Hot on the heels of the release of Mac OS X 10.4.6 comes news that a large company in Japan plans to switch its corporate desktops to the Mac platform. The move is considered a milestone; but what exactly is the state of Mac OS X in the enterprise these days? Is this really a milestone, or just a blip?
Jason Brooks, an analyst at eWeek, has some interesting thoughts on Apple’s apparent attitude to the enterprise market: despite creating several enterprise-friendly products (such as Xserve, Xsan, and WebObjects), the company’s unwillingness to reveal product roadmaps in advance is something that must be a frustration to any corporate tech buyer trying to plan a budget.
At some level, Apple certainly recognizes these limitations, and yet the firm seems unwilling to deal with the enterprise differently than it deals with iPod buyers.
Perhaps Apple is ultimately just a consumer company, he concludes.
In Scotland, a leading Apple dealer voiced his frustration with corporate buyers in a recent Scotsman article:
There is a complete distrust of the Apple platform by IT professionals. I’m fed up with people saying they can’t have Apple in their networks. It’s not difficult, it’s just that they don’t want to understand the technology or they can’t be bothered.
In the same article, Apple UK Managing Director Mark Rogers offers up this excuse:
One of the things you see in the consumer space is the ability to be flexible and to embrace new technologies very quickly, and I think that’s constantly been a challenge in the enterprise space because of the way they lock down desktops and have lots of security.
Well, you can’t blame companies for wanting to keep things secure, can you? But OS X is pretty secure, right?
The anti-Windows side of the argument is persuasive. A Windows environment has ongoing costs, it gets expensive. Network World columnist Winn Schwartau puts it plainly:
I believe that much of Apple’s enterprise future will rest with the adaptation of the appliance mindset and eradicating the cultural meme: one size fits all … If you can live with some of Apple’s arrogance (don’t expect too many niceties - Apple is an engineering company, after all), you should really take a look at the security TCO of WinTel vs. Mac. If you are honest with your answers, you may find that you can get many of your enterprise endpoints more secure than ever for a lot less than you thought.
OS X also keeps users from doing things they shouldn’t. Most enterprises do not want users installing software on their machines - they want a box to run mail client and browser, and a couple of Office applications. Effective restricted rights are the default, and make Mac/MacTel ideal for non-administrative enterprise distribution.
Judging by these comments, OS X would seem to have many of the right ingredients for success in business. Excellent software, good security, an easy way to lock down desktops and prevent users messing about with things they shouldn’t. Maybe the challenge Mr Rogers was talking about is more of an opportunity.
In Scotland, it's not just a distrust of the Apple platform - there's also a significant distrust of a certain "leading Apple dealer". I have yet to meet anyone who has a good word to say about the one Apple-authorised warranty centre in Scotland.
They are the reason why Apple wants - indeed, needs - to open an Apple store in Scotland.
I'd just like to say that "wherefore" means "why"... and if you mean "why," why not SAY why? Rather than sort of misquoting Shakespeare for no good reason, how about picking a headlines that actually says something meaningful?
We're going through the hilarious step of banning developers using Linux from connecting via VPN to the company network, because the MSCE staff who administer the Windows network only want to allow machines they have built to connect in - because only then can they guarantee their security.
And this is in a software house, and despite complaints by the developers in question.
Anyway, it's a good demonstration of the power of the embedded MSCE mentality. (Actually the guys themselves aren't averse to Macs or Linux, it's more about making their job easy by having a standard installation).
Bulk OS license prices appear to be a secret (no info at apple.com/uk), which implies an uneven playing field for purchasers, which in turn provides a great barrier to purchasing.
I imagine the larger problem would be bulk remote management. Even if I did want to re-buy the OS for 100 machines every 18 months or so, I'll be damned if you're going to make me walk round the building doing them one at a time.
Plus they *are*, *very* expensive per unit. Managing office systems I was struck by just how much more likely hardware is to fail outright in a work environment compared to (say) my house - despite the fact that my house is full of cigarette smoke. People treat work machines with far less reverence and I'd hate to think how many of those weedy little keyboards I'd have to buy each week just to keep in stock.
Let alone "replacing the monitor" on an iMac...
Slightly worst-possible-outcomes there, but my basic point is: Apple seems way out of its depth for large rollouts compared to $otherhardware and $otherOSs.
Fortune recently named Genentech, the biotech pioneer, the best U.S. company to work for in 2006. 9000+ employees, lots of them with PhDs, the most promising anticancer drugs in development, and a market cap in the pharma sector exceeded only by Merck and Johnson & Johnson. Guess what? The entire company essentially runs an all-Mac environment for desktop and notebook computing. So that kind of puts a wrench in the argument that you can't run a successful tech-intensive corporation (or indeed, any kind of organization) using the Mac platform.
So, let me get this straight: Big business won't buy Macs, because Apple won't provide a fixed roadmap of everything they're going to do, and when, for next two or three years (like any company would know). Aren't these the same companies that wait two or three years before updating to a new version of an operating system (why would anyone need years to qualify a word processor for corporate use)?
Why do they need to know the future, if they're constantly living in the past?
Nina: yes, I know what "wherefore" means. I used it deliberately; I was actually trying to inject a little extra feeling into the title. When Juliet uses the word in Shakespeare's play, she's quite emotional; and much of the opinion I have read surrounding this issue includes some quite emotional rallying calls by those who are in favor of using Macs in business. But perhaps it was not the best choice of headline...
John Handelaar should know that there are certainly tools - provided by Apple - for remote management, including networking booting support, Apple Remote Desktop and software restore strategies. Mike Bombich's site, home of Carbon Copy Cloner, has a fair amount of info on these topics, for example.
Personally, I've never been in a position to run a decent-sized Apple network, but it seems that all the tools you'd need are in place. US educational establishments, in particular, seem to cope. Given all of that, it does seem odd that Apple isn't doing more to promote the infrastructure they've already developed.