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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

#41

Post by ryannielsen »

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.

Nowhere did he claim "two computers for every employee". Like any company with centrally managed IT, it'd be wise to have hot spares of any and all hardware. That doesn't imply "buy 2x of everything!", it means to prepare for failure and minimize downtime (of any hardware) by having spares that can be quickly swapped.

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

#42

Post by wooster »

mikeash wrote: post #40
Samuel_Michon wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference: when you use a Mac, you don't need that software. - You don't need to run third party antivirus or antispyware software on the client, only on your mail server (to protect Windows users if you forward Windows executables). OS X has built-in malware protection. - You don't need third party management software, you can use NetInstall/NetBoot or ARD. - Using NetBoot also solves the backup problem on the…

> OS X has built-in malware protection. That's not really true. OS X doesn't generally suffer from malware purely because there isn't much Mac malware out there. It's only difficult to get infected with malware because it's difficult to find the stuff. But it's actually pretty easy to write the stuff, if one were so inclined.

Just a nit: OS X does have very basic built-in malware protection in the form of File Quarantine.

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

#44

Post by trout »

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…

I work at a large tech company, and we've embraced macs for the last 2 years or so.

The macs are still more expensive than the standard company issue, but they are able to offset the cost by offering 0 IT mac support. If you're wanting to go off the beaten path, fix your own issues. There are internal wiki's where the mac enthusiasts pour time into other people's issues, and a general word-of-mouth troubleshooting culture.

From the context of the conversations I've heard, I think the major hurdles are around security, support, and hardware costs. Before I'm jumped for implying less security with macs, it's still centered around the ability for the enterprise to control virus scanners, DLP, workgroup rights, generic company control, etc. Whether the operating system is more/less secure is still a religious argument - my guess is more IT staffs consider it less secure however.

Which leads to an interesting question - since the user experience has lead to a large enterprise install base, when does Apple start prioritizing business needs? Admittedly I'm not an apple user, but I haven't seen any indication that's it's even on a list. I imagine I'm incorrect.

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

#45

Post by wooster »

r00fus wrote: post #12
Samuel_Michon wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference: when you use a Mac, you don't need that software. - You don't need to run third party antivirus or antispyware software on the client, only on your mail server (to protect Windows users if you forward Windows executables). OS X has built-in malware protection. - You don't need third party management software, you can use NetInstall/NetBoot or ARD. - Using NetBoot also solves the backup problem on the…

> - You don't need to run third party antivirus or antispyware software on the client, only on your mail server (to protect Windows users if you forward Windows executables). OS X has built-in malware protection. I hope you realize Apple itself runs antivirus for their corporate MBPs... likely because like any monoculture, any viral malware could cause disastrous results.

  Apple itself runs antivirus for their corporate MBPs
Not AFAIK. Certainly not within engineering.

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

#47

Post by johngalt »

rhplus wrote: post #35
johngalt wrote: post #25

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?

I think the key phrase here is "employee owned Macs". They don't say what the equivalent results are for "employee owned Windows PCs", but I'd bet they're in the same ballpark. And when they say "owned" they really mean "administrated", meaning the PC isn't part of the corporate domain and subject to corporate Group Policy.

Ah so that falls under the umbrella of expectations of IT.

E.G. someone brought a machine from home one day and proceeded to work on it, then had a failure and lost "business critical" data. Then management chewed out IT with questions like "How could you allow someone put our data in that situation!!!", "What could you have done to prevent this!"... Hence IT Policy: no personal machines in the building.

To anyone else in IT; here's how you avoid that situation, and the resultant policies. Audit your connections, or have an inventory tool which will let you know when new MACs (the NIC addresses) are seen. Then follow up with a polite email to $PersonalDeviceUsers's Boss detailing what you can/can't offer service wise. So long as everyone understands the situation ahead of time (in writing), you'll avoid having to write such policies later.

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

#49

Post by famousactress »

m0nastic wrote: post #38
famousactress wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No worries about it sounding like the prima-donna comment was aimed at me. I've certainly fallen into the category of people you've applied it to. At this point I'm sure I'm not remotely fit for The Enterprise, though I've worked in plenty of them. It's not that I've ever thought that the rules put in place don't apply to me.. it's that I've placed a higher priority on other objectives of the company (like getting wo…

For what it's worth, I totally agree with you. I'm presently trying to extricate myself from a large enterprise. I'm not necessarily a gung-ho "startup good/big company bad" kind of person, but purely from an "asymmetric effectiveness" standpoint, it's easy to see why people think large enterprises are a relic of last century. In many ways, it seems like they're designed to just continue treading water until the lake…

Totally. I'm not on one side or the other from an idealogical standpoint.. it seems like there are some large organizations that do enough good with their size to make up for the downfalls that come along with it.. I just haven't been at one of those.

With respect to functions like IT, I'd imagine the department needs to do what other functions in a large organization do in order to remain effective and useful... decompose.

It seems like distributing things like risk management, and the security of assets among parts of the organization effectively gets the organization closer to looking like a bunch of smaller, more effective organizations who collaborate... and mitigates risk. The idea of a monolithic IT function in a giant organization providing more safety than a distributed version of the same idea seems on it's face a misplaced comfort.

Then again, I'm really not someone who knows enough about what it takes to run an IT department to be suggesting such a thing.

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

#50

Post by mkopinsky »

rplst8 wrote: post #46

Uh, hey Forrester, the real "HEROs" are the ones that take a couple of hours on their own time to streamline a bloated Windows install rather than wasting company resources to get a Mac working in a primarily Microsoft based infrastructure.

In The Enterprise, there's often no way of streamlining your own install. Users often a) don't have the administrative access necessary to remove the bloatware, and b) wouldn't dare uninstall "critical security applications" installed by IT. Sometimes the only way to escape the protocols is to put yourself in a situation where they can no longer be applied to you.
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