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Businesses make the move to Apple’s Mac OS X

Friday, December 26, 2008 · 12:30 pm · 17 Comments

“Lately there’s been a lot of discussion that Apple may be about to make a big push into the enterprise market. Here are four stories about people and companies whose positive thoughts about their Windows-based PCs may be waning,” Ashley Laurel Wilson reports for CIO.

• Web Development firm switched to Macs just last month (Lightaus Design, Inc.): Moving to Apple Macs saved the company money.

• Medical center (Harvard Medical School)

• Artist switches from PC to Mac (Strategic Insights): Macs are the standard.

• Software engineer: (IAVO Research & Scientific) Matt Soloway says four changes to the Mac operating system could sway him: a lower price, tighter security, more software engineering tools and an OS that is less likely to crash.

Full article here.

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17 Comments

Passerby

Friday, December 26, 2008 - 1:49 pm · Reply

I checked the original article to see what the software engineer is using now. The article doesn’t say. It identifies his current computer as a “PC” which doesn’t necessarily mean windows. However, since it also reports he says around 80 percent of people at his company use PCs as opposed to Macs, it seems safe to assume he means and uses Windows as not many firms have 80% Unix.

So let’s compare the Mac operating system and Windows using his four points:

Lower Price: Mac OS X is less expensive than Windows. (Mac computers are more expensive than less capable Windows boxes, but these are changes he wants to see to the operating system before he’ll consider switching.)

Tighter Security: Mac OS X is more secure than Windows.

More Software Engineering Tools: Difficult since we don’t know his specific criteria. The Mac environment is not missing any class of software engineering tool, but there are unquestionably more brands available for Windows. Mac has A, B, & C tools, say, and Windows has A, A, A, A, A, B, B, B, C, C, C, C, C, C, & C. Does he want to continue using a specific tool from a specific vendor? I’ll give him this one just because it’s Christmas.

An OS That is Less Likely to Crash: OS X is less likely to crash than Windows.

Conclusion: Matt Soloway is an idiot. If you need custom, mission critical software solutions, don’t go to IAVO Research & Scientific as their software engineers seem to know very little about computers. Perhaps the janitors turn them on for them every morning.
x

Friday, December 26, 2008 - 3:40 pm · Reply

Tell the asswipe software engineer no deal …. Stick with that feces windows. Apple will do zero of your requests and they never want your business. Suck it, you’re an idiot
Shado Control

Friday, December 26, 2008 - 4:42 pm · Reply

Agree with all the above comments, but take some time out to think how stupid was the CIO chick for putting it in print…
Brau

Friday, December 26, 2008 - 4:51 pm · Reply

“some people might be so used to the complexity of Windows that they treat a Mac the same way”

They certainly hit the nail on the head with that statement. I’ve helped 5 people over the last few years switch and it seems they all insist on using it like a Windows PC:
1. They must have all their apps on the desktop, despite having them in the Dock.
2. They want urls on their desktop too, just like they had to with Windows.
3. They can’t seem to grasp the idea of just dragging urls into their bookmarks and insist on adding them via the drawn out drop-down menus. They visibly fret if not given a dialogue box asking if they want to save the url.
4. The idea of having Google in the Safari toolbar just draws a blank stare .. no they gotta go to Google from the desktop and then enter their query. Most seem to think, because they have used it via an icon on their desktop under Windows, that Google is an actual app. “What browser are you using” I ask. “The Google browser” they say. (Arrgh!)
5. “I can’t find the drop down menu to open an attachment I got in my email!!” Umm, did you try clicking on it? “Oh wow! That was easy!”

I had one friend call me up six months after switching, beaming about how happy he is with his Mac and how easy it makes everything … only to find upon my next visit he was using it without any visible window toolbars anywhere and his kids had deleted all the shortcuts from the Finder. He was primarily ecstatic because the Mac Mini had kept working reliably for half a year … something none of his PCs could attest, so he bought another 17″ MacBook.
Predrag

Friday, December 26, 2008 - 5:49 pm · Reply

Is there a problem with MDN message submission? I can’t seem to submit a normal message…
DLMeyer

Friday, December 26, 2008 - 7:11 pm · Reply

Had a similar discussion with my elder son just yesterday. He can’t switch to a Mac because it won’t do the work he needs to do. What is that? It involves using Visio. And he knows of several companies in similar positions because they are AutoCAD based. His step-dad stepped in and said he hasn’t used a CAD program since ClarisCAD stopped working … but he hasn’t missed it much. How many Network Engineers are there? How many other engineers? When I was at Putnam and Fidelity they had Macs for the “artsy types” and Windows for the vast majority. Most companies could flip that model, reserving Windows systems for the engineers … and minis for most of the rest.
alansky

Friday, December 26, 2008 - 7:27 pm · Reply

Less likely to crash? OS X almost never crashes! How much more “less likely” can you get? Another moron joins the choir.
PT

Saturday, December 27, 2008 - 5:33 am · Reply

@Passerby

Less capable than windows boxes -> so if I put linux or Unix, say BSD, on a ‘windows’ box, it becomes more capable?

I think this constant equating of windows with a ‘pc box’ is a little annoying (and rather stupid) since one is a piece of software (well, nominally anyway) and the other is hardware. I can (and do), run linux (Mandriva 2009) on a ‘pc box’, so this generalizing is pretty lame. And I can buy a PC box with exactly the same specifications as a mac (for significantly less than apple sell it) . Does this then make the equivalent PC a mac or the mac a PC? In actuality a PC = personal computer. This means any personal computer is a PC, regardless of the OS it runs.

That aside: the more Apple pushes microsh*t, and raises the bar the better for all of us, whatever side we bat for. Everybody needs a strong nemesis as it makes both parties better (the only way is up for microsh*t). As long as Apple can avoid its seemingly natural tendency towards hubris and trying to exploit its customers loyalty (as I feel is the case with the pricing of the new MacBook and Macbook pro and especially the macbook air), hence driving them off, apple can make more inroads in the enterprise world.
Passerby

Saturday, December 27, 2008 - 1:22 pm · Reply

@PT

“Less capable Windows boxes” (not “less capable than Windows boxes”)—a computer with a slower processor, less RAM, a smaller hard drive, and a slower bus that happens to have Windows loaded on it than a higher specced computer with Mac OS X loaded on it which is used as comparison. This is a common trick among the disingenuous and the simply stupid. “I can get a Windows box for half what that Mac costs.” Yes, but you also get only half the computer even before you consider one has Windows and the other Mac OS X.

“I can buy a PC box with exactly the same specifications as a mac (for significantly less than apple sell it) .” Good for you. But many many people have made this claim and then failed to produce the goods.

I agree with you about the annoying conflation of ‘PC’ and ‘Windows box’. The original article stated Soloway uses a PC without specifying what kind. This is extremely sloppy writing given the subject of the article. It’s like a car magazine comparing ‘a car’ and ‘a Porsche’. I assume his PC is a Windows box because he isn’t using a Mac and 80% Unix firms are rare.
Made Off $$$

Saturday, December 27, 2008 - 4:58 pm · Reply

… a lower price, tighter security, more software engineering tools and an OS that is less likely to crash.

1: Lower price – equates to lower quality

Check out this site for product comparisons

http://www.systemshootouts.org/

2: Tighter security – uh, is this a joke?

Compared to what? Yes Mac’s have EFI and other nosey “calling home” features, Google reporting on websites you visit (turn off in preferences) this is a PRIVACY issue that Apple could learn to do a better job in respecting. But then Windows is much worse, and the software installed is even worse than that.

3: OS that is less likely to crash – uh again this guy is out of touch. Early OS Classic versions did crash a lot, but with OS X it’s a different animal. Uptime is highest available.

4: more software engineering tools – well how many do you need?

One right? Is there one on the Mac, then what else do you need.

My solution for this guy, buy a Mac for online use and use Bootcamp to boot into Windows for all the other software choices. Of course it’s hard to see the screen because they are all glossy now, but third party monitors are still available.
YoYo

Sunday, December 28, 2008 - 7:45 am · Reply

How about getting OS X on airplane seats.

I just had a trip on Airbuss 340-600 which had Windows CE on every seatback. In one point before the actual flight, the server seemed to crash and every seatback had Windows CE Boot loader v2.7 startup screen entertaining passengers. Later I noticed there must have been bunch of iPhone users as they tried to slide their fingers or page flip. Quite frustrating to get anything out from the system, no matter how you poke it. Midway through the flight the video controls got stuck on the middle of the screen and stayed there the rest of the 10 hour flight.Not good, but acceptable if you are a Windows user, I guess.

Just think about how much fun it would be to have iPhone OS on those seatbacks.
Intruder

Sunday, December 28, 2008 - 12:48 pm · Reply

@Made Off $$$

Since when is EFI a “calling home” feature?
JohnLee

Sunday, December 28, 2008 - 10:15 pm · Reply

I use a mac and Windows PC every day. Right now I have to use AutoCAD and Revit so I still need Windows. I’ve run AutoCAD on my Mac using Bootcamp and Parallels and it runs fine, but I was having to call Autodesk every morning to get a new authorization code–something about how a Mac stores the authorization code on Macs they said. I am in the process of switching to ArchiCAD and Vectorworks and will eventually abandon Windows altogether.

My experience with both Macs and Windows goes back 25 years or so, but I still marvel at how much easier Macs are to use. There is no comparison. But as some of you have said, you won’t get it if you try to use a Mac like a Windows machine.
@ Brau

Sunday, December 28, 2008 - 11:36 pm · Reply

I don’t understand what you mean here:

“…only to find upon my next visit he was using it without any visible window toolbars anywhere…”

Huh?
me

Monday, December 29, 2008 - 5:20 am · Reply

Maybe he just wants a computer that doesn’t get hacked in two minutes, like the Mac in CanSecWest.

Face it Mac security does suck (even worse than Vista).
YoYo

Monday, December 29, 2008 - 9:25 am · Reply

“Maybe he just wants a computer that doesn’t get hacked in two minutes, like the Mac in CanSecWest”

Thank God that Mac is gone and OS X/Safari has been updated.

Meanwhile, back from the EU trip we found out that our Chinese PC had been hacked, luckily the ISP had closed the service after 2 days, as there had been only upstream traffic.

So much for having an in-house Windows guru.
software engineering

Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - 8:34 am · Reply

The “sky is…” definitely “the limit.” Cloud computing, access to super computers to do our multiprocessing, software engineering is definitely the next big thing
software engineering