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Hell freezes over: Forrester urges IT to support the Mac

tech.fortune.cnn.com

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Re: Hell freezes over: Forrester urges IT to support the Mac

#21

Post by ConstantineXVI »

marze wrote: post #16

I've heard in the past one theory for IT departments favoring PCs (besides all of the pro-PC marketing aimed at them) might be that the Macs are very cheap to administer and thus don't require much IT support. I thought this was an interesting response to this news, over at the AppleInsider forums: "I work for one of the largest corporations in the world. Surprisingly, they don't do anything to block access to networ…

With a solid/easy backup system like Time Machine, don't even need a proper service plan:

* Buy an external HD, set up Time Machine.

* Keep an identical spare Mac.

* If you're paranoid, buy a second external HD; rotate it and the first drive for TM backup every week-ish (keep the inactive one next to your spare Mac)

* When the Mac dies; toss it, get out the spare, plug in the TM drive and restore. Totally back in business in an hour or three. Buy another spare.

Re: Hell freezes over: Forrester urges IT to support the Mac

#22

Post by dredmorbius »

tomkarlo wrote: post #11
fname wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also pretty sure that once MacOS starts becoming prevalent in the enterprise, they'll eventually need antivirus, back up agents, and some sort of management agent as well. How would an IT organization manage the settings on the OS without some sort of management agent?

At what point are we going to get over the concept that Macs don't have virus issues because there's not popular enough yet? I feel like I've been hearing that chestnut for a decade now. There are already IT management tools for Macs. I've worked at two large companies in a row (25k+ employees) where a large percentage of the company was using Macs (~30% or more) and they both had established management solutions tha…

At what point are we going to get over the concept that Macs don't have virus issues because there's not popular enough yet? I feel like I've been hearing that chestnut for a decade now.

Excuse me son, but would you mind standing in line behind those Linux guys over there? They've been putting up with this longer than you have.

Re: Hell freezes over: Forrester urges IT to support the Mac

#23

Post by m0nastic »

famousactress wrote: post #20
m0nastic wrote: post #9

I find myself agreeing with their recommendation, even though I disagree with their rationale. Agreeing to let "HEROES" use Macs in an enterprise (and dear god what a terrible term, as if us Mac users weren't smug enough) seems to be basically capitulating to entitlement. At my last company, when Mac OS X first shipped, I wanted to try it out, so I bought an iBook (the cheapest entry to the world of Macs, in case I e…

...seems to be basically capitulating to entitlement Entitlement to use choose your own tools? Gasp. I think the underlying point the article's taking glancing blows at has plenty of merit, they just failed to do it bluntly enough. I think there's likely a high correlation between highly productive employees, and people who could care less about IT bureaucracy. I don't think it has anything to do with Mac users.. it'…

Entitlement that the rules put in place don't apply to you, because you are some sort of prima-donna superstar. I find that worrisome. It can bloom into pretty ugly (and moderately damaging) behavior.

I've worked for clients who have certain divisions which are the super-stars. I think the better approach is to evaluate why you have all these policies, and if they are actually doing what you think they're doing.

edit: Rereading this makes it sound like I'm calling the parent a prima-donna, which isn't what I mean (I'm referring to the people within an enterprise who decide that because they feel more productive on a Mac, they can just bring one in from home to do their work and circumvent all of the policies of IT.)

At the risk of forcing a square metaphor into a round analogy, it's really important in the Army that people follow orders. Even if a small group of them think they can be totally more productive by doing things their own way.

Enterprises aren't really set up to optimize for increased employee productivity, they're more likely to be set up to limit decreased productivity. I think this is one reason that people seem to like working at a startup, because you get to not have all that dogmatic bureaucracy.

If these HEROES in four or five years now suddenly decide that they'd be even more productive if they lugged in SGI O2 workstations from home to do their work, an enterprise has to be able to say "yeah, sorry, you can't do that."

But as to more Macs being deployed in enterprises, I'm all for it. It'd give me new things to break into.

Re: Hell freezes over: Forrester urges IT to support the Mac

#24

Post by sudont »

m0nastic wrote: post #9

I find myself agreeing with their recommendation, even though I disagree with their rationale. Agreeing to let "HEROES" use Macs in an enterprise (and dear god what a terrible term, as if us Mac users weren't smug enough) seems to be basically capitulating to entitlement. At my last company, when Mac OS X first shipped, I wanted to try it out, so I bought an iBook (the cheapest entry to the world of Macs, in case I e…

As someone currently doing a "pilot" of a Mac in a highly corporate environment, I can say it's not exactly just IT. There's realms and realms of support groups that get to sign off on "authorized" network equipment, and when you bypass them it's the equivalent to a histamine reaction. I never met anyone in IT who disliked Macs completely and totally, just management.

We had one specific storage group that "only supported Windows," despite the storage pool being a Samba process on Linux and all of the core devs using Macs (they had shell account access, so never encountered this). The dev who supported the share outright refused to add the "unix extensions = no" to the smb.conf file (that fun bug). Right now I actually run a little CentOS VM to mount the share with the "nounix" option, then SCP in.

So, even once you get the platform, it can be a major struggle to have other groups support it.

Re: Hell freezes over: Forrester urges IT to support the Mac

#25

Post by johngalt »

51% allow access to web-based email? 37% allow internet access? 19% native email?

I've been in IT for 12 years, I've never seen anyone endorse blocking Macs from any of these. 49% block Macs from webmail? Difficult to imagine a situation where these would be a problem. Maybe super paranoid eavesdropping management?

Re: Hell freezes over: Forrester urges IT to support the Mac

#26

Post by smithian »

ConstantineXVI wrote: post #21
marze wrote: post #16

I've heard in the past one theory for IT departments favoring PCs (besides all of the pro-PC marketing aimed at them) might be that the Macs are very cheap to administer and thus don't require much IT support. I thought this was an interesting response to this news, over at the AppleInsider forums: "I work for one of the largest corporations in the world. Surprisingly, they don't do anything to block access to networ…

With a solid/easy backup system like Time Machine, don't even need a proper service plan: * Buy an external HD, set up Time Machine. * Keep an identical spare Mac. * If you're paranoid, buy a second external HD; rotate it and the first drive for TM backup every week-ish (keep the inactive one next to your spare Mac) * When the Mac dies; toss it, get out the spare, plug in the TM drive and restore. Totally back in bus…

So, uh, your backup strategy is "buy two computers for every employee?" INteresting, but hardly cost-effective.

Re: Hell freezes over: Forrester urges IT to support the Mac

#27

Post by smithian »

Samuel_Michon wrote: post #18
thaumaturgy wrote: post #15

I'm not sure what their 6 recommendations were for preparing for the transition, and I'm unwilling to pay $499 to find out, but I hope one of them deals with the horrible pain in the ass that is Windows File Sharing. Macs really do not like Windows shares, whether in an AD context or a workgroup context. While some seem to work without any trouble, others have frequent issues with logging in, with browsing, with refr…

My experience has been that Windows doesn't really like Windows shares either. Ever tried to create a network with a few Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows 7 computers? I couldn't get it to work. Instead, now those Windows machines simply access my WebDAV running on Mac Lion Server.

You're kidding right? Windows file sharing is trivial to set up.

Re: Hell freezes over: Forrester urges IT to support the Mac

#28

Post by ConstantineXVI »

smithian wrote: post #26
ConstantineXVI wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With a solid/easy backup system like Time Machine, don't even need a proper service plan: * Buy an external HD, set up Time Machine. * Keep an identical spare Mac. * If you're paranoid, buy a second external HD; rotate it and the first drive for TM backup every week-ish (keep the inactive one next to your spare Mac) * When the Mac dies; toss it, get out the spare, plug in the TM drive and restore. Totally back in bus…

So, uh, your backup strategy is "buy two computers for every employee?" INteresting, but hardly cost-effective.

Just as effective as leasing $600 machines for $150/mo

Re: Hell freezes over: Forrester urges IT to support the Mac

#29

Post by smithian »

ConstantineXVI wrote: post #28
smithian wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, uh, your backup strategy is "buy two computers for every employee?" INteresting, but hardly cost-effective.

Just as effective as leasing $600 machines for $150/mo

In other words, not effective at all? Yes.

Re: Hell freezes over: Forrester urges IT to support the Mac

#30

Post by Samuel_Michon »

smithian wrote: post #27
Samuel_Michon wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience has been that Windows doesn't really like Windows shares either. Ever tried to create a network with a few Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows 7 computers? I couldn't get it to work. Instead, now those Windows machines simply access my WebDAV running on Mac Lion Server.

You're kidding right? Windows file sharing is trivial to set up.

Between different versions of Windows? No, it isn't.
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