FedEx Switching to Mac?

[MacDaddy38017]

Responding with the Facts

I'm not sure if this is good news or bad news. FedEx isn't exactly looked upon favorably in the business world. There's a reason why UPS is whooping them in market share.

Well, I have to stick up for my company here.

For the third consecutive year, FedEx has made the top 10 of Fortune magazine's "Global" and "American" Most Admired lists. (UPS didn't BTW) FORTUNE's "Most Admired" rankings are selected by a cross-section of 10,000 executives, directors and security analysts from more than 60 industries.

FedEx has an excellent business reputation.

 

[Naimfan]

I have to agree with the above poster--FedEx is a very well run and highly regarded company.

On the main point, if FedEx were to shift to Macs, even partially, I don't see how that could be anything but positive. This is an area Apple really needs to develop more--getting into the enterprise. I'm no expert on things like this, but it would appear to me that OSX makes it FAR easier to integrate Macs than the earlier OS' did.

Best,

Bob

 

[superfula]

Well, I have to stick up for my company here.

For the third consecutive year, FedEx has made the top 10 of Fortune magazine's "Global" and "American" Most Admired lists. (UPS didn't BTW) FORTUNE's "Most Admired" rankings are selected by a cross-section of 10,000 executives, directors and security analysts from more than 60 industries.

FedEx has an excellent business reputation.

Here's a tip for you, the top ten is really meaningless. What people look at are the individual industry ratings. When you see Walmart and Microsoft in the top 10, you have to realize something is up. Top 10 is based on brand recognition. The companies who advertise the most get in the top 10. That's about it.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

i fear someone's been sipping from the Microsoft FUD fountain. While it is possible to find proprietary software that runs on Linux, most is open source. There is no more a hodgepodge of Linux software than there is of Windows or MacOS. All support organizations know the mantra, "We don't support that." The supported computer in business is the one running the standard IS build. Anyone calling the HelpDesk to complain that Frobozz Fritzwerks makes his screen flicker will receive The Mantra in response. If he presses the matter, his hard disk will be wiped and the standard build re-installed. The message is clear: if you run non-supported software, you're on your own.

Linux is actually easier to manage because configuration files are simple text documents, not Windows Registry arcana.

-- Bill

Being a daily consumer of Debian Sid/KDE 3.2 BranchCVS how is your rebuttle recanting what the prior poster said regarding Linux is not a viable Desktop Vendor Solution with comparison to Mac OS X?

NeXTSTEP was a viable Desktop Vendor Solution and you can run an entire business on it quite well, in its day--we did at NeXT and believe me most of the Way Cool applications people thought were available on NeXTSTEP weren't half as cool as the ones we had in-house for our consumption; a mistake Steve has remedied with Apple.

I hope OS X gets Fed-Ex not just because it's my favorite platform for its MVC paradigm or because it is now a blend of proprietary and open source code, Quartz and Darwin respectively, but because all the subtle nuiances that make one more productive are most complete with OS X. And hopefully with more of the old Mac paradigms either advanced or removed OS XI will be even better.

Having to support many large scale enterprise customers, prior to leaving Apple Enterprise back in '98 I had three systems on my desktop. One was of course Openstep 4.2--primary system, the second was System 8.x and the third was Rhapsody, now OS X.

What I got more work done in was clearly Openstep and with OS X we get a blend of the best that single user environments offer with the myriad of needs multi-user large corporate networked clients offer.

I still read that People complaining about Column View. Hate to disappoint you folks but when I've got over 6,000 ATT Wireless Systems I used to browse to track down information and all I had to do was CMD-~"username" and it zipped through the hierarchy and redrew the column views showing just where this directory was made life quite enjoyable for me. I then drag n' dropped a symlink to the Workspace Shelf/Dock and built my section of needed resources via Icon. When I didn't like that Workspace instance I opened a new view free of Icons and built a new list of reused resources. I minimized the view as an Icon and still my pretty desktop background was free of Iconic clutter.

If I needed to work via Terminal.app and was to damn lazy to remember the pathway via escape completion I just "cd 'drag-n-drop symlink'"ENTER/RETURN and I was where I need to be to do either shell work or myriad other tasks.

System-wide Openstep made my workload seemless. Whether it was working with Sybase dealing with customer tracking issues then autogenerating RTFD based reports with the aide of EOF or whether it was dealing with Timeline projects via Diagram! or Quantrix or working on NeXTAnswers via custom in-house tools I felt like I always earned my paycheck working at NeXT or Apple Enterprise.

What technologies cannot replace is Social Engineering. Hire socially inflexible managers will bury a group within a corporation or a company every time.

No company I have worked for since leaving Apple comes close to the Vision of both Management and Engineering that extends across every mundane process from Corporate Supplies to SQA Testing to Status Reports to Internal Documentation of all Processes.

Linux has a serious need and call to arms for Focus and self-less Vision beyond that of basic technical functionality before it can even be equal on all fronts with Apple.

Technically, Linux beats Windows and thank the Universe it does. My next purchase will be a G5 not running Linux but OS X, period. After that I'll buy a Linux PC for Web Development and testing--only a myopic-minded person ignores the benefits of Linux and OSS.

OS X and Linux should be the defacto in this Industry.

-Marc J. Driftmeyer

 

[rdowns]

AS/400s are like Macs. Security is boosted through obscurity. Both over-priced. Both very good in their niches. Because you don't understand it, doesn't make it a dinosaur or useless. I think you would be shocked at how many corporations still utilize AS/400s. SNA is a dinosaur, AS/400 are not. The AS/400 is a great DB/2 server. Stays up forever.

I agree, the 400 is a great server/storage box. We use some archaic custom program that is just pathetic. We have beautiful web based front ends for my group to access information there but our mission critical app is still on the 400. We have the talent to replace it but the director would never get rid of his "cash cow".

 

[iShater]

Ooh - horrid!! I presume that it is just the interfaces that are based in Access - with an Oracle back-end or something. At least that way, the conversion process isn't as bad as it could be. I bet their corporate IT people are just falling over themselves to get rid of Access.




Excellent point - especially as their PC vendor (HP / IBM / whoever) probably offers a Linux solution anyway.

I hope their interface is not Access. I did coding in Access as an interaface to an Oracle dbase, what a pain. Access saw some data types differently, etc. That wasn't find to debug.

 

[richard788]

cMac = The new headless stripped down corporate Mac.

 

[bloosqr]

Let me see Open Source desktop apps as polished as Office XP or Keynote. Visio or InDesign, or even MS Publisher. Then we can talk business desktop.

edit: Linux and Open Office are simply not as good as MacOS or Windows XP for consumer and general business desktops. JMO of course.

I think it depends on the business and what the desktops are being
used for. In many cases if the desktop is being used as a glorified
terminal i.e. a sales application which connects to a central server,
a custom application used by a slew of people in sales/production,
and perhaps in some specialized cases custom "homebrewed" apps
such as render farms, mathematical modeling (i.e. finance, pharmaceutics, search engines), then businesses could move over quite easily .. "back office" such as sendmail/postfix : samba/nfs servers : web/apache servers : nis/nfs servers have already been quite successful..

Incidentally (since this is a mac site) I personally am a switcher from Linux to Mac *but* I/we run Linux as our primary desktop at work (academic environment running numerically intensive code) w/ openoffice to take care of day to day "word doc", power point and graphics needs.

 

[MacDaddy38017]

Returning the favor

Here's a tip for you, the top ten is really meaningless. What people look at are the individual industry ratings. When you see Walmart and Microsoft in the top 10, you have to realize something is up. Top 10 is based on brand recognition. The companies who advertise the most get in the top 10. That's about it.

hmm, lets see here. Individual industry rankings. Okay, here's just one,

Federal Express Corporation ("FedEx Express") and FedEx Logistics Inc. are top performers in logistics excellence, says Logistics Management & Distribution Report magazine in its Annual Quest for Quality survey. Results appeared in the publication's August issue.....
"The Quest for Quality survey is the only industry-wide survey program in transportation," said Thomas Esposito, magazine publisher. "Many shippers view it as the industry's top award." Esposito noted that FedEx has consistently held a top ranking in the annual survey.
FedEx Express, the world's largest express transportation company, is rated the industry's best in the air-carrier category, based on its on-time performance, value, information technology, customer service, and equipment and operations.

FedEx has also recently won numerous "Carrier of the Year" and other awards from the likes of Dell Computers, Wal-Mart, Compaq, Colgate-Palmolive, Lowes, Borders, International Paper and GlaxoSmithKline to name a few.

I think that safely closes out this argument. I think I might be talking to a closet UPS employee anyways

 

[MacDaddy38017]

Oops, one more thing

Here's a tip for you, the top ten is really meaningless. What people look at are the individual industry ratings. When you see Walmart and Microsoft in the top 10, you have to realize something is up. Top 10 is based on brand recognition. The companies who advertise the most get in the top 10. That's about it.

Also, the two companies that you mentioned, Wal-Mart and Microsoft are ALSO top in their individual industry ratings (hate them as we might)--so the Forbes Top Ten list isn't meaningless after all! As a tip to you, you might want to use other company names. Your argument only helped my case.

just a tip.

 

[volfreak]

Seems some are starting to really look at this

Seems some are starting to really look at a change like this (or at least what the impact of not changing could be).

Maybe there'll be some numbers come out of this to back up that Macs are more cost-effective.

http://www.eweek.com/print_article/0,1761,a=120978,00.asp

 

[kingtj]

I.T. Pros and Macs

Actually, I'm an I.T. professional - and I often recommend Macs to my clients. To my surprise, almost all of them already acknowledged that they believed or "heard before" that the Mac was a really good computer/solution. I think I only had one person give me a really negative response to the idea.

Apple has strong brand recognition and a pretty good level of respect, overall, in today's marketplace.

Sometimes I do think that by recommending a Mac, I'm shooting myself in the foot, because yes - I do make most of my money from Windows PC problems. (I'd say I average 1 to 2 calls per day to fix Windows PCs that have gotten sluggish to the point of being unusable, gone crazy with pop-up advertisements, or just plain froze up upon boot - all due to spyware/ad-ware + virii and trojan horse programs on them.)

On the other hand, I also think I'd really rather get paid to help these people learn to better use their new Macintosh and OS X than get paid to sit and watch virus scanners slowly go through every file on their hard drive, edit system registries, painstakingly trying to find where some "malware" is loading during boot-up, and so on.

At least for the forseeable future, I'd still have some "job security" if more folks went to a Mac, because there really aren't many I.T. people who feel comfortable working on Macs. I'd have a nice little niche for myself, since I'm pretty proficient with either Mac or PC....

Companies may be unhappy but I've yet to meet the IT professional who advocates moving away from Microsoft. Microsoft is their job security.

A good analogy is my company and my brother's. Both are about 175 employees and are heavily computerized. My company is a Windows shop and we have 4 support people to deal with the daily problems. My brother's company is primarily Mac and they have 1 support person. Imagine savings like those for a large scale company.

 

[chriscorcoran]

Finally! A major corporation is seeing the ture light and moving to Apple! Soon FedEx will even be fast then they already are! Can you imagine? I mean they already ship things before you think about even wanting to ship something. Soon they will be shipping things back in time! lol

 

[superfula]

hmm, lets see here. Individual industry rankings. Okay, here's just one,

Federal Express Corporation ("FedEx Express") and FedEx Logistics Inc. are top performers in logistics excellence, says Logistics Management & Distribution Report magazine in its Annual Quest for Quality survey. Results appeared in the publication's August issue.....
"The Quest for Quality survey is the only industry-wide survey program in transportation," said Thomas Esposito, magazine publisher. "Many shippers view it as the industry's top award." Esposito noted that FedEx has consistently held a top ranking in the annual survey.
FedEx Express, the world's largest express transportation company, is rated the industry's best in the air-carrier category, based on its on-time performance, value, information technology, customer service, and equipment and operations.

FedEx has also recently won numerous "Carrier of the Year" and other awards from the likes of Dell Computers, Wal-Mart, Compaq, Colgate-Palmolive, Lowes, Borders, International Paper and GlaxoSmithKline to name a few.

I think that safely closes out this argument. I think I might be talking to a closet UPS employee anyways

I actually don't work for UPS. Just have a lot of knowledge in the shipping business.

I find it humorous that you quote Logistics Management & Distribution Report, since Fed Ex is really the only company that considers it a "top award". No other company acknowledges it as viable. In fact, some believe it to be a "purchased" award, if you get my drift. And "the world's largest express transportation company"? That is quite untrue. FedEx holds what...a 20% market share? UPS 65ish? Rough guesses, but you get the picture.

Like I said, the top 10 is meaningless. Companies get on that by advertising a lot. Do a little research on the Forbes polling. You're good if you lead your industry. Your in the top 10 by advertising.

Honestly I wouldn't expect anything different from a FedEx employee. Grasping at straws to try and make the company look good. Their service definitely doesn't cut it, so they resort to other "marketing" ploys.

TBH, I worked for FedEx for a year, a couple years ago. All FedEx employees, aside from the ones that actually know what goes on, which I was privy to, so I'm not surprised in your thinking. FedEx is running scared and it shows.

 

[ThomasJefferson]

Just waited in line at a FedEx for about 1 hour last night. Only two people working in the place. Service did not impress me, maybe macs will help them, but I would rather have more warm bodies employed.

 

[macghost]

I won't give many details since it may kill the deal, and out my source.

But I happen to know that a Fortune 500 company is seriously considering the switch over! Going over the numbers in the proposal as it sits currently makes a very compelling case.

The company could pay for 2/3 of the cost of the hardware purchase in what they would be saving on their MS license fee! If they do go for it and it is, as I said a VERY real probability that they will, be about 60,000 machines over about 18 months.

There are no major stumbling blocks regarding software since the things that they use have a Mac version or are custom apps that they could port over with a minimum of effort.

What makes me think that they are truly and seriously thinking of giving the thumbs up on the deal?

Well... The fact that the Apple solution will SAVE the company over $50 million per year over the other possible solutions just between license fees and electricity. Not to mention the average of $30 million they are currently spending or losing on virii. Hard numbers adding up to that amount of money can not be ignored by even the most dirt ignorant. And the company in question has already contacted Apple to work out some of the details.....

It is still not a lock. However you would have to be a true idiot to turn down $80 million a year in found money in this economy.

 

[macghost]

it is not unlikely that FedEx would look at the switch. I happen to be privy to another Fortune 500 company looking into it. And they are looking at it really hard! The case is a compelling one! The amount that the company in question is currently paying in their per seat license for MS OS would cover 2/3 of the hardware switch over. And with the number of units that the company uses on the desktop etc. they would save according to the initial figures around $80 million per year using Macs then PC's in just license, virii, and electricity. When factoring in other costs like training and reduced IT overhead they will likely break the $100 million per year mark!

And in this economy hell ANY economy noone not criminally stupid turns down $100 million a year!

 

[Savage Henry]

it is not unlikely that FedEx would look at the switch. I happen to be privy to another Fortune 500 company looking into it. And they are looking at it really hard! The case is a compelling one! The amount that the company in question is currently paying in their per seat license for MS OS would cover 2/3 of the hardware switch over. And with the number of units that the company uses on the desktop etc. they would save according to the initial figures around $80 million per year using Macs then PC's in just license, virii, and electricity. When factoring in other costs like training and reduced IT overhead they will likely break the $100 million per year mark!

And in this economy hell ANY economy noone not criminally stupid turns down $100 million a year!

Haven't you just said this?

 

[MacDaddy38017]

gotcha

I actually don't work for UPS. Just have a lot of knowledge in the shipping business.

I find it humorous that you quote Logistics Management & Distribution Report, since Fed Ex is really the only company that considers it a "top award". No other company acknowledges it as viable. In fact, some believe it to be a "purchased" award, if you get my drift. And "the world's largest express transportation company"? That is quite untrue. FedEx holds what...a 20% market share? UPS 65ish? Rough guesses, but you get the picture.

Like I said, the top 10 is meaningless. Companies get on that by advertising a lot. Do a little research on the Forbes polling. You're good if you lead your industry. Your in the top 10 by advertising.

Honestly I wouldn't expect anything different from a FedEx employee. Grasping at straws to try and make the company look good. Their service definitely doesn't cut it, so they resort to other "marketing" ploys.

TBH, I worked for FedEx for a year, a couple years ago. All FedEx employees, aside from the ones that actually know what goes on, which I was privy to, so I'm not surprised in your thinking. FedEx is running scared and it shows.

FIrst of all, I'm sure UPS is a great company to work for, there's no shame in admitting it.

Also it sounds like someone has a personal beef against FedEx. Every company has its detractors so I understand we would have some too. I would like you to start quoting some facts to support your argument in this case though. "No other company considers it a top award" sounds infantile to me. Give me a few stated examples with proof please, or your argument just comes across as meaningless. You use "All" and "Some" in your argument without references. True arguements are based on solid facts. I challenge you to present them.

It is fairly evident from your last post that you are exaggerating your importance and knowledge in the shipping industry. FedEx IS the leading company in the express (overnight) market. In the non-express (2nd day / 5-7 day) market UPS currently holds the lead because of their much larger ground fleet. If you did know anything about this industry you would be knowledgable of this. FedEx though has achieved double digit growth in ground for the past few years at UPS expense however.

Also, If 20% marketshare (overall) tailing UPS means that FedEx sucks, then you must believe that Apple Computers must REALLY suck because it only has at most 7% marketshare--an argument that most in this forum would disagree with you on.

You might want to get with an above poster to help you craft a solid argument. At least HE had a specific case to back up his gripe against FedEx.

 

[MacDaddy38017]

This has been a fun exchange but I'd hate to diminish this thread to just a slugging match between two people at loggerheads so this will be my last post on the FedEx GOOD vs. FedEx Bad thread. I feel satisfied I successfully defended my case to an opponent who has none.

Just for kicks, Anyone want to suggest a final score for the match????

 

[TimDaddy]

I usually use the United State Postal Service.

 

[MacDaddy38017]

I usually use the United State Postal Service.

Goodonya mayte! if you are sending an overnight letter USPS then most likely it is getting transported on a FedEx plane as per our partnership with USPS!

Read:
http://www.usps.com/news/2001/press/pr01_015.htm

-macdaddy

 

[uzombie]

debunk

Fedex Shipping software is awful. Serve disconnects were commonplace when talking to the servers (and slow when near 4pm)

As an admin, its the worst installer and extremely slow. Not only do you need to buy label supplies (used to be supplied) but it also requires administrator access to run (not poweruser, not reg user). Whoever wrote it, has no idea about security or that it leaves that PC open.

If they write an OS X client (likely), I wouldn't be surprised it needs root access! Unless they hired some top-notch OS X programmers, I'd be wary of their product.

Their service, though, when there is a problem...is top notch.

 

[Diatribe]

You know what, I actually think it's going to be bad when big companies decide to switch. Apple can't even deliver xserves on time. How are they supposed to ship in such large quantities AND maintain availibility for the consumer market? Right, they can't. Apple can't even provide as many iPods as people would want, not even talking about the minis. And this is the only reason why they have them out later in the rest of the world. Apple sucks at delivering large quantities of products. That's why I dare to say, this would be one hell of a disaster.
Just my $0.02

 

[rt_brained]

i just hope this doesnt make mac a platform that more virus writters will target

The more we publicize these stories about corporate switching, the more appetizing the platform will become.

Believe me, neither large corporations nor the government agencies doing the same appreciate this kind of news in a public forum.

If the FedEx story is true, then hurray for Apple. But OS X is not bullet-proof, and we should learn to practice some restraint, rather than become a beacon to all of those who'd take pleasure in exposing any possible weakness in the operating system.