Hi, I'm a Mac, and I'm Your Enterprise Computer 469
Esther Schindler writes "Not just another 'why big companies should adopt Macs' article, CIO is running a piece assuming that Macs are already on the way in the door. Hi, I'm a Mac, and I'm Your Enterprise Computer offers advice to IT managers about how to integrate Apple systems into the existing IT infrastructure, and offers hints from leading Mac OS X experts on configuring those systems once they've arrived. '[A] key element in corporate Macintosh adoption is the importance of third-party software and custom solutions. They can help smooth the way for integrating Macs onto the network. While specialists say they wish third-party support were greater, the openness of the Mac makes correcting issues possible. Don't discount the lure of the well-worn path that draws and then traps your IT staff into familiar habits.'"
Re:Enterprise Central Management (Score:5, Informative)
Apple Remote Desktop, VNC (Score:5, Informative)
I manage a small cluster of Macintoshes (for video production) in a 95% Windows shop. If anything, I think I have a far easier time than the IT Service that maintains the Windows machines (they often have a lot of complex licensing issues to wade through).
Re:Enterprise Central Management (Score:3, Informative)
Netboot on Macs really works very well too. You can plug a new Mac into your network, hold down a key on boot, select the image you'd like it to run and after it downloads it, you're off and running, new computer completely configured to your spec.
Re:End Users are Monkeys... (Score:3, Informative)
Do me a favour... (Score:5, Informative)
I know for a fact that both Dell and HP's "enterprise" desktop systems with a 19" flat screen monitor are about $650. (HP DC7700 for example) This includes an Intel Core2 Duo, 1.0 GB of ram, an 100 GB SATA hdd, integrated Intel graphics, and a SATA DVD/CD-RW combo drive. Dell's product is very similar but a little bit less ($750). Both systems as I said, come with a 19" flat screen.
The cheapest iMac is the $999 iMac, which is only 512 MB (but does have a larger hdd). I'd love to know the corporate pricing. To move to the 19"... add another 200 to that. Still, thats retail store, so someone kindly provide the corporate pricing.
Till Apple has prices that are similar, no large enterprise in their right minds would make the move, considering most of those, if not all of the fortune 500's are running Windows on the desktop....
Re:Higher TCO? (Score:5, Informative)
Our support call issues, excluding hardware, were about 20:1 (windows:mac), but 8:1 (est) hardware.
The time to fix a Windows problem was usually quicker though.
"Error 3" popping up when a program crashes usually
Re:End Users are Monkeys... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Do me a favour... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Higher TCO? (Score:3, Informative)
Entourage is the biggest source of headaches. Get rid of that steaming pile and you're much better off.
Re:Enterprise Central Management (Score:5, Informative)
There are many applications and platforms out there that do this, including:
Apple Remote Desktop [apple.com]
LANDesk Management Suite [landesk.com]
Casper Management Software [jamfsoftware.com]
LanDesk is a cross platform solution. There are also management extensions available that allows you to integrate Mac workstations into your existing Microsoft SMS 2003 environment if thats whats being used: http://www.quest.com/quest-management-xtensions-f
I'm sure there are more out there. Just look. Most of these tools have been available for the last several years.
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Enterprise Central Management (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.apple.com/remotedesktop/newfeatures.ht
Re:I smell a rat (Score:3, Informative)
That article is almost four years old. Many improvements were made with Mac OS X 10.4
Open Directory [apple.com] is based on OpenLDAP. It's mentioned at least five times on that page.
Re:Higher TCO? (Score:2, Informative)
Better luck next time you play "Guess That MacOS"
Re:Odd... (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, in my experience too, Macs require less time to support, but I've never done anything resembling a study. I can't tell you for sure whether they really took less time to support or if it just seemed that way.
It's not just that they're easier to deal with (they are) or because they're more reliable (they seem to be), but also because Apple Remote Desktop [apple.com] is an amazing help. If you have to administer to a bunch of Macs and haven't used it, it's definitely worth a look. Hint: It's not the same thing as VNC or Terminal Services.
Re:Higher TCO? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Do me a favour... (Score:3, Informative)
All the stock iMac configurations are $100 off the retail price. Upgrades are cheaper by a significant amount. Going from 2.16Ghz to 2.33Ghz is $225 instead of $250. iWork'06 is $39 instead of $79. Doubling the VRAM on the 20" is $68 instead of $75, and doubling the hard drive space is $180 instead of $200.
The 20" Cinema display is $50 off, the 23" is $100 off, and the 30" is $200 off. The standard Mac pro is $200 off. The MacBook Pros are also $200 off. A 5-pack of MacBooks with 1GB of RAM starts at $5335. The standard Xserve is $300 off.
I do not know if these prices go down further in bulk.
Apples are still a bit expensive, but with the educational discount, the remaining premium is justified. I consider it a worthwhile investment to get a quiet all-in-one like the iMac.
Deskulation with OSX (Score:2, Informative)
Keep the current keyboard, mouse and monitor, replace the PC with a 1 gig RAM/80 GB HD dual-core mini, and you're "Mac-ified" for $724.00. You can go to 120 GB HD for $824.00. Do it for a lot of desks and you should be able to do better on price - those prices are retail, onesies, direct from Apple. You get gigabit ethernet (and 10/100, of course), 4 USB 2.0 ports, a firewire 400 port, DVI/VGA monitor port, audio in and out, 1.66 GHz core speed, 24x CD/CDRW/DVD drive, and the current OSX, which includes Address Book, DVD Player, iCal, iChat AV, Mail, Preview, Web browser and even the software development system. You can slap Openoffice on there with zero trouble and zero cost, and you've got your basic corporate desktop, with a strong *nix underpinning for your power-users and an ultra-friendly, ultra-reliable GUI for everyone else.
That initial cost is in the same zone, and you get one hell of a lot better computer, operating system, hugely lessened support load, tiny desktop footprint, still have the ability to concurrently run Windows (Parallels is the way to go, but it is a few extra bucks) with OSX... I put minis all over my software company and I haven't had any cause to regret it. We don't have a single desktop that runs a PC today, nor do I anticipate we ever will again.
Re:Do me a favour... (Score:5, Informative)
Furthermore, Apple Enterprise Software Licensing and Sales are outright incompetent. I purchased ARD2.5 one month before 3.0 shipped, Sales backflipped on my eligibility for a "free" upgrade and eventually i gave up chasing down their mandarins, almost as bad as IBM. Nutty scenarios like iLife only bundled with new machines and not with OS upgrades which are stuck with inferior iPhoto etc? Arrgh!
Apple should stick to the software business and not attempt to niche hardware costs attempting to compete with the marginally profitable Asian manufacturing. Apple cannot compete on the SMB tier.
Re:Enterprise Central Management (Score:4, Informative)
Apple Remote Desktop is not a comparable product to VNC. It's not like Terminal Services, either. ARD does provide that sort of remote desktop viewing, but it also provides a bevy of other remote-management features, such as being able to install the same package on several machines or running the same script on several machines, using only a few clicks.
Macs can also connect to Windows AD servers for authentication, and Apple provides their own directory services through their own directory server. Many of the same things can be accomplished, though not always through the same methods.
Re:Do me a favour... Yeah read this (Score:3, Informative)
www.gotapex.com
Always has links to dell with the best prices. Not a corporate bulk price.
Puto
Re:Enterprise Central Management (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Do me a favour... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Odd... (Score:5, Informative)
I suppose a university environment is a bit different from a creative environment (at least outside the art/music/etc departments).
Having worked for an advertising company, yes. Sometimes, if stuff doesn't go out the door on time - millions of dollars are at stake. Advertising industries are highly competitive, even against each other (the vast majority of advertising firms are owned by less than a half-dozen holding companies...and yes, the same 'children' compete against each other.) So whether it is a proposal, presentation to the client, or artwork- if it doesn't leave with the CCO (Chief Creative Officer) on time for his flight, or get downstairs to the courier to arrive at the client or their printing house...shit hits the fan.
The closest comparison is probably "grant time" in the academic world.
The art department where I worked were the neediest; they got the fastest computers (and got 'em more often) and they were the only department with gigabit ethernet. When shit broke you had to got to drop everything and get it fixed ASAP. They also tended to have more problems because of more complexity...tons of fonts(and a font manager like Suitcase), old versions of Quark that required Classic...inDesign, Adobe Distiller printer drivers, half a dozen different kinds of printers. Nowhere nearly as complex an software matrix as the copywriters and paper pushers who just need email, Word, Safari, and to be able to print to the laserprinter in the hallway.
PARENT IS BULLSHIT (Score:5, Informative)
For network printing, Mac OS X uses CUPS[1]. And the printer drivers that you download from the manufacturers which are labeled "for Mac" are not CUPS drivers. They're local drivers only (ie. for printers physically connected to the computer with a USB cable). These local drivers can't be used for network printers.
From http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/windows/ [apple.com]
Re:Coming through the VP ranks... (Score:2, Informative)
I sold a setup to a customer in my store a while ago who loved how Parallels and XP worked, but I had to also sell him a full security setup for XP due to obvious reasons. You would be surprised how many customers have no idea what it takes to keep their machines secure on Windows systems. They figure that since they are buying Mac, they don't have to lock it down if they put Windows on it. Boy are they wrong! LOL
Re:apple lacks good Enterprise desktop hardware (Score:1, Informative)
Anybody actually doing such purchasing already knows that this is horseshit. [slashdot.org]:
Re:Higher TCO? (Score:2, Informative)
That is the rub with MACs in the enterprise, non-existent enterprise back end support for hardware, no enterprise management tools, constant integration issues.
The problem with MACs in the enterprise is Apple themselves. They don't want the market enough and don't think big even when they need to. One can look at their server line for proof...they don't offer enterprise high availability, hardware fault tolerance, nothing. They just say "Ooh, we have SAN technology". Ya, big deal. What if I need support when that goes down in the middle of the night with 10,000 users standing around? "Oooh, you'd be fooked in that case, we're at home in bed...."
Re:Enterprise Central Management (Score:1, Informative)
We are a mixed environment, with nearly equal PCs for Macs. And while Macs are easy to use in a standalone environment, our mac support, namely software distribution, is considerably more costly and taxing than our PC environment. There simply isn't a tool on the level of Microsoft's SMS, for the mac world. We wrote our own, a combination of SSH, FTP, and client side scripting. The problem is maintaining that code. Every new Apple cat release brings a somewhat major re-write of our end-point management tools.
Group Policy is another sorely missed application. It would be nice to establish a setting and ensure that setting was refreshed or enforced every 60 mins or so like we have in the PC world. We simply don't have that, besides rolling our own. And not that rolling our own is something we shouldn't do, it's just considerably more expensive, ties to a changing architecture, and requires keeping developers on-staff that have knowledge of a tool that is not used anywhere else. Maybe we should sell the tool to lower the support costs, but that's just not a business interest our execs want to take on.
My point? Apple needs to pony up the tools first.
- -
On another note: as soon as the business apps move to Apple, we'll get all of these "macs don't need anti-virus and don't have security problems" people to sing a different tune. All platforms have security problems. And while some are better than others, it should be taken into consideration just how mature the security (ahem, band-aids and duct tape) solutions are before switchly to a platform that's widely unused for those stiff, conservative business types. Our artists are fine, but they just don't draw the same crosshairs-of-a-target that are legal, HR, and finance people do.
Re:Enterprise Central Management (Score:3, Informative)
With ARD it is really easy to push anything you want out to any size group of Macs that have been configured for this. For some things you need to know a few trick involving making your own packages (like that you can create a package with just scripts to run), but the learning curve is remarkably shallow.
However, if you are trying to match group policy, then MacOS X Server, and notably the Wrokgroup Manager part of it are the way to go.
Re:Openness? (Score:3, Informative)