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Who uses their MacBook for Work/business?

dontwalkhand

dontwalkhand

macrumors 604
Original poster
Jul 5, 2007
6,579
3,252
Phoenix, AZ
I have a white MacBook, and I am actually now using my own personal MacBook at work, rather than using company PCs.

I have Windows running inside of VMWare fusion running the software I need to get work done, as well as things such as Office on the Mac side of things.

How do you use your MacBook at work, if you use it for work? Is it a good replacement to using company PCs, and being more productive at work than if you were to be using just Windows alone on a work computer?
 
dontwalkhand said:
I have a white MacBook, and I am actually now using my own personal MacBook at work, rather than using company PCs.

I have Windows running inside of VMWare fusion running the software I need to get work done, as well as things such as Office on the Mac side of things.

How do you use your MacBook at work, if you use it for work? Is it a good replacement to using company PCs, and being more productive at work than if you were to be using just Windows alone on a work computer?
Click to expand...

I use mine for work. I'm a technology consultant and do a touch of programming/hacking. It's a tad easier for me as I own the company.

My clients, though, are almost exclusively Microsoft shops (or trying to get there/get away from there). For this reason I upped my memory to 4GB and allocated 2 of that to an XP VM. When onsite with clients, the VM is up and running at just about all times (which means, about 40 hours per week).

For my company business (as opposed to client business), I either rely on Mac software, Web-based solutions, or I RDP to my office and run what I need to in a Windows session remotely.
 
I use my MacBook Pro at work when I need to work on our web application's design. I have to use Photoshop to create all the graphics and it's much faster/easier on my MacBook Pro than my pile of junk Dell Optiplex.
 
dontwalkhand said:
I have a white MacBook, and I am actually now using my own personal MacBook at work, rather than using company PCs.

I have Windows running inside of VMWare fusion running the software I need to get work done, as well as things such as Office on the Mac side of things.

How do you use your MacBook at work, if you use it for work? Is it a good replacement to using company PCs, and being more productive at work than if you were to be using just Windows alone on a work computer?
Click to expand...

I also have a new white macbook that I use at work. It's connected to an external monitor keyboard and mouse but I take it to the office or client locations everyday.

I use the Mac versions of Office and VMware Fusion when I must access Notes (many of our Notes apps are Windows only - bad programming if you ask me), Cisco's IP Communicator, Visio or Project. Other than those apps I stay in OS X.

I've helped bring about 20 users over to Mac laptops (we have to buy our own) to use instead of the company provided Dells and HPs.

Cheers,
 
I have a CheckPoint VPN client on my MacBook at home. I use it to login to our business VPN and administer all our Windows 2003 and Windows 2008 servers via a MS RDP client for OS X. :D
 
Of the 6 Java developers in our group, 3 use Macs. Myself and one other use MacBook Pros, and the other a MacBook.

The remaining 3 run Ubuntu on IBM hardware.
 
Let's sum this up: Everybody who uses a Mac for or at work can only do so because the Mac either runs Windows natively, in a VM or because they can use Microsoft's Remote Desktop Client to connect to a Microsoft Windows Terminal Server. In other words, the Mac only works because you are using it as a Windows PC with an Apple label.

Lucky me that there's a lot of Unix/Linux stuff running at my current company to which I can connect through VPN and ssh -- meaning Unix connecting to Unix. For the rest, I'm in the same boat as everybody else and have to fire up Vista either in VMWare Fusion or natively. Or I just use it on my quite nice Dell XPS (provided by the company).

However, all this stuff is more a case against Macs than for them: The machine is only then really useful when you use Windows on it. That is not what I would call a strong selling point for Apple. It rather shows Apple's greatest weakness: That they are not a player in the business class.
 
Winni said:
Let's sum this up: Everybody who uses a Mac for or at work can only do so because the Mac either runs Windows natively, in a VM or because they can use Microsoft's Remote Desktop Client to connect to a Microsoft Windows Terminal Server. In other words, the Mac only works because you are using it as a Windows PC with an Apple label.
Click to expand...
Not really.

I don't use my Mac at work simply because I don't want to have to install all the corporate software for data work.
 
I have a Aventail/Sonicwall VPN client on my MacBook. I use it to login to clients' VPN and administer all our entire VM/Windows servers via a MS RDP client for OSX. all my electronics are expensed - consulting perks. :D
 
My mom uses her new unibody macbook to set up her therapist sessions and it hasn't failed her yet
 
I use mine for work with VMW running Windows XP. Certain software that we use is only Windows compatible. I'm the only employee who uses a Macbook at my job. :D
 
Winni said:
Let's sum this up: Everybody who uses a Mac for or at work can only do so because the Mac either runs Windows natively, in a VM or because they can use Microsoft's Remote Desktop Client to connect to a Microsoft Windows Terminal Server. In other words, the Mac only works because you are using it as a Windows PC with an Apple label.

However, all this stuff is more a case against Macs than for them: The machine is only then really useful when you use Windows on it. That is not what I would call a strong selling point for Apple. It rather shows Apple's greatest weakness: That they are not a player in the business class.
Click to expand...

This is not true. All the converts I've helped move to a Mac use the OS X native versions where possible (MS Office, Cisco VPN, Acrobat, etc). We only resort to Windows when a comparable app does not exist or some custom app requires it. For most office workers, MS Office w/Entourage Exchange support is all they need. A Mac is more than capable of handling the average office worker's computing needs.

Cheers,
 
dontwalkhand said:
I have a white MacBook, and I am actually now using my own personal MacBook at work, rather than using company PCs.

I have Windows running inside of VMWare fusion running the software I need to get work done, as well as things such as Office on the Mac side of things.

How do you use your MacBook at work, if you use it for work? Is it a good replacement to using company PCs, and being more productive at work than if you were to be using just Windows alone on a work computer?
Click to expand...

I purchased my own 2.4GHz uni last October instead of having the company buy me a new Lenovo and I couldn't be happier. I travel a ton and this is a great machine though it is a little heavy. I do have VM installed but don't use it for work stuff (the CNBC live streaming only supports IE and I watch that while traveling). Everything I need runs natively in OS X. The earlier poster that claimed we were all running Windows on an Apple box is incorrect.

I pretty much use Office apps and various productivity apps. I don't think that it is necessary more productive than a Windows box other than the overall stablilty of the system.
 
I also use my own Mac at work instead of the company-supplied Dell desktop (which I use occasionally to see our databases on Microsoft Access). I don't even bring my blackbook to work, my Powerbook G4 suffices. I use iWork and export files as Office docs when I have to send them off to people. Other software I use are both on Mac and PC. I'm more productive with my Mac. I think that's the most important thing.
 
i used my 2GHz Black MacBook at work for more than 6 month. cause of the small display and allways carrying i brought myself a macmini 2GHz.

my workplace offers me a sun-thin-client. except of the bad keyboard and the small display i always got problems if the main-server broke down as one of our administrators.

on my macmini i work the most of the time with a firefox and the remotdesktop. word/excel i`m useing the 2007 version. for two programs, which i open maybe once a week, i`m using the windows xp which is installed with bootcamp and i normaly run it with paralels.

the last time i had to restart the macmini after 49 days.

i never did a better investigation for my own workflow than these 450€.

in my company (50 up to 60 people) 5 people already brought the aluminium mac 2.4GHz. and about 4 people already work with their macs everyday.

goodnight, goodfight!

whity
 
I am currently using a unibody MB as my primary Mac for my business. Although, it's not my number one choice. My rev B MBA was stolen, and I replaced it with a cheapie uMB while waiting for a MacBook Air update.

It actually does everything I need it to. It's very fast and solid. The only problem is the display is so inferior to the displays on the MBA and MBP. Would be nice if Apple spent a few dollars more and put a better display in it. Even if it was only the hign end mb, a better display would make the uMB incredible.
 
Yes i use mine for work too. Comes with me to work daily and runs VMware with xp so i can use the network, administer my clients networks too

I also use my laptop sometimes for diagnostic purposes as well.
 
Winni said:
Let's sum this up: Everybody who uses a Mac for or at work can only do so because the Mac either runs Windows natively, in a VM or because they can use Microsoft's Remote Desktop Client to connect to a Microsoft Windows Terminal Server.
Click to expand...

Not true.

I've used a BlackBook for my business needs for the past three years, recently upgraded to a UMBP, sold my BlackBook for $800. Only MS App I ever used was Office for Mac, recently ditched that for NeoOffice. I do have a Dell Laptop that my company issued me, I keep it in my vehicle so that if the company IT person wants to check out my lappie, I have something to hand them! ( No way that idiots getting their hands on my UMBP ).
 
I use my uniMB for work. I use it for my photography business and Webdesign because it's stable and I never have to worry about it crashing in the middle of my editing.
 
I am the only mac user at my office. I felt so out of place sitting at a conference table with my white macbook that I had to get one of those "black" plastic sleeve/covers for it. :D

I use Office 2004 with a big emphasis on Excel. Thus far, all the "Offfice" apps have been fully compatible with their window's counterparts. I should be using Office 2008 for the mac but Microsoft chose not to include VB with that version.

As far as being more productive (i.e. meeting deadlines), I really can't tell the difference anymore between using windows or a mac. I do prefer the windows keyboard interface because mac applications are just too mouse intensive for me.

Winni said:
Let's sum this up: Everybody who uses a Mac for or at work can only do so because the Mac either runs Windows natively...
Click to expand...
I agree with this in general. I still use a very old niche market app that only runs on windows so it's Parallels for me.

Plus, our wireless ViewSonic projector only works with Windows. :mad:
 
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