Macs Landing on Corporate Desks, Led by iPhones and iPads

[JAT]

I work for a large corporation. We have all kinds of special software on our laptops. It monitors "health" of our computers (defragments disks, cleans up registry etc.). This software is monitoring status of laptop battery. When the battery degrades, I get a notification message that invites me to go to PC service department where they replace the battery in 3 minutes. Obviously, I like using docking stations with my laptops. The list goes on and on...

Which your company wrote? (or hired specifically?) I get it! No one can write software for OSX. Now it's all explained.

No IT guy has ever liked Apple, even when they were the king of serviceability. Mac Pro still is, btw. Your arguments are just window dressing for one simple fact. Mac would take away too many of your jobs. I can't really blame you for not liking that. But what you are doing here at Mac Rumors is beyond me.

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I don't think something like this can be generalized. I hear what you're saying - but there are just as many IT professionals that would love to switch to Macs ans there are that love their PCs and wouldn't. A true professional wouldn't laugh at a user anyway for REQUESTING a Mac.

I've met only 2 kinds of IT guys. Ones that do EXACTLY fit that generalization. (and I certainly wouldn't call them Professional in the "corporate office" meaning of the word) And...those that stop being IT guys. Maybe they become the manager or move on to something else.

I can even give you one person as an example of both, switched sides. He was IT, hated Apple. For some reason I still can't fathom, he tried one out somewhere, later bought an iMac for home, now is no longer in IT.

If you have a better way to explain it, by all means, we will read it.

 

[firewood]

I have been shot down multiple times trying to convert places to thin clients. In reality, the vast majority of users would be fine using a thin client. They are cheap, easy to manage and replace, and can still do the job. Sadly, in most cases I have seen, they have been shot down because people think they need the local storage on a desktop, or the portability of a notebook.

And yet, thin client deployment related companies (VMWare, Citrix, et.al.) seem to be growing significantly faster than the PC hardware business, and that trend shows no sign of slowing down. Read the writing on the wall, and consider what that means to one's job security if one stays off this bandwagon too long.

Given the current rate of corporate sales, I would not be surprised if an iPad 2 plus a BT keyboard is fast becoming one of the most popular corporate thin client devices. So Apple is in this mix as well.

 

[dgree03]

Which your company wrote? (or hired specifically?) I get it! No one can write software for OSX. Now it's all explained.

No IT guy has ever liked Apple, even when they were the king of serviceability. Mac Pro still is, btw. Your arguments are just window dressing for one simple fact. Mac would take away too many of your jobs. I can't really blame you for not liking that. But what you are doing here at Mac Rumors is beyond me.

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I've met only 2 kinds of IT guys. Ones that do EXACTLY fit that generalization. (and I certainly wouldn't call them Professional in the "corporate office" meaning of the word) And...those that stop being IT guys. Maybe they become the manager or move on to something else.

I can even give you one person as an example of both, switched sides. He was IT, hated Apple. For some reason I still can't fathom, he tried one out somewhere, later bought an iMac for home, now is no longer in IT.

If you have a better way to explain it, by all means, we will read it.

I am an IT guy and I like both Mac and PC. I have an iMac, Macair, Macbook at home.

Whats your point?

What you need to understand is just because I use something at home doesnt automatically justify using it at work. OSX is a nightmare from a management standpoint. And switching doesn't justify the cost. You arent just talking about switching hardware, you are talking about software also! Along with 1000's of user education man hours, 1000's of man hour coding custom in house software for the new platform.

You can't even reliably do PKI on OSX lion, so that would already be out as a solution.

 

[emulator]

As a college student, one of my biggest fears is entering the PC dominated corporate world. I want to be able to use a mac at work!! I hope this becomes the norm over the next few years.

Don't worry, you won't have a job.

 

[VoR]

If you have a better way to explain it, by all means, we will read it.

It doesn't always have to be an 'us vs them' battle.
Occasionally on a tech forum you find people that actually love computers (...) and what you can make them do, who cares about brand loyalty/bias?
Some of these people work in the real world and some of them even work in IT.

 

[blackcrayon]

What you need to understand is just because I use something at home doesnt automatically justify using it at work. OSX is a nightmare from a management standpoint.

I'm an IT guy as well. I do most of the management on the Macs (the other "Mac guy" left a few months ago and hasn't yet been replaced). I don't find it to be a "nightmare", in fact I find it far easier than managing the windows machines (we use the Casper Suite for mac inventory/management). Of course it's possible in a given environment there is some particular tool not available for the Mac, but saying they're unmanageable in general is a rather silly thing IMO.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

I'm an IT guy as well. I do most of the management on the Macs (the other "Mac guy" left a few months ago and hasn't yet been replaced). I don't find it to be a "nightmare", in fact I find it far easier than managing the windows machines (we use the Casper Suite for mac inventory/management). Of course it's possible in a given environment there is some particular tool not available for the Mac, but saying they're unmanageable in general is a rather silly thing IMO.

If you only have 2 guys the deployment is going to be fairly small. OSX vs windows in terms of enterprise management OSX sucks and its weakness start showing the bigger your deployment gets.

 

[blackcrayon]

If you only have 2 guys the deployment is going to be fairly small. OSX vs windows in terms of enterprise management OSX sucks and its weakness start showing the bigger your deployment gets.

I guess? It's a medium sized company, about 1/3 mac (200). Slight trend toward people switching from windows only machines to Macs. Again, I don't find there is any problem managing the Macs using a decent tool like the Casper Suite. But if you could be so kind as to tell me what is so difficult or what isn't working, I'd love to know

 

[steve2112]

And yet, thin client deployment related companies (VMWare, Citrix, et.al.) seem to be growing significantly faster than the PC hardware business, and that trend shows no sign of slowing down. Read the writing on the wall, and consider what that means to one's job security if one stays off this bandwagon too long.

Given the current rate of corporate sales, I would not be surprised if an iPad 2 plus a BT keyboard is fast becoming one of the most popular corporate thin client devices. So Apple is in this mix as well.

Eh, it was federal government. .Gov often takes what is most sensible and does the exact opposite. At one place I worked, we rolled out a test of thin clients (about 10% of the user population), and it worked fairly well. Then we got directives from above that we could no longer buy our own hardware, and could only buy specifically approved hardware (desktops and laptops) at certain times of the year. There were no thin client setups and no plans to add them, so the project died.

I am an IT guy and I like both Mac and PC. I have an iMac, Macair, Macbook at home.

Whats your point?

What you need to understand is just because I use something at home doesnt automatically justify using it at work. OSX is a nightmare from a management standpoint. And switching doesn't justify the cost. You arent just talking about switching hardware, you are talking about software also! Along with 1000's of user education man hours, 1000's of man hour coding custom in house software for the new platform.

You can't even reliably do PKI on OSX lion, so that would already be out as a solution.

That's a big problem. I have learned over the years that momentum tends to keep certain things in place. There have been several times I have found better ways to do stuff, but it doesn't change because it would be too costly or time-consuming to change it. There's always the old rallying cry "we've always done it this way!". Plus, there are some users who still can't find stuff in the same OS they have been using for 10 years, so introducing an entirely new system would be too much.

PKI is one of my current headaches with Lion.

I guess? It's a medium sized company, about 1/3 mac (200). Slight trend toward people switching from windows only machines to Macs. Again, I don't find there is any problem managing the Macs using a decent tool like the Casper Suite. But if you could be so kind as to tell me what is so difficult or what isn't working, I'd love to know

We use Casper as well, and it is nice, but there are still major issues. PKI, for example. Smart card authentication is a big one, since Apple completely removed native support for smart cards from Lion. Also, since Apple dropped the XServer and dedicated Server OS, we still don't have a viable replacement for our stuff (including Casper) running on those servers.

 

[george-brooks]

Don't worry, you won't have a job.

To all of this negative criticism I've been getting for this, I'm not THAT stupid, I know that I might have to use a PC in the real world from time to time. Its called exaggeration. And besides, I am going into the film/art industry where Macs are dominant anyways (hence my strong anti-PC in the workplace views)

 

[twoodcc]

And why is that?

i'm not sure. maybe bc Mac OS X is more pleasant to use than Windows, and i have a mac at home that i enjoy

 

[matspekkie]

I partly agree vnc is not very fast and apple's implementation you cannot use from a windows machine. There is one company who offers an solution but it is pricy http://www.aquaconnect.net

I definitely don't feel that "windows is best for corporate use," however, Apple's enterprise management tools are really lacking on the server side. While I've been a Mac guy for years, Windows server beats Mac OS server hands down, having worked with both (for medium to large businesses, that is - on the small business side, Apple has some pretty good solutions). I hope that over the long run Apple starts to reinvest in the back-end of things, because I think they'd be able to do a lot of really innovative stuff. But even if they don't, that doesn't mean that Macs don't have a place on employees' desks.

One feature I would LOVE to see in Mac OS X, though, is some form of Remote Desktop Connection Protocol. Apple Remote Desktop just doesn't cut it for remote access - it's laggy and a bandwidth hog, being based on VNC. Connecting to Windows PCs remotely is a breeze and a very pleasurable experience, whereas doing remote connections to Macs is really frustrating. This is really one "must have" feature for business use going forward, at least where I work.

 

[MattInOz]

And yet, thin client deployment related companies (VMWare, Citrix, et.al.) seem to be growing significantly faster than the PC hardware business, and that trend shows no sign of slowing down. Read the writing on the wall, and consider what that means to one's job security if one stays off this bandwagon too long.

Given the current rate of corporate sales, I would not be surprised if an iPad 2 plus a BT keyboard is fast becoming one of the most popular corporate thin client devices. So Apple is in this mix as well.

I wonder if MS have thought about this and Metro is a response to the situation. I mean similar to an iPad with keyboard. a Screen with Embedded ARM processor could run the metro environment locally handling all the user lightweight stuff and Web services, then hands off to Server VM for Windows Apps.

The ARM SoC's should be good enough this year to handle almost any Screen size.

 

[Renzatic]

Which your company wrote? (or hired specifically?) I get it! No one can write software for OSX. Now it's all explained.

No IT guy has ever liked Apple, even when they were the king of serviceability. Mac Pro still is, btw. Your arguments are just window dressing for one simple fact. Mac would take away too many of your jobs. I can't really blame you for not liking that. But what you are doing here at Mac Rumors is beyond me.

Right. They have all this special "software". And this "software" does stuff people in IT like. Well why don't they just rewrite all this "software" for OSX? IT'S SO SIMPLE!

You know the one reason why you don't see more Macs in enterprise? That's an easy answer. For one, MS is already well entrenched in that segment. For years, they've provided a huge suite of software specifically tailored to make IT guy's jobs easier (most of the time anyway). Then you've got Apple, who's only dabbled in this segment, and doesn't look like they'll be doing much more anytime in the near future.

Your argument that "OLOL WHY NOT USE OSX ITS AWESOME AND YOU WON'T NEED AN IT DEPARTMENT ANYMORE CUZ ITS AWESOME AND JUST WORKS DARP DARP DARP" is completely missing the point. It's like saying Dewalt tools are awesome, you build houses with them all the time. So why not use them instead of Petzl gear to go rock climbing? I mean they're all just pointy things when it comes right down to it.

edit: you know, that analogy would work alot better if I switched Dewalt and Petzl around. I know tons of people with Petzl stickers on their car who haven't even looked at a mountain, let alone climbed one. Kinda the same way I know a few people who bought Macs not because They Just Work, but because, damn, owning a Mac is like 50+ hipster creds. I LOVE COFFEE SO MUCH! LETS SPEND WAY TOO MUCH MONEY ON A CUP OF ORGANICALLY GROWN BEANS!

 

[KnightWRX]

No IT guy has ever liked Apple, even when they were the king of serviceability.

Really, how you can say this after we've had a thread full of IT guys who want to see Apple in the enterprise but realise the limitation of their offerings is quite beyond me.

 

[linux2mac]

No IT guy has ever liked Apple, even when they were the king of serviceability. Mac Pro still is, btw. Your arguments are just window dressing for one simple fact. Mac would take away too many of your jobs. I can't really blame you for not liking that. But what you are doing here at Mac Rumors is beyond me.

Absolutely. They wouldn't have any third rate software (Windows) and horse manure hardware ( Dell, HP, VAIO, etc.) to fix because Macs "just work!"

 

[Renzatic]

Absolutely. They wouldn't have any third rate software (Windows) and horse manure hardware ( Dell, HP, VAIO, etc.) to fix because Macs "just work!"

You're a troll, aren't you? Please. Just tell me if you are. For my piece of mind at least, have the heart to admit to it. I don't want to believe there are actually people out there who say the things you say, and are completely serious about it. The mere thought just blows my mind.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

You're a troll, aren't you? Please. Just tell me if you are. For my piece of mind at least, have the heart to admit to it. I don't want to believe there are actually people out there who say the things you say, and are completely serious about it. The mere thought just blows my mind.

My thoughts on people react the way like the person you quoted either neither work nor understand what IT really is and toss that claim to be are either liars or incompetent IT people and as such I would never hire them.

 

[steve2112]

Really, how you can say this after we've had a thread full of IT guys who want to see Apple in the enterprise but realise the limitation of their offerings is quite beyond me.

What? You mean you didn't go a buy a bunch of Apple products just so you could rant about how much you hate them? I know I did!

 

[Eidorian]

I partly agree vnc is not very fast and apple's implementation you cannot use from a windows machine. There is one company who offers an solution but it is pricy http://www.aquaconnect.net

Oh wow, is the application I investigated years ago that was nothing more than a really good Fast User switching hack?! Times have changed!

 

[linux2mac]

You're a troll, aren't you? Please. Just tell me if you are. For my piece of mind at least, have the heart to admit to it. I don't want to believe there are actually people out there who say the things you say, and are completely serious about it. The mere thought just blows my mind.

What is this comedy night on Mac Rumors? A Mac user trolling on a Mac specific website?

Note: I have purchased about a dozen Macs for my business since 2009 consisting of a couple Mac Mini Servers (great web servers by the way, puts IIS to shame -oh wait so does Linux), iMacs, Desktop Mac Mini's, MBP's, and a few iPads and iPhones.

Yup that makes sense. Almost as much sense as me going back to Windows.

LOL!

 

[Mr. Retrofire]

What did you do prior to LCDs ?

We used flat, Anti-Glare CRTs.

 

[firewood]

One feature I would LOVE to see in Mac OS X, though, is some form of Remote Desktop Connection Protocol.

iRapp is one vendor of an RDP server for Mac OS X. Saw it in use at one company that wanted to access both their Macs and Windows desktops from a thin client.

 

[Renzatic]

Note: I have purchased about a dozen Macs for my business since 2009 consisting of a couple Mac Mini Servers (great web servers by the way, puts IIS to shame -oh wait so does Linux), iMacs, Desktop Mac Mini's, MBP's, and a few iPads and iPhones.

Getting all your mouthbreathing friends together in your basement to make full print t-shirts of dragons howling at the moon (the graphics were, like, completely done on an iMac) while hosting your "totally professional" website on a couple of Mac Minis isn't really a business.

"But dude, we totally have clients! The guys down at the Dwarves Doom bought...like...6 of our Wolf Babe t-shirts just the other day".

 

[linux2mac]

Getting all your mouthbreathing friends together in your basement to make full print t-shirts of dragons howling at the moon (the graphics were, like, completely done on an iMac) while hosting your "totally professional" website on a couple of Mac Minis isn't really a business.

"But dude, we totally have clients! The guys down at the Dwarves Doom bought...like...6 of our Wolf Babe t-shirts just the other day".

Wow! It is comedy night here on Mac Rumors (more like amateur stand up mic night that is).

Steve Ballmer "Coming Full Guns" is actually funnier. LOL!