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OS X Operating Systems Businesses Apple

Mac OS X Gaining Ground In Corporate Environs 585

Posted by Zonk from the moving-on-up dept.
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.'"
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Mac OS X Gaining Ground In Corporate Environs More

Mac OS X Gaining Ground In Corporate Environs

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  • Great! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by davecrusoe ( 861547 ) on Friday July 22, 2005 @02:56PM (#13137842) Homepage
    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! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Egorn ( 82375 ) on Friday July 22, 2005 @02:57PM (#13137856) Homepage
      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.

      • "I'd be more likely to run Linux now than ever."

        Why didn't you buy a Linux box in the first place? How did OS X help you feel more comfortable with "Linux/Shell" environments than you think you'd have gotten with some distro of Linux?

        • Re:Great! (Score:4, Insightful)

          by ciroknight ( 601098 ) on Friday July 22, 2005 @03:20PM (#13138127)
          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 ;).

          • Re:Great! (Score:3, Insightful)

            by cmacb ( 547347 )
            You lost me there. How is it any different than if Dell, HP or IBM provided a turnkey Linux box? There is no technical obstacle to this. It is more of a chicken and egg problem. Big names will provide turnkey Linux boxes once Linux gets more popular (which would happen quickly if big names provided turnkey Linux boxes).

            And by provided, I of course mean provided with continuing support.

            The other chicken and egg problem of course is convincing people that standard interfaces (HTML, RTF, even DOC format

            • Re:Great! (Score:4, Insightful)

              by dloose ( 900754 ) on Friday July 22, 2005 @05:14PM (#13139442)
              "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! (Score:3, Insightful)

                by Ogerman ( 136333 )
                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.

                I think you are a bit out of touch with the fact that nearly all users simply use what is provided to them -- whether by Dell/HP/etc., Apple, or their employer. The notion that Linux must be perfectly easy to install so that people can convert their old machines is somewhat nonsense. Most consumers just thr

          • Can be summarized as... (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Mr. Cancelled ( 572486 ) on Friday July 22, 2005 @06:04PM (#13139936)
            "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! (Score:5, Insightful)

          by ThinkingInBinary ( 899485 ) <thinkinginbinary ... AGOom minus city> on Friday July 22, 2005 @03:30PM (#13138235) Homepage

          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! (Score:5, Insightful)

          by soft_guy ( 534437 ) on Friday July 22, 2005 @06:49PM (#13140337)
          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! (Score:3, Insightful)

        by 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! (Score:3, Insightful)

          by javaxman ( 705658 )
          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.

          That last bit about OS X being less daunting is a bit of an understatement.

          There is one single reason why I'd still run Linux, though. I still have a PC at home that I haven't decided yet to get rid of. I never use it, because I have a iMac, but... hmmm... maybe I'll throw Linux on it and tinker. But it

      • Re:Great! (Score:3, Interesting)

        by 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! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by RUFFyamahaRYDER ( 887557 ) <slashdot@kelMOSCOWsdomain.com minus city> on Friday July 22, 2005 @03:00PM (#13137908) Homepage
      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.
      • If this could mean better, cheaper XP Pro/Server and the demise of Windows XP Crippled Editions (Starter and Home), I would be fairly happy.

        Now, I wonder why large companies would have such a large proportion of Mac users. My guess is this is largely thanks to large corporations' overweight marketing departments. With companies ditching engineering and manufacturing, marketing is the only thing still going strong and the graphists they employ typically love Apple stuff.

      • Re:Great! (Score:3, Interesting)

        by 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

      • Re:Great! (Score:3, Funny)

        by nathanh ( 1214 )

        You are exactly right.... so for all you out there who hate Apple you should think about this:

        Where does this Apple Martyr Syndrome come from? I don't think many people hate Apple. I think most of us recognise that they're a nifty company that launched the PC industry with the Apple II. They make some decent products and 25+ years of continued success is proof that they're doing something right.

        Now Apple users, damn I hate you guys. You lot can all go to hell.

  • But .. (Score:5, Funny)

    by karvind ( 833059 ) <karvind.gmail@com> on Friday July 22, 2005 @02:58PM (#13137861) Journal
    But you told me One Third of All Studies Are Nonsense [slashdot.org]
  • 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.
    • Yeah, that does sound a little odd to me. I've worked in some not-tiny-but-not-small-either corporate environments (200-300 people) and I never saw one Mac. Is that just a function of the size of the company, where a few hundred hasn't broken the barrier of whatever-it-is yet?

      -Jesse

    • Re:Why does that sound a little off? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Nightlily ( 140378 ) on Friday July 22, 2005 @03:07PM (#13137979) Homepage Journal
      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%.
    • Yeah, and the report that is referenced in TFA [jup.com] isn't available to the public-at-large. So I'm left wondering about the veracity of the statements made.

      I'm in agreement with another poster who posted that it seems far more plausible that 17-21% of companies had 1+ employees using Mac OS X, not that 17-21% of employees at large companies were using Mac. I think the author at MacWorld may very well be taking liberties with the wording of the report.

      Anyone have access to the report that can post the relevan
    • Is it perhaps that in those businesses, 17% and 21% had people using Macs?

      I read that a bit differently. As I first read it, it seemed to say that in a given individual business, there were this percentage of Mac users, with the rest presumably being PC users. Not that the stated percentage of businesses were exclusively Mac.

    • 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 call shenanigans on this survey. I've worked educational and corporate IT, and Macs have NEVER been this prevalent. This article's suggesting that 1 in 5 business desktops are macs. Sales show this is more like 10x the real figure.
    • The last company I worked for had the entire advertising department and copyeditors on macs. That was like 150 machines out of pry 500. So I believe it at least from the pov of my exp.

    • Mod Up (Score:3, Insightful)

      by 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! (Score:5, Funny)

      by jfengel ( 409917 ) on Friday July 22, 2005 @03:48PM (#13138457) Homepage Journal
      You should definitely publish your results in J. Anecdotal Evidence.
    • I call shenanigans on your bullshit post.

      "I've working in educational and corporate IT" (and in fact do now), and I can say that Macs are extremely prevalent in academic, government, and research environments, and everyone in those environments knows it. It's hard to walk around a large research campus or a national lab without seeing Macs everywhere. So while I'm not making any claims whether Macs are 1 in 5 business desktops, to say that Macs aren't prevalent in bullshit.

      And by the way, just as an examp
      • So while I'm not making any claims whether Macs are 1 in 5 business desktops, to say that Macs aren't prevalent in bullshit.

        He didn't say they weren't prevelant, he just said they weren't that prevelant. Even the most Mac heavy organizations I have seen might be 50% Apple machines overall. Factor in all those companies where the Mac usage hoovers around 0%, and there is NO WAY that 21% of computers are Macs.

        To further call shenanigans an the article, note that it doesn't say Macs, it says Mac OSX. Tha
    • No, they're saying that in businesses larger than 250 people, 1 in 5 computers are Macintoshes. That is a very, very different thing than "1 in 5 business desktops are macs." Some people work for companies that have fewer than 250 people.

      Really, this makes sense to me: Every large (250+ employee) business I've worked for or at has had an in-house graphic design staff (using Macs). The only small (250 employee) businesses I've worked for that had any Mac users were advertising and other creative firms. Big

  • I think they meant.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Skip Head ( 262362 ) on Friday July 22, 2005 @02:59PM (#13137879) Homepage
    "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.... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ecklesweb ( 713901 ) on Friday July 22, 2005 @04:10PM (#13138730)
      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? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by nickos ( 91443 ) on Friday July 22, 2005 @02:59PM (#13137880)
    Why does the share of employees running Mac OS X increase as the company gets bigger?
    • Larger companies can afford to support multiple platforms since the cost is spread out among more users?
    • Replying to my own post, but I think the guy who posted before me [slashdot.org] is right.

      Swap "X% of employees were running Mac OS X" to "X% of companies had one or more employees running Mac OS X" and it makes much more sense...
    • My guess is that larger companies are more likely to have marketing and advertising divisions than smaller companies and that those are going to be most/all OSX.

  • didn't poll us obviously... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by boomerny ( 670029 ) on Friday July 22, 2005 @03:00PM (#13137896)
    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.
  • The few data points they give us alone mean nothing. These percentages aren't exclusive, and don't tell us what percentage of machines at these businesses are using OS X. What if they marked "Yes" because they have one computer in the corner running it? It's too bad you have to be a paying subscriber to Jupiter Research to be able to view their actual data. Anyone have some more details? As it stands, this data is pretty useless and difficult to draw conclusions from.

    I'm not surprised based on who rep

  • A new world for Apple (Score:5, Interesting)

    by chia_monkey ( 593501 ) on Friday July 22, 2005 @03:02PM (#13137924) Journal
    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. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Captain Scurvy ( 818996 ) on Friday July 22, 2005 @03:03PM (#13137939)
    '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.

  • OS X Is brilliant (Score:2, Interesting)

    by coopaq ( 601975 )
    Can I just say as a developer/admin/user/artist of many years that OS X is the most brilliant OS I've used.

    I hate to blow smoke up Steve Jobs arse, but even with all the little quirks you get "everything" in the os you could want. Unix, Graphics, usability.

    Being able to run this OS on the most abundant and popular hardware* in the next year or so is going to really be awesome for OS X.

    If I was a musician also I'd probably never leave the house.

    My point is from top to bottom it has it all.

    If you use

    • "OS X blows the doors off what Amiga wanted to be."

      Except without the fun custom chips. When OS X runs on a Playstation we'll have something comparable...
    • Being able to run this OS on the most abundant and popular hardware* in the next year or so is going to really be awesome for OS X.

      You're right about blowing smoke. Your OSX next year is only going to run on Apple Intel hardware. You're not going to be buying cheap boxen from Dell for it.

      But on the upside, you'll be able to run Windows Longhorn on your shiney new Apple-Intel tower -- if it ever ships, that is.

  • Makes Sense (Score:4, Interesting)

    by WatertonMan ( 550706 ) on Friday July 22, 2005 @03:06PM (#13137966)

    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 (Score:3, Informative)

      by 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 (Score:5, Funny)

    by glsunder ( 241984 ) on Friday July 22, 2005 @03:06PM (#13137978)
    After publishing a questionable study about macs, Jupiter Research's exposure went up dramatically.
  • And when I have a few extra bucks to spend, I will buy myself one. But in a workplace unless I'm a graphic designer (and even then, the AMD PCs tend to render faster, ala Star Wars and Sin City), I don't think it's worth it for me in a corporate environment.

    What does a corporate environment need? I mean, it's easy to throw numbers out like this, but a Mac cannot achieve a lot of what is needed in corporate environments. Linux on the other hand, can do that -- Red Hat and Novell's SUSE distros have enterpri

    • Macs work just fine in corporate Windows environs (Score:4, Interesting)

      by revscat ( 35618 ) on Friday July 22, 2005 @03:41PM (#13138360) Journal
      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.

  • That it doesnt matter who's the best, or the worst, but as long corporations feel that they have someone to blame when something goes wrong.

    They want an alternative, but when one stares them in the face, they still choose something that while nice, (and yes, I lust for a 15" powerbook, too) will require you to repurchase every single bit of functional software you have, to make it useful. And most of the things that someone would use a mac for, are not cheap applications, photoshop, office, illustrator, et
  • Why do I automatically think "Windows" when I read a phrase like "increasing penetration in the business world...?"
  • 'Companies that were considering Linux are now buying Mac OS X instead.

    Here all along I thought one of the main reasons for using Linux was its availability for the low low price of FREE! This along with the fact that it doesn't require closed hardware supplied only by a single vendor. Boy was I wrong.

  • This report has to be wrong (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Redundant offtopic t ( 603262 ) on Friday July 22, 2005 @03:14PM (#13138062)
    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 (Score:4, Informative)

    by ndansmith ( 582590 ) on Friday July 22, 2005 @03:15PM (#13138073)
    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).

  • We have a small (60 people) shop and allow our users to chose their platforms and applications. About 6 people have OSX and maybe 2 have Linux (for desktop). The others have various Windows iterations. A couple have switched over to OpenOffice. When allowed to chose and given enough information, users sometimes gravitate to non-MS solutions.
  • /me peeks under desk /me peeks in boardroom /me peeks in pr department /me peeks in noc Hmmm...for a company of 12,000, I sure wish I knew where they hid all these Macs! Seriously though, I wish this were the case, and perhaps it is...somewhere, but I haven't seen it in the last 4 places I've worked (I'm a contrator). Anyone with more sightings? Are they replacing desktops (/me hopes) or are the Xserves going to take off? (/me doubtful)

  • Terminal (Score:3, Interesting)

    by twistedcubic ( 577194 ) on Friday July 22, 2005 @03:25PM (#13138172)
    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.

  • Common hatred (Score:2, Insightful)

    by RingDev ( 879105 )
    Nothing will rile up a bunch of linux users like a mention of Microsoft and Windows. But nothing riles up Windows users like mentioning Apple.

    Linux still has a long way to go in usability polishing, but it's getting there. As a recent Ubuntu convert myself I keep running into situations where I miss the polish pro of XP. Another year or so, and I think we'll be closer.

    -Rick

  • We would in a heartbeat... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by raddan ( 519638 ) on Friday July 22, 2005 @03:38PM (#13138328)
    ...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. (Score:4, Funny)

    by illtron ( 722358 ) on Friday July 22, 2005 @04:39PM (#13139072) Homepage Journal
    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]

  • Desktop vs. Server (Score:3, Insightful)

    by fupeg ( 653970 ) on Friday July 22, 2005 @06:02PM (#13139926)
    From TFA:
    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.
    What's this? Intelligent choices being made by PHBs?
    Nine percent of companies with 250 employees or more used Mac OS X Server, while 14 percent of companies with 10,000 employees or more used Apple's Server software.
    Ahh, now that's more like it. OSX Server is really crap becuase of OSX's poor thread management [anandtech.com]. So if the first statistic is true, then the second one makes sense, i.e. it's just a knee-jerk reaction. There are many good arguments for OSX on desktops over Linux, but very few ones for OSX Server over Linux. Of course there are certainly good ones for OSX (or Linux) over Windows just based real security risks.

  • switch 1/4 of the office (Score:5, Informative)

    by pherein ( 901977 ) on Friday July 22, 2005 @06:51PM (#13140353)
    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... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by greymond ( 539980 ) on Friday July 22, 2005 @06:51PM (#13140354) Homepage Journal
    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.

  • What platforms are slashdot readers using? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by geddes ( 533463 ) on Friday July 22, 2005 @07:04PM (#13140446)
    I'd be interested in seeing slash-dot publish their readership percentages over time. I wonder if the overall percentage of slashdot readers that are on linux has gone down while the overall percentage on a mac have gone up.

  • Linux for server/special projects - OS X for desk (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Listen Up ( 107011 ) on Friday July 22, 2005 @07:07PM (#13140473)
    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.

  • implausible (Score:3, Informative)

    by cahiha ( 873942 ) on Friday July 22, 2005 @11:26PM (#13141892)
    I think that story and those statistics are implausible, both given how big businesses operate and given Apple's actual sales figures.

    Furthermore, the suggestion that OS X is an alternative to Linux indicates a lack of understanding of what Linux is all about and why it's being adopted.

  • Entry by Stealth (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Nice2Cats ( 557310 ) on Saturday July 23, 2005 @04:11AM (#13142899)
    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.

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