Has your employer's Windows-centric IT taken a second look at buying Intel Mac?

[YS2003]

My current company (or for that matter, my previous employer) is Windows-centric in terms of how its IT is managed. But, I use, on my own inititative (ie. my own equipment), Mac for creating proposals, quotations, reports, marketing materials, and others (basically other than the company email Lotus Notes and its Domino database).

Now with Bootcamp and other alternative to run Windows XP on post-Power PC Macs, I wonder how the other company's IT is taking these new developments at the Mac world.

My guess is the majority of them is not going to change their course (people don't like change and they don't like changes at work especially; for IT, this may require some learning on the Mac or loose their jobs); but, I feel there would be some more "progressive" thinking companies which are giving a serious look at using Mac for works.

If you are not self-employed, which type of company are you working for now?

 

[beatsme]

My current company (or for that matter, my previous employer) is Windows-centric in terms of how its IT is managed. But, I use, on my own inititative (ie. my own equipment), Mac for creating proposals, quotations, reports, marketing materials, and others (basically other than the company email Lotus Notes and its Domino database).

Now with Bootcamp and other alternative to run Windows XP on post-Power PC Macs, I wonder how the other company's IT is taking these new developments at the Mac world.

My guess is the majority of them is not going to change their course (people don't like change and they don't like changes at work especially; for IT, this may require some learning on the Mac or loose their jobs); but, I feel there would be some more "progressive" thinking companies which are giving a serious look at using Mac for works.

If you are not self-employed, which type of company are you working for now?

it won't happen. The OS is better but the machines cost more, and regular Wintel boxes work well enough for what they do.

and here's the problem for IT: you can suggest buying Macs, and you can point to better security and fewer lost man hours due to bugs/weirdness with the Mac, and upper management will look at you and say "well, that's what we have you for, to keep our network and our machines running. You have a budget of $-----, and if you can't make it work on that, we'll find someone who can."

believe me, I've been there. It won't happen. The only way Apple will make a dent in the office desktop landscape is if they produce a model priced to compete with the $499-a-pop Dells. And that price includes monitor, speakers, & keyboard.

 

[eva01]

Nope mine haven't

Both hospitals either have wicked cheap compaqs or wicked cheap HPs

No way in hell they will get a Mac

 

[Reaver]

you know its funny you say this I use to work for A Major Car manufacturer in there IT office and we use Unix, Linux and we have a HP server with Windows server 2003 on it. mostly we use linux/unix server and every desktop we have is windows xp, and I cant for the life of me figure out why we didnt use any Mac's in the office.

 

[quigleybc]

If I was an IT guy, I sure as heck wouldn't want a fleet of Macs anywhere near my office.

Because then I would be out of a job in a few weeks......

 

[SilentPanda]

From what I've heard we've gone from no Mac support in house to 2 Mac support people... it's a start at least...

 

[pilotError]

PC's are cheaper, there's already in-house support for them. You can actively seek bids on leasing and purchases and readily hire people from a large talent pool.

The fact that you can't second source the machine is a serious issue with all the disaster recovery scenarios in the larger corporations. I don't know if the big disaster site firms even support Macs.

A couple of more reasons -

End User Training (Huge cost in both Money and Productivity)
Software Licensing (Huge investments in things like Lotus Notes)

Linux or Windows is cheaper for custom software development. It's also easier to find Linux/.Net programming talent.

The fact that Apple doesn't provide a roadmap screws the budget makers in terms of planning for the next fiscal year. You can't create a budget when you don't know whats coming down the road.

Its a shame, since OSX, apple really has a solid product to offer as an alternative.

 

[Lyle]

We're a Windows shop here, but I recently purchased a MacBook (out of my own pocket change) and have been using that as my primary work machine for a few months now.

My system administrator gave his blessing for me to use it (and more importantly, to connect it to our in-house network) but there's a tacit understanding that if something about it doesn't work, that's my problem and not his.

 

[mactastic]

Nope, not gonna happen until Autodesk decides to port AutoCad to Macs.

Ain't no IT department in their right mind gonna spring for a second OS just for me to have a mac...