Why CIOs are saying no to Macs
Apple's desktop market share has been inching up for some time and, if analyst stats are right, now hovers around the 8 percent mark.
A screenshot from Snow Leopard.
(Credit: Jason Parker/CNET)But the business world remains largely immune to the pull of Apple's hardware, with few--if any--workers in most companies using anything other than the classic Wintel combination, in spite of demand for alternative desktop options from staff.
It's a situation that looks unlikely to change, despite the launch of a new Mac OS: a recent poll of the Silicon.com CIO Jury found that none of the IT chiefs surveyed said the release of Snow Leopard will prompt their businesses to adopt Apple desktops.
For many members of the CIO Jury, it's not a judgment on the performance of the operating system itself but rather a recognition of the prohibitive costs involved in such a change....
Read more of "Why CIOs are saying no to Macs" at Silicon.com.
Major viruses and hackers won't care for the lousy 8% of the people.
He called the percentage lousy...not the people. Sheesh!
Only Mac fanatics would believe that Mac has an 8% market share. Even if Macs have inched passed the 5% threshold after all these decades, it's only because Macs now run Windows. People want the software the Windows can run.
[CNET editor's note: Offensive language deleted.]
Because people do not have a choice; Most computers come with Vista preinstalled. They never chose to buy a vista machine for the most part. If fact, if you asked the average person, they would prefer XP over vista.
Inertia, lack of choice, legacy application support. Take your pick.
At work, I have no choice. I use the tools that my employer provides. Most people are in the same situation. At our company, we have a number of custom apps that only run on Windows. XP, to be specify, so we never touched Vista. We'll run XP until our IT staffers are sure that these custom apps run on Windows 7.
At home I have plenty of choice.
Businesses only make such changes (and should only make such changes) when there is an economic benefit that fits the company's business model. Most companies don't need the "best". Most companies need "good enough". This is where MS, Novell, and Red Hat, in particular, will be having challenges since a huge portion of their revenues come from the value of their next great release. They have to clearly demonstrate the economic benefit in hard dollars (no "feel good" dollars) that their new releases can bring. That is a tough job with operating system software.... ask IBM how that works.
Microsoft OTOH you are correct about - they have to constantly sell the new stuff, or they suffer. Their business model is based mostly on paying back the R&D with sales.
From early reports, Windows 7 actually does work and would be viable so corporate customers will move to Windows on new systems as their old systems get recycled. It used to be a cycle of 36 months, but in today's economy, 48 months may be the norm.
You can see adoption of Linux in terms of group servers. That is, machines/servers that sit in clusters on the office floor, but are outside of the floor's machine room and networking closets. But in corporate world, Microsoft is king of the desktop and it will take a massive game changer to de-thrown them.
I suspect most large corporations won't be moving to Windows 7 within its first year of release.
Vista wasn't that bad. The real reason corp won't change is the amount of inhouse development out there FAR exceeds any any commercial apps. Most of which they never want to touch again or retest. Hence why they won't move (to newer Windows or MAC).
Until big corp stop using COBOL (surprising how much code still in production) and legacy crap they always be stuck in the relative dark ages.
The bottom line isn't so much that VISTA was very bad, its that Microsoft waited too long between XP and VISTA - and now Windows 7 - and now there are thousands of people sticking with XP because they are used to it - and for them 'it works'
Do you have any idea how much it would cost to rewrite all the COBOL code? Millions of dollars man. These companies could spend roughly 50 grand on new computers, that's not so bad. But if the software that they use and have been using for decades doesn't work on the new system it's pointless. Sure there's shrink wrap software. But if the software they use isn't broken they aren't going to replace it
If Activation had been loosened up, home users would likely have installed it anyway (yes illegally), but Microsoft would have converted a whole batch of people that want to use the same thing at work that they use at home, even if it sucks. So, while I'm not condoning piracy, it has had a large impact on the adoption of Windows and other Microsoft software. Implementing activation for MS software was only going to make MS market smaller. In fact MS wanted fewer customers, but wanted them to be paying customers. So now that these people that didn't want to pay have found alternatives MS is squirming.
Microsoft plies them with enough pre-digested marketspeak and tech-speak to make them seem relevant and knowledgeable to both the troops and management. They also ply them with a metric ton of fear, uncertainty, and doubt about going anywhere else.
OTOH, I've known CIOs to say no to Microsoft in the server room, begrudgingly using them only when 'necessary' (e.g. Exchange)... but their preference usually goes to Linux, which is IMHO equally smart.
The initial costs? Feh - you can justify the ROI many times over - just ask a typical help desk how many Dells and HPs they go through, and how these PCs have to be replaced every 2-3 years. Now imagine if you had desktops that lasted for 5+ years before requiring a hardware refresh, didn't destroy themselves at every opportunity, and were far easier to secure and keep malware-free.
There's also outright fear. From the article:
"I'd need to consider not only the costs of the software, hardware, and training; but also the intangible costs of inevitable downtime, stakeholder disgruntlement, and more calls to my service desk team."
Heh - he has downtime now from broken PC gear, enforced overtime due to emergency security checks/remedies, and the required reboots that come with nearly every Windows patch to come down the pike. He has software costs that are confiscatory (EA-licensed copies of MS Office are hella expensive per-seat), and the only reason stakeholders don't go bonkers about all this now is because they're frickin' used to the punishment.
Training and capital costs are inevitable with any change. Thing is, you get that money back over time, with less broken gear, less FTE hours required to keep the things running, and less time+expense in running the required (and multiple layers of) A/V products. You also aren't forced into the upgrade treadmill, which means you won't be forced to buy Office version Z because the default formats are suddenly unreadable with the defaults on version Y.
I suspect that one the economy comes back up, a lot of folks will be looking to do a long-overdue refresh of their gear anyway. If they go XP -> 7, they're going to be stuck with expense, training, and downtime anyway, so I doubt it'll be as much of an issue as folks fear it is.
Personally, I'd like to see the business desktop shift to Linux - at least you can get some of the benefits without the non-business stigma.
Oh please. You are assuming CIOs are half-wits.
I made no such assumption - read carefully:
Consider that Microsoft holds 'executive summits' and similar on frequent occasions, and having read the material far too often (usually when the CIO plops it in front of me and asks my opinion of it), it is more often than not 100% spoon-fed marketing drivel, leavened with a heavy dose of FUD and 'ginned statistics.
Consider also that CIOs usually don't spend time in front of a server console (most of the bigger ones haven't seen one in years). They have people for that.
It has nothing to do with the quantity of "wits", and more to do with office politics and the fear of appearing ignorant. Not out of being half-witted, but because they are in a position where they're too busy to remain in touch with the gear, yet are considered the 'go-to' individual in the boardroom for tech matters.
An effective CIO listens to the troops (mine hosts some rather delightful and politic-free debates among us on tech subjects to get his tech feed - there seems to be a dangerous shortage of this type of CIO in this world). Problem is, most don't. They operate on the assumption that listening to the opinions of the lower staff somehow undermines them. Again, nothing to do with intelligence (underestimate one at your own peril), but rather focused more on executive and political matters than the tech ones.
The major differences are when it's time to replace them, the pcs we buy cost half that of Macs, and Macs don't get malware. Also, for certain shows, Apple gives a lot of free hardware.
If you work in an environment for which the added cost of a Mac shows an equivalent return in productivity, efficiency or work product, then maybe you'll end up with a Mac. But if you use a computer for basic productivity software: word, outlook, internet, and one or two industry specific programs, you'll be using a "PC" like the rest of us.
The reasons come down to cost - cost of replacement of infrastrucure, enterprise agreements and the inherent pressures having a choice of multiple hardware vendors gives. The fact that he thinks you can justify the ROI 'many times over' when virtually every accounting and purchasing function costs these solutions out years ahead - I know because I'm involved in this kind of work - and it actually doesn't just shows his naivete.
Give it up, Penguin, you only make yourself look silly.
Tell you what - come up with something besides dubious anecdotes, and we'll talk.
Ahh... I just love the smell of angry and impotent ad hominem in the morning...
"cost of replacement of infrastrucure [sic]"
1) You should slow down and take a deep breath before you type - your anger is getting the best of you ;)
2) Replacing Win2k3/XP with Win2k8/7 requires replacing infrastructure as well. After all, in spite of the hype, XP Compatibility Mode doesn't work on all (let alone custom) commercial apps and services.
"enterprise agreements"
...which are cyclical (for example, Microsoft's EA agreements usually stretch out to 3 years). Your point was... what? That companies are mortally trapped in them, or that they are all, en masse, beholden to your idol for the next decade? You do realize that 'OMG we have to stay with Microsoft forever and ever because we have an EA (or SA) agreement!' isn't exactly a compelling counterpoint, right?
There's also the niggling fact that Macs tend to wipe out a lot of that cost (e.g. a retail seat of iWork is cheaper than even a bulk EA agreement for a per-seat price of Office 2007). As for hardware, the costs of AppleCare vs. Dell Premiere agreements are surprisingly comparable once you break them down.
We can quibble over the technical details, but seriously - you didn't even try.
"I know because I'm involved in this kind of work"
...sure you are. Your alleged high-level position explains why you went for the frothy anger and ad hominem, instead of addressing or refuting the statements I presented, right? And no, cursory slinging of vague phrases don't count as refutation. ;)
"And that's why most company cars are Cadillacs and Lexuses, not Ford Focuses or Toyota Corollas. Oh wait, no, they're not, because companies choose the cheapest thing that will still do the job."
Good point, but it leads to the question of why companies en masse haven't switched to a pure Linux environment. After all, it gets the job done, and is far cheaper.
Now note that I'm not shooting you down here - you have a very valid point. OTOH, there has to be more to it than that.
Just...anything to take some market share away from Microsoft.
Youve never had to manage a client & server environment, with multiple connected resources and 12,000 user then have you? Hate to say it, but no linux solution out there can hold a candle to AD and Group Policy for user and system management. It's a very base level item that frequently overlooked in this debate.
If you say "novell" I shall chuckle greatly. More expensive that Windows, and half as powerful. They had thier day in the sun... sadly they couldn't keep up. 2k was the final nail in the novell coffin.
Windows server has way too much overhead that is not needed in a server environment.
+1
Not to mention all the extra staffing costs involved. (ie useless MCSE Borg types)
Once you add this specialized hardware and software to a PC for some specialized purpose... it really is no longer the type of thing we're discussing. It is then a specialized piece of equipment, and no longer 'a PC'. If you are talking of the few applications a business might need to run out of a suite of applications a business user would use.... they could easily be run virtually with VMware or Parallels, etc. However, I have seen VERY FEW instances where a typical business needs a software package that is PC only (or better stated, where the best package to do that task is PC only).
Um... yea, and try running OSX software on Windows, or Unux software on Windows... it won't work either. Duh! However, there are some really simple solutions to this on the Mac if you somehow feel inclined. I'm not sure why Apple would want to be able to run Windows stuff out of the box. That would be a LOT of wasted code (and money for licensing) when very few people would need it (or want it).
My extent of exploration into computers pretty much covers the gamut. I've owned.... Atari, Macs, Windows PCs, and Unix machines. In addition, I've worked on mainframes, TRS-DOS, Apple's DOS, MS-DOS, Novell, etc. (I'm probably forgetting a few). My choice certainly wasn't made on lack of experience or ignorance of my options.
Psst! Most businesses don't buy their gear from Tiger Direct, because it doesn't come with support (or in many cases even much of a warranty), consistency, or volume. Thought you'd like to know that. ;)
"Would I like to see OS 10 opened up to the generic PC? Yeah I would."
So would I (I'm typing this on a Hackintosh), but I doubt it'll happen, and it's not my call - that's up to Apple, who prefers to base their business on Computer sales, not merely software sales.
Pssssttt! LOL
And we are not willing to pay a $400 premium for iLife.
Talking about desktop computers, the IT department in the companies I worked in liked the fact they can buy parts from different brands to replace damaged parts. Or to save more, they can even took component that are still working from old half-dead computer units. Even dead motherboard can be replaced using components from unused units.
But smaller companies usually doesn?t pay any sum of money to Microsoft though.
What kind of putty knives do you use?
Bingo. Support. Apple doesn't offer enterprise level support. They never have and their current business model doesn't indicate this is likely to change in the future. If your Mac desktop fails for a customer in Accounting, then... well, you're stuck. You have to send the machine back to Apple for servicing. There are no on site support options. If you have a non-Apple certified person work on it, you void the warranty. You must send it back to Apple and that will result in a downtime of days.
Use a Linux or Windows OS on a PC and your downtime due to hardware failure can be measured in minutes versus days.
Apple could change this, but that would require them to open up a lot and that just doesn't seem to be likely to happen any time soon.
@jypeterson:
Businesses buy systems with warranties for support. You just opened your Mini and replaced the hard drive yourself? Congratulations, you just voided the warranty and nullified the support. That extra money your company paid Apple for the extra warranty coverage just was wasted. That's the problem.
Downtime for a PC due to bad hard drive is really only limited to the OS load time and that can be reduced with imagng. Downtime for a Mac in a business environment could be days/week or more depending on how close you are to a service center, and then if they have to send it to a larger center.... oh, and you pay shipping both ways, BTW.
Wow - you must have some hellishly cool laptops...
--
"Apple doesn't offer enterprise level support."
really? 'splain this then: http://apple.com/itpro/
They do happen to the number-one ranking company as the most innovative by Businessweek. For two years running. That's above Google, Microsoft and HP. Dell doesn't even make the top *50*. And this was a ranking by *Businessweek*. And adoption of Macs in the business world was what this article was about in the first place.
http://bwnt.businessweek.com/interactive_reports/innovative_50_2009/index.asp
*PCWorld* shows them selling more than one-in-six of all the laptops in the world. http://www.pcworld.com/article/136493/apple_sells_more_than_one_in_six_us_laptops.html
They also happen to be the top of customer satisfaction polls. They've been in that position for years.
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/02/18/apple_leads_2009_customer_satisfaction_survey.html
So... you were saying they aren't a top 5 computer company? You meant what by that?
They do not happen to be a top 5 company.....
Try again, jumpjetta. This time take off the blinders so you can see everything rather than ignore those facts you don't like.
jumpjetta was the only one of the 3 of you to provide support for their arguments... You're basing your comments on what...? If you're gonna call someone out on being a hack at least prove you're right. Otherwise you just make yourself look like a moron.
Which comps will be working more of the time and doing work, instead of at IT.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2352796,00.asp
(hint: guess whose products are at the top - at PCMag no less).
http://www.pcmag.com/image_popup/0,1871,iid=242792,00.asp
"Windows wins that contest as well."
Um ya, I`ll cancel the shop`s contract with Sun right now thanks!,
Why are you posting again? $100/500 trolls program?, what? need a new bike or something?
When you get a big boy job (not paper route, cutting lawns, cleaning awnings, etc.) come back and we`ll talk
You really have absolutely no idea about how this works - if you have multiple hardware vendors to choose from you're free from this kind of stunt.
Disingenuous, much? Apple switched from PPC to x86 in 2005 (well over four years ago), with only the low-end laptops lingering on a bit beyond that.
Meanwhile, Vista couldn't run on relatively new equipment for its time, let alone anything 3 years old or more back then. Somehow, I'm certain that you weren't out there in 2006 screaming about how Vista was a bad choice for businesses... ;)
Windows 7 manages to make up for the diff only because PC makers scrambled to bump their hardware just to run Vista on it, but in spite of that, odds are good that a hardware refresh would be in order for it anyway, given that most businesses held back from doing so all this time thanks to the economy.
Some few corporations have now decided to become completely OS agnostic. The IT department provides the enterprise servers/applications, and develop them in truly open manner to support all platforms. Then provide the staff with a stipend and let them choose the OS/computer that makes the most sense for them.
YES I WAS. I call it as I see it. You, on the other hand, have always been a biased MS hater.
Wow - your name is Mark Anderson?
This may explain some things...
I'm not doubting you out of hand, Jo, but I'd like something to corroborate that statement. I've never heard anyone in the rank and file ask for a Mac or Linux platform anytime in the last thirty years.
We have had a quite a few engineers actually leave the company because they felt like the company was focused more on IT policy then on letting the engineers (the ones who actually make money for the company) choose the correct technical decision to support our customers.
As time goes by generic business processes/programs should become OS agnostic. At that point it should be up the staff to choose the OS that makes them the most productive.
What Microsoft department do you work in?
Seriously though, how could you not hear of someone not asking for Mac or Linux in the last 30 years? With 8% domestic market share, you've got to figure a lot of these people alone, are at least "asking for it"...combined with Linux even more.
It may very well be a unique industry or environment where you work because I've been in several companies where it even comes up in the job interview (as in the potential employee states the requirement of Mac or Linux).
Personally, I find myself so much more productive on a Mac than on Windows, that at a couple of jobs now I've brought in my own Mac as opposed to using the issued PC.
How about you keep the dates believable the next time you make something up, mm'kay? Thanks in advance.
Sorry to sound so elitist, but as a Mac user of course my arrogance knows no bounds.
Over and over again mediocrity is promoted because real worth isn't to be found.
Mediocrity doesn't mean average intelligence, it means an average intelligence that resents and envies its betters.
You always admire what you really don't understand.
The quickest way to kill the human spirit is to ask someone to do mediocre work
Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.
Highly developed spirits often encounter resistance from mediocre minds
It's a shame Vista and Win 7 don't have the same capabilities ...
LOL... see my post below. I guess I should have read up the column a bit before replying. So, you must be a CIO?
I particularly love this argument, as it shows the utter cluelessness of the person making it.
Could you name a couple of the things these business people need to do with their PCs, which would be difficult to do on a Mac? Or explain the benefits of 'reliability and flexibility' of which you speak?
Access doesn't exist on the Mac. MS saw to that.
Outlook doesn't exist on a Mac. MS saw to that. But it will soon, but not in the same form as on Windows.
IE doesn't exist on the Mac. MS saw to that. Some businesses require IE for their intranets.
So there you go. What can't be done on a Mac has as much to do with the anti-competitive nature of MS as anything.
Add in "certifications" that MS offers, and that IT departments require to prove you are competent, and it's a self fulfilling prophecy. Companies need Windows because MS makes them need Windows and because the qualifications of their professionals are sold by MS...
So where are the hordes of corrupt Macs out there? Show me one, just one! I see armies of Borg assimilated zombie machines hitting the Barracuda firewall daily, not one a Mac, or a Linux machine for that matter, Microsoft is WIDELY regarded as the Typhoid Mary of operating systems, Microsoft and security should NEVER be used in the same sentence, Unless of course it`s a late night comedy skit.
That's the first I've heard of these advanced features of Excel. If true, and some user needed it, there is VMware and Parallels. Problem solved... but I've never run into that.
As other said, there really is no need for Access when you have something like FileMaker available. If you need more speed, you run stuff like PostGres or MySQL, etc. anyway. Any organization that writes an IE only web app is so completely stupid, I'm sure they won't be in business long anyway (who would do something like that... absolute stupidity... kind of defeats the purpose of web applications, no?)
As for the training.... there are many professionals who know plenty about Macs to support them. If more companies went Mac, those Windows-certified folks would re-train or go flip burgers. Having a bunch of certified people isn't a reason to stick with outdated technology. I know, I have a CNE certification... don't think I've used that in like 15+ years.
@ Seaspray0 -
Are you really serious? You actually believe there aren't similar capabilities under OSX for remote administration and push deployment, etc.? Really? (Though I'm not all that surprised.... most CIOs probably don't know that either.... kind of supports my thesis, huh?)
I recently had a CEO tell me that the company would never use Macs because they aren't serious computers. CIOs generally have slightly more detailed reasons (though usually just worded in a more politically correct way)... but usually about similarly reasoned out ones.
HA HA HA HA HA HA!
Where the hell do you work, son? Do you work?
If you must know, I'm currently somewhat retired from my professional work in the IT industry to pursue other interests (though I still follow it closely). I worked for nearly 20 years in the industry, much of it consulting for companies ranging from smaller businesses to companies like ABB, Rockwell International, Mead Paper, etc. I also worked for several years, most recently, in a senior position on the IT staff of a Fortune 100 company.
Maybe you're misunderstanding what I said. I'm not saying CIOs are unintelligent, don't do financial calculations, or haven't thought SOMETHING through, but that they often make unwise decisions due to political pressures, biases, fears, etc. You can tell by the cliche answers they give on issues like this.
Did you read the article this report was based on? If I were a CEO, I'd fire someone like Ibukun Adebayo or Marc O'Brien immediately after reading an article like that. Those two are clearly out of touch. You wouldn't overnight transition all your machines, nor is 64-bit the big thing about Snow Leopard (or any desktop OS for most business situations). Or, as the article says, "And it seems the perception that Macs are just for design and publishing continues to hold it back from more mainstream enterprise adoption." Another reason to fire a CIO.... sorry, if this article is representative... they are just plain out of touch.
The other trend you will find in larger IT departments, is that they are usually more self-serving, than recognizing who their 'client' really is. In other words, making their job easier trumps giving those who they support the best 'product' they could deliver.
This is why any smart company would outsource this analysis to someone without skin in the game.
Maybe when you get your ass out of high school you`ll see that the world is`nt as MS based as shills like you would like to believe. But then again maybe you like being sheltered in the basement with your Xbox and content taking orders from you Redmond Borg masters. What`s it paying now? something like $100/500 post?
I'm not sure I agree. The thing is, IT departments shouldn't primarily be simply fixing broken stuff... they should be pushing the company forward into the latest technologies to support the business of the company. It is very unfortunate that many departments often barely get into doing that. In my experience consulting for companies that were majority Mac or majority PC, there is usually a major difference in this regard. The Mac based companies do tend to spend a lot more of their time on the business of the company and advancing technologies.
As for outsourcing the analysis... if you're worked much in the area of technology consulting, consultants are often hired to give an "unbiased" push to whatever the CIO (or other management) is paying them to push.
I have raised the question, though, as to how many of these MS fanatics are MCSE monkeys who wouldn't survive five seconds away from a pure MS environment. The silence was eerie. Seaspray demonstrated nicely somewhere above that he's completely clueless about OS X and I doubt Vegaman Dan would know what JBoss even does given that it can't be more than two months since someone had to explain the difference between Javascript and Java for him. As for Mr Dee...
It's easy to conclude that most if not all of these fanboys are so vitriolic about anything non-MS because they know that if they're ever expected to support anything non-MS they'll be pushed out by people who actually know what they're doing. Talk about fear-driven.
...and I suspect that if there were seismometers attached to their chairs, the collective and fearful shaking at the thought would actually register something on the Richter scale. ;)
It kind of explains why you and I have a semi-easy time shooting most of them down - we're already perfectly familiar with their environments, so they can't really sling BS and get away with it.
OTOH, I'm fairly confident that I could tell a whopper, like, say:
"Linux does ($function) better because that module's source code written in native Finnish, which compiles more efficiently due to its somewhat binary linguistic nature"
...and half of them would probably be forced to go Google (or in their case, Bing) it, not figure any of it out, assume "OMG the *nix guy has to know more about it!", then come back with a half-arsed argument about why English source code makes for more efficient binaries.
Kinda fun really, if you think about it. :)
As to the 'tech support costs of broken software and drivers'.... again, never seen ANY of that on Windows Vista or Windows 7.
Viruses and malware? Again, none of that **** on Windows Vista and Windows 7 because of the heightened security in those OS's.
The 'virus and malware' thing was true in Windows XP, but mainly because.... the internet was NOT a big thing back then and NO ONE thought that it would be the HUGE HUGE HUGE thing that it is today, so they didn't think of internet security.
Regarding malware on 7, that remains to be seen, and what`s with "The 'virus and malware' thing was true in Windows XP, but mainly because.... the internet was NOT a big thing back then" maybe in your donkey cart country celebrating 10yrs of paved roads and telecom, but in North America we`ve been enjoying that internet thing for quite some time now, high speed even!
come back when you get your facts straight, or better yet, just don`t.
"you'll end up paying more costs after the sale by going the non-Mac route due to viruses, malware..."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12537279/
Granted, this article is a bit dated, I'm completely willing to admit to that. BUT the consistent theme repeated throughout the article is that, as Mac's market share grows, they will become a bigger target. It's already been proven that they are not invulnerable. The thing of it is, and I'm no expert here so I could be completely off target, Mac hasn't become a target because there are so few of them out there (in the grand scheme of things). As of Feb 09 there are 305 million people in the US. Now, lets say only 75% of those people are able to use a computer due to age, disability etc... Down to 228.75 million. Just to simplify the math I'm going to assume everybody has an individual computer. Now, in the links I'm going to provide below, it's stated that Mac has a less than 6% market share and MS has just shy of 93%, I'm going to give them 10% and 90% respectively for this example as I'm sure someone out there will refute my source numbers as inaccurate. That's 22.8 million machines for Mac users vs. 205.8 million machines for MS users. Now granted not everybody in the US has a computer and lots of people share... The point is, if you're someone with malicious intent, looking to get your hands on things you shouldn't have your hands on, you have a much bigger target base with an MS machine. Mac is invulnerable to viruses not because it's so amazingly well built... It's most likely because there aren't nearly as many people trying to exploit it's faults. Nothing is perfect and if Mac were to go mainstream, I think many Mac users would find themselves fighting a fight they never saw coming.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Windows
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS_Marketshare
After viewing the sources for the above documents, they more than speak for themselves in my eye's.
This usually tends to be more application specific than Mac/PC, but certainly does have an effect. It is usually more like... we've got to stick with Lotus Notes because we have a whole staff which supports it, etc.
What is very true is that the mentality is often to pick what makes support seem easiest or best controlled by the IT department, rather than picking what is best for the user. There is also a strong mentality of just keeping things going as the primary role of IT staff, rather than being innovators of technology.
It is application specific AND platform related. There is truth to the argument that it takes fewer people to support a large Mac network than a large Windows network. This is not because the hardware is any better (most failures are HD and networking related, and last time I checked, Apple and Dell used the same HD and networking chip vendors). It's because the recovery from disaster is far faster on OS X than on Windows when the hardware does fail. So the downtime and recovery time will be shorter, requiring fewer people to do that work.
Then there are the OS specific problems. OS X makes it easier to reload a "clean" image onto any corrupted system. It's what the Apple store does every day, for example. And drivers don't tend to fail as much in OS X, meaning printers stay online (especially if configured with Bonjour, something built into all HP products).
So those two factors do favor OS X.
The application specific support will not change no matter what platform you are on unless you switch to a less problematic application. For example, supporting MS Word on either platform will have the same costs. Word is not "easier" to use on the Mac, nor does it "just work" any better than on Windows. It's a badly written behemoth on either platform... ;) Just as Excel is a well written app on both platforms. :) I never understood how MS could get one app so right and one so wrong for so many years.
Bestbuy!?! because we all know large organizations go to Bestbuy to buy their equipment I see it all the time, I`m surprised no mentioned it before!... you obviously have no corporate IT background, get a clue!!! or better yet just continue on with Halo3.
Oh, I certainly agree that Macs need less support on average... but if that were the only reason, those same IT staff could have much better things to do with their time than fixing stuff. I was just noting that what usually drives companies not making changes easily is more application oriented than platform. They both come into play though.
@ Lerianis3 -
"Considering I went into Best Buy recently..."
- LOL, there is a good data point for you. OK, so Macs aren't THAT simple to operate... you win. ;o) You do know that if they catch you breaking them though, you'll get in trouble, right?
Congratulations for you! You should work as a OS tester.
Most people know a bit about what they are doing and don't crash their computers all the time.
BTW, what is the Apple Way, Method, and Logic of which you speak?
- by SpiritWater October 3, 2009 2:50 PM PDT
- The obvious costs are price. My company (30K+ employees) goes for cheap desktop and laptop systems (a.k.a. Dell). On the server side is where the standards are much higher (IBM for SAN and HP for servers).
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- by ikramerica--2008 October 3, 2009 6:01 PM PDT
- I love when people write things like "may not have" because it means that they don't actually know, but it doesn't stop them from using conjecture as a justification.
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- by Gold_Storm_Mac October 3, 2009 7:40 PM PDT
- OS X server is great for home servers, small business servers, graphics depts. or education. why? cause it is extremely easy to set-up and manage. has tons of collaboration features for education and integrates well with server media products.
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- by SpiritWater October 4, 2009 5:27 PM PDT
- "I love when people write things like "may not have" because it means that they don't actually know, but it doesn't stop them from using conjecture as a justification."
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- by Renegade Knight October 5, 2009 7:24 AM PDT
- Missing from your analysis is what's better for employees to do their jobs?
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Showing 1 of 4 pages (257 Comments)In big companies it isn't just the computer and OS that matters. It is the whole eco-system. The Mac eco-system may not have all the equivalent software (encryption for laptops, centralized malware management, compliance wares, remote management, and centralized software patching. That's a small list, but that gives an idea of some of the things CIOs think about. Companies like multiple choices in each category to make comparisons and Macs may only have one app in each of those.
In my company we have Oracle/Linux and SQL Server/Windows. Macs support Oracle and what else for RDBMS?
The other issue is that Apple is a single vendor for server equipment. Companies again like multiple options and if they choose a perferred brand then that vendor needs to have multiple lines of server. HP has 5U quad processor boxes that are great for virtualizing servers. The also have blades. Both types of rack offerings are absent from Apple's lineup. That makes me wonder and the companies wonder what Apple's commitment is to the Enterprise.
I own a Macbook for home but at this point I can only see they Mac in the home office and small office markets. Medium to large just cannot take the risk of limiting themselves. A lack of viruses is does not score the Mac any points since companies know how to deal with that - clean the virus off or reimage the system.
Mac has all of those things. OS X Server. Look into it. Well, not sure about the centralized malware management, but that is a necessity borne of the Windows world in the first place.
But I do agree that Apple isn't offering multi-server solutions. They have their X-Serve, and their answer is to combine them if you want more. It's a one size fits all that doesn't fit all. But that will impact only a subset of IT departments, and doesn't explain the laziness, especially from smaller companies, related to this topic.
You assume a lot and are simply wrong. I've had to research for a biotech the pausibility to go Mac because one of the founders was fond of Macs like myself. Two things stop us: legacy ASP code that would be too costly to redo in a neutral web language (a.k.a PHP) and the cost of the new equipment (our round of funding was running out). While I did my research I found all the apps that we'd need to admin everything, but it was difficult finding more than one in each area.
There's too
You have a lot of valid points and considerations, just don't forget that a computer is a tool. If it works for it's purpose (a more productive employee) it's doing good. If all the higher level concerns get in the way of that. It's not.
Right now I'm swimming upstream to be able to archive an ISO image of a CD with mission critical data that consultatns give to us. Our physical filing system sucks. Our eletronic one is much better. Can I get this done? No. Can I get a discussion started with the higher up in Enterprise over "allowing" ISO images? No.
That's what I find IT folks are good for. "No, No, No, No, and the final word is No." Why am I going to these guys to get my job done instead of them asking me how they can help? IT staff is support staff.