

if I was a CTO trying to impress my other billionare buddies, a datacenter full of apple equipment is more impressive looking than even SUN or Silicon graphics gear, Dell and HP dont have a chance when it comes to pure sex appeal of their server gear.

Re:Less is not more?

[BoomerSooner (308737)]

Exactly. 90%+ of the cost of running my business is employees. Hardware and software, while not cheap are significantly less expensive over time.

For example:
12K Server estimated lifespan = 3 years = 4K/year
36K Support Person 1 year at 3 years runs you 108K. Not to mention the extra 6K/year in Payroll Taxes & FICA Matching or the 6K/year in insurance coverage by the company bringing the 3 year total to 144K.

Keeping hardware and software up to date to make certain your *expensive* employees can do their job is the best investment a company can make.

Re:One Place Windows beats OSX

[MarcQuadra (129430)]

I'd rather pay $129 every 18 or 36 months (it's OK to do every-other release, you know) than be on the Windows treadmill of utilities to keep the machine running properly. Don't forget that you get the functional equivalent of several commercial apps with OSX and iLife, including Ghost and the ability to run all the GNU tools natively.

We just transitioned from OS X to Windows in a department at my work, and the software licensing per machine went from about $350/year under the Macs to over $700/year for the PCs (they now need a bunch of Adobe apps since they can't print-to-pdf, organize photos, or have their machines reimaged like they used to)

Macs work just fine in corporate Windows environs

[revscat (35618)]

I'm sitting here in a corporate, Windows-centric environment, and I'm happily using a Mac. (And surfing /., but we'll ignore that for the moment.)

My work environment is typical: Exchange server for email, MS Office for spreadsheets and word processing, etc. Guess what? I'm happy as a clam. Mail.app can connect to the Exchange server, Entourage handles the calendar (and mail, but I prefer Mail.app), Office for OS X works just fine and is completely seemless when exchanging documents with people on Windows, and I can connect to and mount any share on the network. I can, in short, do everything I want or need.

And I'm running OS X, not Windows, and that in and of itself is worth a lot.

There is only one application we use (our source control software, which somewhat ironically is written in Java) that does not run on OS X, and whenever I need that I just Remote Desktop in to my PC and do what I need.

Unless Macs are being used as servers as well as desktops, I don't see them doing as good a job as Windows or Linux for their respective 'corporate' environments.

I can tell you from personal (and daily!) experience that this isn't the case. Macs work quite well even in an almost exclusively Windows environment.

Mod Up

[tabdelgawad (590061)]

The Jupiter report is not accessible, but it's either worthless or being grossly misquoted by Macworld. 1 in 5?! Where are those Fortune 500 companies that have announced rollouts of Macs as replacements for their IBM and Dell Wintel machines?

Important research!

[jfengel (409917)]

You should definitely publish your results in J. Anecdotal Evidence.

Re:A whole lot of whatever

[tolkienfan (892463)]

"There really isn't anything wrong with Windows at work."

So there's nothing wrong with the usual windows experiences like:

1. Downtime (the Exchange servers where I consult are constantly dropping).
2. Virii. Our IT staff do a great job of keeping virii out, but the work this entails is very costly. And when a virus does get through, it's even more costly.
3. Incompatibility. The Microsoft world does not play well with others. They change SMB, Kerberos, the TCP/IP stack and sockets programming. They even cha