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Apple Businesses IT

Hi, I'm a Mac, and I'm Your Enterprise Computer 469

Posted by Zonk from the hey-there-mac dept.
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.'"
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Hi, I'm a Mac, and I'm Your Enterprise Computer More

Hi, I'm a Mac, and I'm Your Enterprise Computer

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  • At the company I'm working for, Macs are getting attention at the Vice President level where they're configured to run Windows XP in a Parallels virtual windows machine to run those must have Windows applications. Since I'm the only Mac owner on a PC-centric IT staff, I got a bit of job security as a Mac guru. I keep telling people that a Mac is PC with a better OS. :)

  • Higher TCO? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Lord Grey ( 463613 ) * on Thursday April 26, 2007 @01:35PM (#18888589)
    Printer-friendly version of the article [cio.com].

    Most of this article is pretty good, but I disagree with one of the early bits about supporting Macs in a PC-oriented office:

    For Publicis Group, the Macs have higher total cost of ownership. This is because of the particular hardware configurations and the company's corporate culture, which calls for more intense support on the Mac side.
    The article goes on to say that some of that may be because these particular Mac users whine a lot and need more help (my words), but also "... due to the nature of the tools we use on the Mac."

    This contradicts both my experience and the experience of an awful lot of tech support people I know. In PC-oriented offices where Macs are used, the tech support folks rarely have to fiddle with the Macs. The Mac apps don't seem to cause any more problems than the PC apps, so the support costs are about the same. Maybe Publicis Group is a bit more PC-oriented than the CIO is willing to admit?

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by DurendalMac ( 736637 )
      Very true for me as well. The Macs required much less work than the Windows boxes when I was working at CWU. I'm wondering if it's because some of their "creatives" at this company are assholes who want everything just right and mess stuff up themselves.

    • Re:Higher TCO? (Score:5, Informative)

      by jimstapleton ( 999106 ) on Thursday April 26, 2007 @01:41PM (#18888729) Journal
      when I did tech support, our Windows:Mac ratio was probably 10:1

      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 /is not/ helpful.

      • Re:Higher TCO? (Score:5, Funny)

        by WrongSizeGlass ( 838941 ) on Thursday April 26, 2007 @01:48PM (#18888869)

        The time to fix a Windows problem was usually quicker though.
        With all that practice I certainly would hope so. ;-)
      • "Error 3" popping up when a program crashes usually /is not/ helpful.

        Christ, you were using Mac OS 9 or earlier. How long ago was this?

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by jimstapleton ( 999106 )
          Actually it was the apple mail program in 10.2 that did that.

          Better luck next time you play "Guess That MacOS"
          • Really? I'd never seen an Error Type 3 in OS X, much less any other cryptic error message outside the once-in-a-blue-moon KP text on the screen. Interesting. Still, things have come a long way since 10.2.

            • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

              by Richard_at_work ( 517087 )
              Ive been using MacOSX since 10.3 as my main desktop and laptop, and unfortunately I have to say that Ive had a fair number of cryptic error messages with little explanation, usually only a negative number to google with (as an example and not a real number, Error -39). As a regular on #macosx on freenode, I would say that my experiences are not exactly rare either.

      • Re:Higher TCO? (Score:5, Funny)

        by Mattintosh ( 758112 ) on Thursday April 26, 2007 @02:07PM (#18889229)
        "Error 3" popping up when a program crashes usually /is not/ helpful.

        There are two ways to correct this.

        1) Find the APPL file (the executible APPLication) and open its Get Info box. Find the Memory section and double the number.
        2) Wipe the HD and install a version of the Mac OS from this millenium.

        I recommend the latter.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by 0racle ( 667029 )
      When they work, they work very well. When the OS or an app dies, well lets just say they whine and complain as much as their users do.

      Entourage is the biggest source of headaches. Get rid of that steaming pile and you're much better off.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Red Flayer ( 890720 )

      The article goes on to say that some of that may be because these particular Mac users whine a lot and need more help (my words), but also "... due to the nature of the tools we use on the Mac."
      I think you meant to say "... due to the nature of the tools who use a Mac"

      I keed, I keed.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )
      Me too. I worked in a lab that had around 50 macs and maybe five windows machines. Guess which machines needed the majority of the sysadmin's TLC.
    • What I took from that is not that it's a Mac vs. PC thing, but a typical office user vs. creative user thing. Figure, their PCs are probably your normal office drone setups. AD logon, Office, probably not much more. People log on, check their Exchange accounts, write emails and word docs, edit Excel spreadsheets, and that covers their computing needs. Connect to the one network printer down the hall... "Creatives" as they call them are probably the media department type folks. They'll have Mac Office, but

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dbrutus ( 71639 )
      I don't think that the CIO is the problem but rather his normalization of his TCO metrics.

      Here's a common support level ratio:
      Secretary on Mac requires X support
      Secretary on PC requires 1.3X support
      Creative on Mac requires 2x support
      Creative on PC requires 2.5x support

      When you have all your secretaries on PCs and all your creatives on Macs, you'll get a higher TCO on Mac when you compare the two because most people don't normalize TCO across job specialties as they should to get an apples to apples comparis

  • Odd... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DurendalMac ( 736637 ) on Thursday April 26, 2007 @01:35PM (#18888603)
    "The Macs require a greater density of field associates. Where we have 1-to-150 PC techs to users, we're somewhere down to 1-to-100 for Macs. I think that's due partly to the technology and partly due to the users. The creatives are more demanding and you have to be more responding, because those are the people that clearly create our revenue," says Anschuetz.

    That's the direct opposite of my experience (More like one Mac guy for 700-800 Macs, one PC guy for about 100-150 PCs), but I suppose a university environment is a bit different from a creative environment (at least outside the art/music/etc departments).

    • Re:Odd... (Score:4, Funny)

      by noewun ( 591275 ) on Thursday April 26, 2007 @01:40PM (#18888703) Journal
      If your average corporate user is like a drunk teenager with a loaded pistol, your average campus user is like a tantrum-throwing toddler with a bazooka.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by 644bd346996 ( 1012333 )
      I think their statistics can be explained by PC users having much lower expectations. At my university, the helpdesk people have intel iMacs running OS X and XP under parallels. I have never seen them using OS X while helping somebody. All the support calls are for windows.

    • Re:Odd... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by amper ( 33785 ) * on Thursday April 26, 2007 @02:04PM (#18889157) Journal
      It's really not that odd. Creative users tend to need more and better support. They are the "exception that proves the rule", so to speak.

      I've been supporting Macs as an independent consultant for seven years, and as part of a larger systems integration company for another five years before that. I have expertise in the fields of graphic design, photography, and audio production, among others

      Creative users tend to replace software and hardware much more often. One reason is that creative houses tend to deal with files from many other companies, to say nothing of moving files around in house, and the upgrade cycle of each individual software package tends to introduce incompatibilities that even when minor can interrupt a workflow process to the point that a significant amount of time and money is lost in dealing with the problem, so everyone tends to upgrade at the same time. When your clients and freelancers start sending you QuarkXpress 8 files that can't be opened in QuarkXpress 7, you'll upgrade too. Of course, with every new software version, the hardware requirements go up.

      Creative users, in order to be properly supported, require that their support personnel actually know something about their highly specialized field. Such people are difficult to come by, and cost a lot of money when you *do* find them [like me ;)]. It's rare that you'll find someone that's cross-trained at a high enough level to replace two or more people, so you end up consulting several different people for some issues.

      We're not talking Microsoft Office here. This is some serious shit with big money involved and little time to dick around.

      On the other hand, while there are less "enterprise" support tools for Macs, it's because they need them less. Ghost? Who needs it on a Mac? Sure, if you're doing a mass roll-out of hundreds of Macs, a multicast replication tool is nice to have, but it's nowhere near as necessary as when dealing with a Windows SID environment. Macs also break less often, and are easier to fix when they do. I would be nice, though, if Apple would do some better documentation of Open Directory. When I hear people talking about the lack of "enterprise support tools" for the Mac, they're usually approaching the problem with a Windows mindset rather than a Mac mindset.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )
      Read between the lines. He's saying that the people who actually do the work "clearly create our revenue" get faster service and so they have more techies allocated for them. They also happen to use mostly Macs.

      This is opposed to the REST of the company. They don't get as fast service because it's not quite so critical that they be able to watch YouTube and create the occasional spreadsheet to keep track of just how much money the productive people are making them.

      It doesn't have anything to do with whic
    • Well the big problem with the logic of the article is that it's not the Macs that increase the TCO; according to the quote you provided, the higher support costs would happen whether the "creative types" used PCs or Macs. I.e. PEBKAC issues exist regardless of OS; I'd guess that Publicis Group might see an even higher support:user ratio if those creative types were using Windows.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by nine-times ( 778537 )

      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 a

    • Re:Odd... (Score:5, Informative)

      by SuperBanana ( 662181 ) on Thursday April 26, 2007 @03:01PM (#18890129)

      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.

    • Re:Odd... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by frdmfghtr ( 603968 ) on Thursday April 26, 2007 @03:20PM (#18890463)

      "The Macs require a greater density of field associates. Where we have 1-to-150 PC techs to users, we're somewhere down to 1-to-100 for Macs. I think that's due partly to the technology and partly due to the users. The creatives are more demanding and you have to be more responding, because those are the people that clearly create our revenue," says Anschuetz.

      That's the direct opposite of my experience (More like one Mac guy for 700-800 Macs, one PC guy for about 100-150 PCs), but I suppose a university environment is a bit different from a creative environment (at least outside the art/music/etc departments).

      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.
  • ... then what kind of computer are they using on the Klingon ships?

    ... then what kind of computer should I use at home?

    ... then can I use my iPod as a PDA?
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by WrongSizeGlass ( 838941 )
        Oh, so sorry, but the answers I was looking for were:

        * Linux
        * Linux
        * Of course, but only if I load Linux on it.

        Hopefully you'll fare better next time you play "Default Answers For /. Readers"

    • ... then what kind of computer are they using on the Klingon ships?

      Probably a nasty old SPARC machine.

      ... then what kind of computer should I use at home?

      A Mac, of course. Why wouldn't you want to use the same kind of computer as Scotty?

      ... then can I use my iPod as a PDA?

      Nope. But the iPhone shuffle will probably come close to the enterprise's communicators. Especially the "wearable" bit.

    • Re:If Macs Are For The Enterprise ... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Quiet_Desperation ( 858215 ) on Thursday April 26, 2007 @02:06PM (#18889189)

      ... then what kind of computer are they using on the Klingon ships?

      Clusters of old ZX Spectrums.

      ... then what kind of computer should I use at home?

      A Meccano difference engine.

      ... then can I use my iPod as a PDA?

      If all your contacts happen to be famous musicians, yes.

  • Openness? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MontyApollo ( 849862 ) on Thursday April 26, 2007 @01:39PM (#18888695)
    While specialists say they wish third-party support were greater, the openness of the Mac makes correcting issues possible

    What do they mean by "openness" here. (Just curious - don't interpret this as troll.)

    • Re:Openness? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF ( 813746 ) on Thursday April 26, 2007 @01:58PM (#18889039)

      What do they mean by "openness" here.

      I suspect they mean that Macs integrate with all the open standard protocols and tools that Linux does (think LDAP) instead of the MS controlled closed protocols where interoperability is always a little broken since it is achieved via reverse engineering.

  • Do me a favour... (Score:5, Informative)

    by MSFanBoi2 ( 930319 ) on Thursday April 26, 2007 @01:40PM (#18888719)
    Someone who has an Enterprise level agreement with Apple, let us know how much an "enterprise" level iMac costs in bulk.

    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:Do me a favour... (Score:5, Informative)

      by DurendalMac ( 736637 ) on Thursday April 26, 2007 @01:44PM (#18888799)
      Corporate bulk purchases can sometimes wrangle that price down to $900, maybe $850. However, despite what the article says, the experience of just about everyone else in the industry is that TCO for the Macs is much, much lower than that of a Windows box, making the purchase pay for itself after a while.
      • Dell Dimension 9200 with 1.8Ghz Core 2 Duo, 1GB Dual Channel DDR2, 80GB HD, CDRW/DVDROM, 256MB nVidia Geforce 7300LE, and 20" Widescreen LCD Monintor for $699 with FREE Shipping!

        www.gotapex.com

        Always has links to dell with the best prices. Not a corporate bulk price.

        Puto

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jfengel ( 409917 )
      Er, did you mean that the Dell product was a little bit more? Or is one of those numbers a typo?

      According to the HP site:
      http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF25a/1245 4-12454-64287-321860-3328898-3232028.html [hp.com]

      the bottom-configuration DC7700 is $959 on sale, but that's not the bulk-purchase price.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by fishthegeek ( 943099 )
      Hmmm.... Okay.....

      $650 for the dell.
      $34.98 for a McAfee license (Enterprise)
      $84.00 for a Windows XP cal to connect to a Windows 2003 server. (in Windows 2000 the cal was included)
      $29.00 for a SpySweeper license

      We're at $797.98 right now and we haven't done anything. Lets add a little more for the Ghost license etc if you want to image the machine.

      Windows might be cheaper at it's most basic, the problem is that windows isn't much cheaper when one considers the additional stuff you need to purchase fo

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )
        "To be fair, you would still need to purchase a cal for the Mac if you are going to connect to a Windows server."

        Or not, if you can get away without the Windows server. Such as using Google, Mozilla or iCal.

        You forgot the extra techs you need and the downtime when a virus slips past your firewall on somebody's notebook computer and takes down not only your lab but the entire tertiary care medical centre your lab is attached to. Well, the Windows machines and the network. Yeah. True story.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by 644bd346996 ( 1012333 )
      I only have access to the educational prices, but here goes:

      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 $20

    • Deskulation with OSX (Score:2, Informative)

      by fyngyrz ( 762201 ) *

      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 Ad

    • Re:Do me a favour... (Score:5, Informative)

      by bolix ( 201977 ) <bolix@hotmaERDOSil.com minus math_god> on Thursday April 26, 2007 @02:22PM (#18889467) Homepage Journal
      Absolutely agree with this poster. I work in Academia in an Ivy League which purchases approx $10-15 million of Apple inventory a year. My main gripe is AppleCare. The Dell/HP/Lenovo systems bundle a 3 year warranty, Apple force you to license and purchase 3 year support separately and drive any price differential higher. On the other hand, xservers, xraid and xsan are definitely priced competitively with Dell/HP/Lenovo.

      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.

  • Good. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by EaglemanBSA ( 950534 )
    I'm not a Mac user or anything, but if they're right about this trend, I say more power to 'em. I say anyone stepping up and taking a swing at Microsoft's market share is a good thing since it will drive innovation and value rather than good ol' incumbency.

  • Parallels (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Chardish ( 529780 ) <chardish @ g mail.com> on Thursday April 26, 2007 @01:42PM (#18888767) Homepage
    With proprietary software, much of it in a legacy stage, keeping corporations using Windows PCs, it seems like Apple's business plan should be obvious:

    1. Buy Parallels, and
    2. Include it free with every new Mac sold through business channels.


    Congratulations. Now there's nothing stopping corporations from making the switch.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by DurendalMac ( 736637 )
      Except they'd need a Windows license to install inside of Parallels, and there's no fucking way Apple is going to bundle THAT with a new Mac.

    • There is significant risk in that strategy. First, it would be useless without a valid license to Windows which costs money and gives MS more cash to abuse. Second there is the danger of losing native software as some software developers would consider the mac market to be more cost effectively reached via the Windows emulation option.

  • The end of Microsoft's Golden Age... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by The Media Mechanic ( 1084283 ) on Thursday April 26, 2007 @01:50PM (#18888891)
    I think years from now many people will look back on the period of approximately 1985-2005 as a "Golden Age" for Microsoft, when they were able to rake in huge profits by illegally dominating huge chunks of the personal computer industry with the Wintel duopoly. Of course for many of us we will look back on this period as "The Dark Ages" of little or no competition in the PC marketplace. Really what we are seeing now, as Apple and other firms like AMD start to make inroads into the enterprise market, is a return to normalcy. Competition on price and competition on features is a healthy state for the computer hardware & software industry. Capitalism and our free economy is really founded on the notion that there is not a central power (be it a totalitarian system of government, or a monopolistic corporation) that can control an entire sector.

    Also, please take a look other major industries that have healthy competition - Plenty of airlines -> lower airfares. Plenty of car manufacturers -> lower car prices. Plenty of restaurants -> reasonable cost of food.

    The idea that there is only one group of people in the world smart enough to create a reliable and modern PC operating system is simply a falsehood.

  • IT staff (Score:2, Insightful)

    by ruffles321 ( 1023357 )
    "Don't discount the lure of the well-worn path that draws and then traps your IT staff into familiar habits" Don't mess with your IT staff and it's paths.

  • apple lacks good Enterprise desktop hardware (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Joe The Dragon ( 967727 ) on Thursday April 26, 2007 @02:04PM (#18889151)
    Enterprise Computer systems need to be easy to open up and the mini is not easy to do so and the mac pro cost is too high.
    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.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

      the mac pro cost is too high

      Go play with the dell configurator, you can get about the same amount of machine from Apple for about a thousand dollars less.

      I call shenanigans. It's the low-end machines where the PCs are cheaper than the macs.

  • support for mac (Score:2, Interesting)

    by fermion ( 181285 )
    Although i am a mac user, I often wonder why a company would intentionally want to introduce a Mac into the enterprise. The MS PC can be a relative inexpensive, interchangeable cog for the worker bees. It is a tool, and for the most part one supplies the cheapest tool that will do the job. For some applications that is the Mac, and for others it is Unix, but for many applications it is a PC. In most cases, a firm will not shell out for Snap-On or Rigid hand tools for every worker bee.

    What I find frust

  • Stereotyping of "Creatives"? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ErikInterlude ( 784049 ) on Thursday April 26, 2007 @02:13PM (#18889329) Journal
    "The Mac itself, the nature of the Mac, how it works and how it looks, is actually more conducive to the creative mindset. But those same things have also created a religious factor where the typical 'creative'--they can't even touch a PC keyboard. I'm being actually serious," says Christian Anschuetz, executive vice president and CIO of Publicis Groupe, which is based in Paris.

    I haven't finished the article yet, but while I can believe this mindset being prevalent in years past, but I don't think I've met any designer in the past 5 years or so with such an anti-PC attitude. I've worked on a mac since my freshman year in college, but still had no problem sitting down and doing design work on a PC. And this was over a 2 year period. Using CorelDraw because my employer was Canadian and apparently Corel is a Canadian company.

    Likewise, I've met plenty of PC users who are willing to sit down with a Mac if that's what the job requires. I just don't think this idea of "He's creative so he HAS to use a Mac" is valid anymore. You do the job with the tools you have. At my current job, once the IT dept. found out that I was going to be hired they immediately went out and bought a Mac. If I had been asked I would have said I could work in either platform. It doesn't matter as long as I have the tools to get the job done.

    Sure, PC and Mac users like to make jabs at each other every now and again, but the few times I've met hard core Mac/PC users, they've been jackasses who weren't nearly as productive as they'd like to believe.

    Anyway, just my thoughts.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

      I don't think I've met any designer in the past 5 years or so with such an anti-PC attitude.

      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"

  • {first 6 lines of post go here} (Score:5, Funny)

    by TinBromide ( 921574 ) on Thursday April 26, 2007 @02:19PM (#18889427)
    Well, {obligatory statement about my computer background and/or preference}, but i {explanation of what is used at home and in office}.

    With that said, {obligatory statement to stave off mac cult mods}, but really {please don't hurt me}.

    In my experience,{statement involving one of the following: tech-staff experience, home experience, or work environment}.

    Although, {subtle jab at microsoft indicating preference for neither windows nor mac}

    {statement that anything to jab at big guys is good}

    But really, my take on this? Businesses will use what businesses will buy. Sometimes you keep using a law firm because it works, and as long as they don't cause mistrials or fail due-dilligence, they stay on retainer. Until windows fails miserably, businesses will continue to use what they've used. The small, independent companies are the ones that get all the mac-related press.

    {begins waiting for examples of "big" companies that use macs in numbers greater than 90%}

  • Mac: not ready for a mixed enterprise environment (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Freggy ( 825249 ) on Thursday April 26, 2007 @03:07PM (#18890235)
    I have some experience with Mac OS X in a mixed enterprise environment, consisting of Linux servers and Linux and Windows desktops. Linux desktops use NFS and NIS, while Windows machines are using a Samba domain controller on the Linux servers. So far so good. Till the moment we got some Mac OS X desktops. Mac OS X is Unix, so using NFS and NIS should be easy, right? Wrong! First, Mac OS X has really crippled the Unix back-end: there's no more fstab file, no more init scripts we *nix users are used too,... To integrate Mac OS X in NIS, there's a graphical interface. But: it does not really work! Most of the time, network accounts simply won't be available when the login screen appears, if you configure it like that. Using the configuration files, already works a bit better, but even then it often does not work. Workarounds mentioned in a Mac OS X and NIS HOWTO [bresink.com], consist of adding ugly sleeps and killall -HUP lookupd commands in some scripts. We found out, things work most reliable, if you force lookupd to use at maximum 1 thread. It seems like lookupd is full of race conditions :-/ And even now, sometimes machines hang on a blue screen when shutting down Mac OS X. And when a user gets over quota, his whole session hangs with a "spinning beachball of death".

    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.

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