Macs dig in as standard business PCs

Enterprise backup of Macs is the latest in a string of products that show OS X is becoming part of the IT landscape By Galen Gruman

In the last year, I've witnessed a sea change in Macs' acceptance in business. To be sure, Macs have been the standard PCs for designers, layout artists, and the like since the mid-1980s, and Silicon Valley developers adopted the Mac as the preferred dev platform years ago (because it runs Unix, Linux, and Windows, too). MacBook Airs became senior execs' preferred status-symbol PCs a couple years ago as well.

But for bread-and-butter computing, it has been a Windows-only world. Those creative, dev, and exec Macs were the "other" handled outside the normal IT processes. That's changing -- fast. Gartner says IT will consider Macs to be as valid as Windows PCs next year. The tools to enable that are already coming.

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Survey: Macs cost notably less to support than Windows PCs

"Macs are often the black sheep in the many enterprise environments which have been dominated by Windows for nearly two decades, but the growing consumerization of IT is slowly changing that perception. Though Macs often have a higher up-front price than many business-class PCs, Macs are usually believed to have a lower total cost of ownership (TCO) due to lower support costs. A recent survey of IT professionals in large enterprise environments that have a mix of Macs and PCs overwhelmingly agree that Macs cost less than PCs to support.

The Enterprise Desktop Alliance, which seeks to make it easier to integrate Macs in Windows-centric IT deployments, surveyed IT admins from companies that made large deployments, including universities and government agencies. Responses included in EDA's analysis include those from environments with a mix of Macs and PCs that had a total of 50 servers or over 100 Macs.

A majority of respondents said that Macs cost less in terms of time spent troubleshooting, user training, help desk calls, and system configuration. Admins generally agreed that costs related to software licensing and supporting infrastructure were the same between the two platforms."

Continue reading the full story by Chris Foresman

Enterprises Chucking Windows & Choosing Macintosh

"News Analysis. Macintosh is choice du jour for enterprises deploying operating systems other than Microsoft's Windows. Uh-oh. One Linux version is catching up.

Windows Vista dissatisfaction and concerns about Windows 7 compatibility and deployment costs have some enterprises looking at alternatives, according to the research. The economy is a factor, too, but more to the benefit of Linux than either Mac OS X or Windows. The number of businesses considering "an alternative to adopting Windows Vista or Windows 7" is 50 percent, up from 42 percent in 2008, according to the report."

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There's nothing easy about letting Apple into the enterprise

Mac veterans say Apple doesn't always act like other technology partners. Today, half of Serena's workers opt for the MacBook over a Lenovo laptop according to their senior manager of worldwide IT operations. Not only have support calls declined, but users are also grateful for the choice.

In terms of enterprise penetration, Forrester Research says that Mac OS use rose from 3.6% in October 2007 to 4.5% in June 2008, based on more than 50,000 clients connecting to Forrester's Web site. And according to in Steve Jobs in his keynote address at the Apple World Wide Developer's Conference in June, 35% of the Fortune 500 are testing the iPhone's new enterprise features, including Walt Disney, Oracle, Genentech and Kraft Foods. Jobs also claimed that more than 250,000 developers have downloaded the iPhone SDK.

Outside of Apple's own efforts, five software companies formed an alliance in June to promote the use of the Mac in the corporate environment, including Atempo, Centrify, Group Logic , LANrev and Parallels.

The group, dubbed the Enterprise Desktop Alliance, says its products enable IT organizations to deploy, integrate and manage Macs, using the same standard tools used for Windows. It claims that enterprises can achieve the same level of control, security, policy compliance and services that they currently have with their Windows platforms.

Meanwhile, some users contend that the perception that Macintoshes don't play well in the enterprise is largely exaggerated. Ben Hanes, senior systems analyst at Children's Hospital of Oakland Research Institute (CHORI), in Oakland, Calif., has been supporting Macintoshes for more than five years. Half of the research organization's 600 computers are Macs, with about two dozen running Parallels virtualization software.

Hanes' data center is a mix of Apple and Windows servers, with Windows running on the database and file servers, and Apple Xserves running applications that touch the Web, including a mail server, a Web server and an iChat server. "I definitely stick to the philosophy that whatever is on the perimeter is Apple technology because it's proven to be secure," Hanes says.

According to Hanes, the Macintosh desktops plug into the network "just like a PC," thanks to products like ExtremeZ-IP from Group Logic, which enable file and printer sharing between Mac desktops and the Windows server. Hanes says he has successfully integrated Macintosh desktops with Active Directory, using the "golden triangle" strategy, in which Mac clients authenticate with Active Directory while getting managed group settings from a Mac OS X server.

Hanes believes his team has been successful deploying Apple technology in part because they conduct a lot of research, apply a lot of scrutiny before making final decisions, and keep an open mind about what they use, including open-source technology. For instance, he says it took a year to establish that the team would use Communigate Pro from Communigate Systems for its e-mail server. And for its antivirus platform, CHORI selected Sophos because it enables both Macs and PCs to be viewed on one console.

Hanes does use Apple's Xserve RAID technology but says the company's move away from storage doesn't concern him. "They've certified EMC software to work with Apple," he says, "so switching will be a trivial thing."

As for service, Hanes says he has certified CHORI as a self-service shop, which means it gets the same rights as a Macintosh repair consultant, such as next-day parts delivery. You need to have 150 Macintoshes to qualify, he says. Hanes also participates in Apple beta programs and NDAs.
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