The link-up of IBM and Apple while surprising in light of their history, in Steve Jobs's time, makes sense if you consider that Tim Cook, Apple's current CEO was previously an IBM staffer. 'Cook spent 12 years in IBM's personal computer business, ultimately serving as the director of North American Fulfillment' - Wikipedia. Cook would have intimate knowledge of IBM's workings and its senior people and so is well placed to engineer such a deal. Clever move in my view, as Apple gets to sell a lot of Macs into IBM, and perhaps into IBM's enterprise customers as well.
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IBM Launches New Service to Deploy Macs to Businesses Around the World
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I've worked for IBM in an all Mac environment. They know how to do it. They've long since given up making personal computers. Maybe they're now willing to admit what was well know for decades, Macs require less support. At least internally. And maybe Apple has convinced them that IBM's reputation will benefit from providing better quality solutions to customers with lower ongoing costs. This might be more profitable up front and is less trouble for IBM. We will just have to wait and see.
That's pretty cool, but I saw the iMac image before the headline and my hopes shot through the roof. Then reality hit...
(((((D'OH!!!!))))
(((((D'OH!!!!))))
The thought of supporting Macs in a large enterprise environment makes me nauseous. I've been there and done that and it isn't pretty.
What it's always been. Big iron and services. The cloud is just the latest variant on the VT100 and big iron. IBM bought PwC consulting to bulk up their consulting services.
Well, now you have a partner that can not only tell you what the problem is but help you solve it. More importantly, serious money is to be made so hearts and minds soon follow.
They are the largest manufacturer of mainframes in the world. The AS/400 and AIX machines they make are still very popular, despite being in decline for years, and can still put a SQL database to shame. They also are the largest tape drive/storage manufacture in the world which is still very popular in the medical world. They have a very large fleet of field technicians who service their products, and others. IBM techs already service the Corporate Apple care program. IBM has service agreements with several other companies that are very similar.
IBM is one of the largest software/services companies in the world. They might just pull this off.
I'm with you in your preference for matt screens. Right now I'm looking at my old 30" Apple Cinema Display, from back in the day. Still going strong. I also paid extra to have my MBP fitted with a matt display.
However, I have to do as you told us not to: inform you that yes, the current iMac screens are a noticeable (and very welcome) improvement over the previous crop. I have compared them side-by-side, and Apple's claims about reduced glare seem entirely believable. Of course, they're still more reflective than a true matt screen, but then again, the colours and sharpness are better. I think it's a reasonable compromise and would consider one of these machines. (I never would have purchased the non-treated glass ones.)
Casper Suite is awesome. I manage over 1200 Macs, largely on my own, with this suite that lets me do anything automatically and quietly that would otherwise require manual intervention or alternatively cobbling together a bunch of disparate open-source projects (and expending more time and effort in doing so, for the sole purpose of the vanity of saying it you did it "for free", where "free" means your time is worth nothing).
A system that powers an upgrading/imaging solution that has never lost a single document in over 3000 workstation upgrades since 10.7, auto-reimages 400 public access workstations without any on-site presence required, pumps out terabytes of updates, SOE software and optional packaged software via the Self Service catalogue, and contains a ton of analytics data about our workstation fleet, software distribution and utilisation that answers questions in seconds that would take days to find out without it.
Casper Suite is one of the best things that I've ever worked with in a decade and a half of Mac administration. It's intuitive, powerful, our support staff love it, our users like the Self Service catalogue, and it's well supported, with support for new OS releases generally within 24 hours of release - sometimes even less.
People who have actually used it love it and would not be without it. Which is why it is the de facto industry standard in Mac management.
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People who believe that Macs require less support than PCs with Linux, Windows or any other OS on them don't work in IT, and they definitely do not work as admins in a heterogeneous environment where different kinds of systems need to play well with each other.
IBM is a huge Java shop. We all know that Java never truly lived up to the "write once, run anywhere" promise, but since IBM even use self-developed Java-VMs, it should by definition be much easier for them to transition to different client platforms. They certainly have the knowledge and the man-power for that kind of adventure. But I doubt that this will shake up the industry -- unless they are going to sell Macs with Windows pre-installed...
Thanks for setting back the view of women in technology 50 years with your posts.
IBM bought a client management tool called BigFix. It's been renamed to IEM and it manages Windows, OSX and Linux boxes. So yes, IBM is in the client management business.
Agreed the Jamf Casper suite is a great product. Unfortunately Apple killed the xServe which made things more complicated for the enterprise environment.
The biggest issues is that Mac software just doesn't play nicely with other technologies. SharePoint websites doesn't come up right. Office for Macs isn't great. Connecting to networks shares isn't clean. Apple don't really give a crap about the enterprise environment so they're not much help. You got to be a special kind of person to love being the Mac enterprise management person.
Agreed the Jamf Casper suite is a great product. Unfortunately Apple killed the xServe which made things more complicated for the enterprise environment.
The biggest issues is that Mac software just doesn't play nicely with other technologies. SharePoint websites doesn't come up right. Office for Macs isn't great. Connecting to networks shares isn't clean. Apple don't really give a crap about the enterprise environment so they're not much help. You got to be a special kind of person to love being the Mac enterprise management person.
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