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.'"
Coming through the VP ranks... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Coming through the VP ranks... (Score:1, Interesting)
I must say, the daily cursing and swearing at computer screens went down significantly...
Re:Odd... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Enterprise Central Management (Score:3, Interesting)
apple lacks good Enterprise desktop hardware (Score:4, Interesting)
The I-macs are not easy to open as well and they can not fit in to the same space as desktop + screen on it's own can. It may fit but the side loading cd / dvd may be hard to use then also Built-in iSight camera can be big NO NO some places.
support for mac (Score:2, Interesting)
What I find frustrating is that in many cases a Mac cannot be used, and there is really no legitimate reason. To continue the above analogy, while their may not be Snap-On tools for all, certain persons might use such tools, and some persons might wish to buy such tools. There is nothing that says "only Stanley tools can be used in this shop". And I am not talking about application or support issues. Those have been dealt with for a very long time through end user experience and emulation. What I am talking about are decisions made to reduce short term costs that prevent long term flexibility. These decisions prevent the use of Macs much more than support or applications issues. In fact the I bet the custom development is most likely due to previous ill fated short term development decisions.
Re:Stereotyping of "Creatives"? (Score:3, Interesting)
The person who we fired a year or so ago, whose job (Graphic Artist) I am now doing in addition to my other jobs (Webmaster, Database Reporting) was PC-phobic to the point where the company bought her a Dual G5 2.0 GHz to do her work on. It is now sitting to the right of me running OSX 10.4 and pissing me off, but that's another story. At least 10.4 fixed the "need-a-refresh-button-because-OSX-is-fucking-reta rded" problem...
Anyway the point is that she claimed she needed a mac to do her job, but every piece of software she used was available on the PC and the real problem was that she was phobic. She couldn't bend her mind around putting her pinky on the control key instead of the command key or something like that, or maybe she just believed her friends who told her the PC was for games. Now I have to deal with the mac, which is the only mac in the whole damned organization.
Supporting it isn't very difficult, especially now that there's a ntfs-3g driver for OSX, and now that I've upgraded to 10.4 which means I can use FUSE which in turn means I can use ntfs-3g.
Mac: not ready for a mixed enterprise environment (Score:4, Interesting)
On the above mentioned web page, the conclusion is:
"we officially withdraw the statement that NIS features are compatible with current versions of 10.4."
I cannot agree more. Mac OS X is certainly not enterprise ready to be integrated in mixed environments.
Re:{first 6 lines of post go here} (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Odd... (Score:4, Interesting)
Here's a thought that popped into my head...maybe the ratios are a bit off due to the low volume of Macs in the installed base?
Here's why I say that: Say you have two PC techs and two Mac techs. Your installed user base is 200 PCs and 100 Macs. The ratios of techs to computers are 1:100 and 1:50, PC and Mac respectively.
In the surface, you have twice as many Mac techs as PC techs for a given user base. Does this mean you have to provide twice the support for the Macs? No. You need two techs as a minimum because there will be times where one is sick, on vacation, etc. You could double, or maybe even triple the installed base, but not need to get more techs, because the workload is still within the capability of your current tech support.
I guess the point I'm making is that you need to have a minimum amount of support regardless of your user base. A realistic comparison can only be made when you have an equal number of PCs and Macs in the user base, or enough of an installed user base to require more than the minimum amount of support personnel.
After all, if the ratio of users to techs turns out mathematically to be 100:1, and you have 46 users, it's hard to hire half a person (unless you contract out for on-call support, but that's getting beyond the scope of my comment.)
Maybe the article points this out and I should read it, but that's the thought that comes to mind.
Re:Higher TCO? (Score:2, Interesting)
I gotta say though... we love our Macs here, despite the problems...the genius bar folks are great and help get things resolved very quickly...and they are definitely doing something right given Apple's revenues!
-Stacey http://www.hyperic.com/ [hyperic.com]
Re:Enterprise Central Management (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What a crappy article && a question for (Score:3, Interesting)
There is another alternative... if the replacement machine is running OS X 10.4 and already has a standard system build or anything on it, you can run Migration Assistant on it with the broken machine connected in target mode. If you're not familiar with Migration Assistant, it's sort of like Files and Settings Transfer Wizard on XP, but much better. It will pull over non-Apple applications and all user data, nearly seamlessly. I use it all the time when I roll out replacement machines to people, and it has made my life much easier. The only issues I see are occasionally some applications that require activation will need to be reactivated on the replacement machine. You can find Migration Assistant in
~Philly
Re:{first 6 lines of post go here} (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What a crappy article && a question for (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm not quite up on the Windows stuff, but I believe that roaming profiles are just network mounted home directories, appropriate metadata and central authentication.
On the other hand Apple's portable home directories are designed for laptops, a sometimes connected model. When a user connects their computer to your network, the user's home directory (or the parts of it that are pre-selected) automatically syncs with a copy of their home directory on the server.
I'm not sure what your managed mac environment currently looks like. At the least you'll need some form of network home directories, over samba/MS's SMB/CIFS or NFS. If you've got an existing AD environment that could work. If these laptops never come onto your network, then it's unreasonable to provide backups and you should totally tell your users that.
See the "User Management for Portable Computers" section of this document:
http://images.apple.com/server/pdfs/User_Manageme
Isaac