Mac Government and Enterprise Sales Leap in 2Q 2010

[faroZ06]

Apart from that entourage in disguise.

Guys, Mail already is Mail+Address Book+iCal. Sorta. It has many integrated features such as add to contacts and stuff but it's not a SINGLE application. Usually those features open iCal or Address Book (there are also features in iCal and Address Book that use Mail and each other such as iCal antendees).

Think of it like iLife and iWork.

 

[MorphingDragon]

Guys, Mail already is Mail+Address Book+iCal. Sorta. It has many integrated features such as add to contacts and stuff but it's not a SINGLE application. Usually those features open iCal or Address Book (there are also features in iCal and Address Book that use Mail and each other such as iCal antendees).

Think of it like iLife and iWork.

No its not, Mail needs to be FULLY INTEGRATED as if they are ONE PRODUCT. If Apple wants to keep the separate products they need to do something like KDE did with Kontact.

 

[ranReloaded]

I tried it with pupils, didn't really work. I'm just wondering if its too abstract that people can't tell what it is.

Er, a "Morphing Dragon", I guess?

 

[ranReloaded]

No its not, Mail needs to be FULLY INTEGRATED as if they are ONE PRODUCT. If Apple wants to keep the separate products they need to do something like KDE did with Kontact.

Did anyone try Contactizer Pro? I never used Outlook so I can't compare...

 

[pdweller]

The switch

I have seen more cop cars with Macs inside than ever before. On a side note my University is mostly phasing out PCs in exchange for iMacs with dual boot.

 

[Mattie Num Nums]

I have seen more cop cars with Macs inside than ever before. On a side note my University is mostly phasing out PCs in exchange for iMacs with dual boot.

Thats moronic from an IT standpoint. Dual boot is something we try to avoid at all costs.

As for Cops carrying Macs. I have a HARD time believing that. Most cop cars have Panasonic Tough Books.

 

[MorphingDragon]

Thats moronic from an IT standpoint. Dual boot is something we try to avoid at all costs.

I've seen dual booting done elegantly in a managed IT environment. It can be done. I'm rather disappointed by a lot of IT admins now though.

My university does the same thing, if not on macs then Dells with CentOS and Windows 7.

 

[tylersdad]

I have yet to see a Mac that has been infected. This right here shows something.

What it shows is that malware developers aren't aggressively targeting the various Apple devices...yet.

 

[PerfSeeker]

Thats moronic from an IT standpoint. Dual boot is something we try to avoid at all costs.

As for Cops carrying Macs. I have a HARD time believing that. Most cop cars have Panasonic Tough Books.

You sound fearful that Apple is on the verge of destroying Microsoft in all areas.

 

[tylersdad]

There are nearly 100 million Mac users worldwide. Seems like a decent malware target to me. But still, no malware. Any day now!

The real money for malware developers is in breaking into enterprises (stealing trade secrets, corporate bank accounts, etc). Until Apple has a larger foothold in the Enterprise market, there's very little profit motive for malware developers.

 

[satcomer]

IBSOD.

The shared icon on 10.6 for Windows shares!

 

[twoodcc]

that's really good news about the government. i wonder who bought them and what for?

 

[-hh]

The real money for malware developers is in breaking into enterprises (stealing trade secrets, corporate bank accounts, etc). Until Apple has a larger foothold in the Enterprise market, there's very little profit motive for malware developers.

Unfortunately, the trend in actual real world trojans suggests otherwise: current malware is typically going after private individuals' bank accounts and the like, to make a quick & easy buck.

These are petty crimes on individuals who lack the resources that corporate Enterprise have. As such, they rely on the very limited resources of their local domestic law enforcement to try to track down the criminal, and because the crime as for a relatively small amount (merely a few thousands of dollars), law enforcement won't apply much in the way of resources to the crime, so the criminal reliably gets away.

Just take a look at your own email in-box: technically speaking, most of that Spam in there is against the law ... but its still there. Try stopping it at the source; let us know in a week how well you're doing with that.

-hh

 

[PerfSeeker]

I don't buy the argument that malware writers are not targeting OSX because there is no money in it. I guarantee you that China has teams of hackers trying because of what a coup it would be to infect OS X machines. But they can't do it because OS X is bulletproof.

 

[KnightWRX]

I've seen dual booting done elegantly in a managed IT environment. It can be done. I'm rather disappointed by a lot of IT admins now though.

Dual booting is never elegant for the user. It works in University labs where one set of computers can be used to teach different courseworks, but in the enterprise, why would a user waste time rebooting to a different OS to do a different task ?

Imaging a computer to have 2 OSes and a pretty little menu on boot to choose is not what I call elegant.

VMs are much more elegant as a way to running multiple OS for enterprise users. Always have been since the first version of VMWare was released on the world free of charge back in 2000 or so.

 

[Queso]

As an IT person though, I don't see any Apple products in our environment in the next 5+ years. Nothing beats Active Directory + Exchange as far as ease of management. Not to mention our contract with Dell means I get the same computing power for nearly half the price as Apple (I've compared). We have no positions that do graphic design or publishing so I can't justify Apple products to be purchased.

We have a strict no-Apple policy (except iPhones are allowed), but we often get requests for Apple products. I've had to turn down a few iPad requests since the managers can't really justify a reason to purchase them beyond they just want a new toy to play with.

This to me is a sign of an IT department that doesn't realise what its role within the organisation actually is. IT is in most companies a service department, it doesn't generate income, it's just there to support those that do. If those that do generate the income can see a valid reason why a Mac or any other non-Windows product would permit them to increase their productivity the increased investment is justified. Often it's only after the people within those teams start to use a product that they realise just how using them will improve their workflow. How are they supposed to do that if there is a blanket ban on ANY purchases? Giving them one or two to "play with" and see what occurs is a much better strategy.

And as for Active Directory and Exchange making life easier for IT that's just the absolute worst reason possible for maintaining a Windows only infrastructure. Any decent IT person is always looking to expand their area of technical expertise. If the staff in your IT don't want to do this and are motivated by making their lives easier rather than better engaging with their users' needs it doesn't say much about their capability to support the business into the future.

 

[MorphingDragon]

Dual booting is never elegant for the user. It works in University labs where one set of computers can be used to teach different courseworks, but in the enterprise, why would a user waste time rebooting to a different OS to do a different task ?

Not if your computer's OSes are controlled by a hypervisor. (Hypervisor != Virtualised)

 

[layte]

This to me is a sign of an IT department that doesn't realise what its role within the organisation actually is. IT is in most companies a service department, it doesn't generate income, it's just there to support those that do. If those that do generate the income can see a valid reason why a Mac or any other non-Windows product would permit them to increase their productivity the increased investment is justified. Often it's only after the people within those teams start to use a product that they realise just how using them will improve their workflow. How are they supposed to do that if there is a blanket ban on ANY purchases? Giving them one or two to "play with" and see what occurs is a much better strategy.

And as for Active Directory and Exchange making life easier for IT that's just the absolute worst reason possible for maintaining a Windows only infrastructure. Any decent IT person is always looking to expand their area of technical expertise. If the staff in your IT don't want to do this and are motivated by making their lives easier rather than better engaging with their users' needs it doesn't say much about their capability to support the business into the future.

An IT department that allows people to connect new and untested systems because they need to be "played with" sounds like an IT department that should be shown the door.

Testing on how they will interact with existing systems as well as all possible security implications need to be looked at first, as well as full training for the departments required to support them. All of which if done properly will be a significant investment in cost and manpower. Only then can you think about bringing them into the enterprise environment in question.

 

[Queso]

An IT department that allows people to connect new and untested systems because they need to be "played with" sounds like an IT department that should be shown the door.

Testing on how they will interact with existing systems as well as all possible security implications need to be looked at first, as well as full training for the departments required to support them. All of which if done properly will be a significant investment in cost and manpower. Only then can you think about bringing them into the enterprise environment in question.

Purchasing a new product for testing and involving the business department in that testing phase does not mean granting it immediate full access to the production infrastructure. Maybe I just know more about network trust levels, automatic VLAN separation using 802.1x and utilising VRF for routing isolation than you do

 

[layte]

Purchasing a new product for testing and involving the business department in that testing phase does not mean granting it immediate full access to the production infrastructure. Maybe I just know more about network trust levels, automatic VLAN separation using 802.1x and utilising VRF for routing isolation than you do

Perhaps you do, or perhaps maybe you don't /shrug.

You would have to think that an enterprise with the skillsets and technology required to manage such things will also have inplace procedures a bit more comprehensive than giving individuals something to "play with", making this particular internet discussion pointless.

I just happen to work in an environment where no device gets physically connected to the production network without through testing. That still ignores the financial and manpower drain that alien systems will bring. Obviously, all this is all done after the initial cost analysis are performed. I'm happy to bring in new systems, I am responsible for a mixed Windows and UNIX (Sun) infrastructure. I'm just of the mindset that any new system needs to thoroughly investigated before it is even put up for testing by internal groups. Just allowing people to play with a system to me is not the correct way to be doing things. I guess it all depends on the infrastructure and culture of the enterprise in question.

 

[tylersdad]

I don't buy the argument that malware writers are not targeting OSX because there is no money in it. I guarantee you that China has teams of hackers trying because of what a coup it would be to infect OS X machines. But they can't do it because OS X is bulletproof.

OS X is not bulletproof. No OS is bulletproof. The only way to make a computer completely bulletproof is to remove any way of modifying data on it.

I would add that if OS X were bulletproof, regular security updates would not be necessary.

 

[Queso]

I just happen to work in an environment where no device gets physically connected to the production network without through testing. That still ignores the financial and manpower drain that alien systems will bring. Obviously, all this is all done after the initial cost analysis are performed. I'm happy to bring in new systems, I am responsible for a mixed Windows and UNIX (Sun) infrastructure. I'm just of the mindset that any new system needs to thoroughly investigated before it is even put up for testing by internal groups. Just allowing people to play with a system to me is not the correct way to be doing things. (not that I am saying this would not be suitable for other environments, just not in those I am responsible for.)

IMO a machine absolutely must work for that particular user and their thought patterns. It's much more important to secure the network and storage infrastructures and allow them to use the device of choice to achieve their work in the fastest way possible. Demanding a homogeneous (or only slightly heterogeneous) environment only papers over the security cracks in your network design, and if it slows the users down in their workflow by retrofitting them into a particular platform it costs the company money.

Whilst I agree that there needs to be an evaluation phase for introducing new platforms I don't think it's ever IT's place to dictate what can and cannot be evaluated. These days it's so easy to run and isolate parallel production and testing logical infrastructures on the same physical equipment the new devices themselves can be treated as semi-trusted whilst the business users work out whether they are worth pursuing or not.

Of course a major rollout is another matter, that's where the cost justification and risk analysis exercise really comes in. But to simply turn round and say users cannot even have test units until IT have "played with" them is completely the wrong approach.

 

[MorphingDragon]

IMO a machine absolutely must work for that particular user and their thought patterns. It's much more important to secure the network and storage infrastructures and allow them to use the device of choice to achieve their work in the fastest way possible. Demanding a homogeneous (or only slightly heterogeneous) environment only papers over the security cracks in your network design, and if it slows the users down in their workflow by retrofitting them into a particular platform it costs the company money.

Whilst I agree that there needs to be an evaluation phase for introducing new platforms I don't think it's ever IT's place to dictate what can and cannot be evaluated. These days it's so easy to run and isolate parallel production and testing logical infrastructures on the same physical equipment the new devices themselves can be treated as semi-trusted whilst the business users work out whether they are worth pursuing or not.

Of course a major rollout is another matter, that's where the cost justification and risk analysis exercise really comes in. But to simply turn round and say users cannot even have test units until IT have "played with" them is completely the wrong approach.

This - This is why I'm disappointed by a lot of IT Admins now. Working with staff being a particularly big thing.

 

[KnightWRX]

Not if your computer's OSes are controlled by a hypervisor. (Hypervisor != Virtualised)

Uh ? You went from dual booting to a hypervisor running OSes in I guess parallele ? And I have news for you, yes, a hypervisor is a form of virtualisation. VMWare ESX is a hypervisor.

 

[miles01110]

Yay... while Microsoft sales went up 10% of bazillions of computers, Apple sales went up 200% of diddly squat. C'mon, percentage charts?

Seriously.

Looks like government figured out that Macs are better for the security conscious user.

If a government or any organization leaves security settings and policy up to its users, they've already lost. Completely irrelevant statement, along with the rest of your post.

until apple fixes their support policies, they aren't going to touch windows in the enterprise market

Fixed that for you...

I can't wait for the day that Mac+Linux has greater market share than Windows. I think it will be sooner than anyone thinks.

It's quite easy to be sooner than "never."

The majority of the people in this thread clearly have no enterprise, government, or even small-network admin environments (see phillipduran's comment above). For better or for worse, large government agencies are firmly invested in the Windows environment and will not be switching, probably ever. Local and state governments are comparatively small fish, and given the condition of the economy and most state budgets I'd be amazed if there was any mass exodus from the Windows environment given all the subsidiary systems and software that would have to be replaced as a result.