“Leading IT bosses claim that despite Apple’s recent revival – largely around its consumer products – the company will continue to have little impact on corporate IT strategies,” Andy McCue reports for Silicon.com. “After coming back from near oblivion, Apple’s recent successes have been based around the iPod, new desktops and business hardware and a relatively virus-free platform.”
“We asked the silicon.com CIO Jury whether this had led them to rethink any aspect of their technology operations or if it challenged the traditionally-held notion that Apple has no place in corporate IT departments. Rob Neil, head of ICT at Ashford Borough Council, said that as far as corporate systems are concerned Apple is ‘an irrelevance,’ while Richard Yeo, CTO at easyGroup, simply stated: ‘Proprietary hardware and software, overpriced, few applications,'” McCue reports.
“Cost was an issue highlighted by other IT chiefs. Gavin Whatrup, IT director at advertising agency Delaney Lund Knox Warren & Partners, said that while Apple’s strengths are in ‘great technology,’ graphics and design, the company needs to address supply, price and integration issues to break into the corporate mainstream. Richard Steel, head of ICT, Newham Borough Council, was more succinct. ‘[Apple is] still an expensive fashion accessory in the consumer market and niche for business,’ he said,” McCue reports. “A couple of IT bosses, including Ted Woodhouse, IT director at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, said the only reason there are few malware exploits for Apple software is down to a lack of market penetration.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The IT guys will be the last to fall because their job security rests largely on Wintel deficiencies. If the world’s companies used Macs running Mac OS X, the IT staffing needs would plummet and the attendant power that having large staffs bring to IT honchos would evaporate as well. They are scared, so scared, in fact, that some even feel the need to fall back to the long-ago-disproven “Security via Obscurity” myth (see related articles below). Can you believe that Ted Woodhouse guy actually has a job as an IT Director? Simply amazing.
If you think the quotes above are bad, just wait until Apple really starts eating into the Wintel market and Microsoft shareholders, media companies that depend on Microsoft, antivirus software companies, Windows-only software makers, “computer help” gurus in the media (radio, TV, magazines) who live off Windows’ mediocrity, and others begin to defend their turf. It’s going to get very, very ugly.
For our Windows-only friends who are not trapped under the thumbs of dictatorial IT morons suffering from severe cases of Stockholm Syndrome, information about smoothly adding a safe, secure, powerful, and fun Mac OS X machine to your computing arsenal can be found here.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Windows Media songs and videos found to carry Windows malware payloads – December 30, 2004
Anzae/Inzae worm affects all Windows versions after 3.1; Macintosh unaffected – December 28, 2004
Unlike Windows users, Mac OS X users surf the Internet without a care in the world – December 28, 2004
Multiple unpatched Windows holes crop up; Windows systems compromised within minutes in experiment – December 24, 2004
Windows spyware mess is out of control, get a Mac and surf with impunity – December 21, 2004
New Microsoft Internet Explorer exploit spoofs Web sites on fully patched Windows XP systems – December 17, 2004
Microsoft may charge extra for Windows spyware protection software – December 16, 2004
Detroit Free Press: Windows malware problem getting worse, it’s time to get a Mac instead – December 16, 2004
Sick of spyware, adware headaches? Get a Mac and surf the Internet freely – December 13, 2004
Mossberg: Windows PCs plagued with problems, Apple’s Mac is ‘rock solid, elegant and affordable’ – December 09, 2004
Security expert: Don’t use Microsoft Windows, Office, Outlook, Internet Explorer – December 09, 2004
Security test: Windows XP system easily compromised while Apple’s Mac OS X stands safe and secure – November 30, 2004
Sick of spyware, adware infecting your PC? Don’t fret, just get a Mac – November 01, 2004
Microsoft: The safest way to run Windows is on your Mac – October 08, 2004
Spyware plagues Windows users while Mac users surf Net with impunity – November 01, 2004
Ballmer blames Windows users for not upgrading systems as Microsoft’s biggest security problem – October 22, 2004
Windows users line up to pay for spyware removal; Mac users surf Web with impunity – October 18, 2004
Microsoft: The safest way to run Windows is on your Mac – October 08, 2004
Windows users’ security woes spark interest in Apple’s secure Mac OS X – October 06, 2004
Windows desktop monopoly threatened by secure, safe Apple Mac OS X – October 04, 2004
Even Bill Gates can’t avoid Windows malware; Mac users surf the Web freely – October 03, 2004
Cyber-security adviser uses Apple Macintosh to avoid Windows’ security woes – September 27, 2004
Information Security Investigator says switch from Windows to Mac OS X for security – September 24, 2004
Mossberg: Apple iMac G5 ‘powerful, affordable, virus-free with better, more modern OS than Windows XP’ – September 23, 2004
USA Today: people are switching from Windows to Mac because of security issues – September 21, 2004
Windows besieged by hackers; number of Windows viruses soars by more than 400% – September 20, 2004
USA Today columinst angry about Windows viruses, adware, spyware – September 15, 2004
University of Chicago recommends all students patch Windows at least once a day – September 14, 2004
Windows XP worm speaks to users as it deletes their files; Macintosh unaffected – September 13, 2004
Security is top priority in Apple’s Mac OS X – September 12, 2004
Millions of Windows PC’s hijacked by hackers, turned into zombies; Macintosh unaffected – September 08, 2004
Mossberg: Dump your Windows machine and get an Apple Macintosh to free yourself of spyware – August 25, 2004
Tired of patching patches to patch Windows patches? Writer suggests getting a Mac – August 03, 2004
Windows ‘Scob’ virus designed to steal financial data, passwords; Macintosh unaffected – June 26, 2004
Gartner: Worms jack up the total cost of Microsoft Windows – May 07, 2004
Spyware, adware plague Windows users online; Mac OS X users surf freely – April 19, 2004
SmartMoney: Long-suffering Windows users can only dare to dream of Mac’s ease-of-use – February 12, 2004
Mac OS X has no viruses; what’s wrong with Windows? – February 11, 2004
Gates: Windows ‘by far the most secure’ system; tries to use ‘Mac OS X secure through obscurity’ myth – January 27, 2004
Columnist tries the ‘security through obscurity’ myth to defend Windows vs. Macs on virus front – October 1, 2003
New York Times: Mac OS X ‘much more secure than Windows XP’ – September 18, 2003
Wall Street Journal’s Mossberg on making the switch from Windows to Mac – September 18, 2003
Fortune columnist: ‘get a Mac’ to thwart viruses; right answer for the wrong reasons – September 02, 2003
Shattering the Mac OS X ‘security through obscurity’ myth – August 28, 2003
Is Mac OS X really inherently more secure than Windows? – August 26, 2003
Chicago Sun-Times columnist: Windows ‘many holes in its security’ but ‘none of my Macs have ever been affected – August 26, 2003
Sick of worms and viruses? ‘Move to Mac OS X’ suggests Chicago Tribune columnist – August 25, 2003
Virus and worm problems not just due to market share; Windows inherently insecure vs. Mac OS X – August 24, 2003
Chap, no offense but I happen to work in an large IT organization. I understand your reasons, but on the flip side we’re not talking about consumer hard drives. Most large file servers have no local storage and are optically paired to large, expensive SANs. For planning purposes, disaster recovery, SLA’s, etc., quotas MUST be set. If nothing stopped all of our users from (potentially) downloading their favorite DVD’s and storing them on the SAN, we’d be sunk in ever figuring out how to properly plan for capacity and adherence to our SLA’s in case of a disaster recovery operation.
It’s just like real estate, we can’t just have everyone taking up as much space as they want on the island. It needs to be zoned.
Just my thoughts…
X-Serve aside, Apple’s support completely stinks for enterprise customers. If I’m the field and my PowerBook croaks, will I get a smae-day replacement? Maybe same week replacement if I’m lucky.
You go to the “genius bar” to have your PowerMac repaired from a defective SuperDrive, and you end up with your hard drive wiped when you get back your machine three weeks later. Support!!??..
As I’ve said before in other posts, why would somebody turn down repeast business by shunning Windows? If you want food on your table, you consider your choices carefully. There is just so much economy behind supporting so much PC crap that why kill your cash cow?
I don’t think it’s a good thing, but that is reality.
You can’t win over nitwits who are out protecting their own jobs. You know the type – everyone is working with someone who knows some process or some equiptment in their company and refuses to teach anyone else – otherwise, they’d be out of work. The only people running corporate It are by the nature of their personalities like that – bureaucrats.
Let them keep their PC’s and out of our hair. They don’t buy computers, they’re just buying desk lamps or pencil holders. Here’s the approved list. Don’t think. We know what we’re doing. We’ve got a process and a procedure.
Look at the products they like to buy – like Dell’s – why? because they’re the cheapest. Tomorrow, they’ll be buying Lenevo and 3 years from now – Bobkin because it’s $8 less than a Lenevo and $11 less than a Dell.
As bureaucrats, they are ALWAYS 10 years behind the leading edge and 5 years behind the “average” person. In other words, nitwits.
What do you do with nitwits? You ignore them. Not worth our time.
Apple is making money and making money with consumers. Apple is making money with those bright enough to buy XServes – nothing else matters. Tiffany doesn’t care that WalMart sells something resembling diamonds.
Our school has 130 macs in a wintel enclave (Cornwall LEA, SW UK) and, strangely, we keep going whilst the others fall over due to spyware and viruses.
Do they cost more?
No – otherwise my board of governors would not let be buy Apple Macs!!!
Hate to say it but they would say the samething about Linux/Unix. How much do you want to bet that ever single one of those IT directors they talked to a) don’t know where the data center for the corporation is, and b) barely understand the small words used in corporate meetings revolving around their IT infrastructure?
Also I will bet that these are all companies that are heavy Windows server based much less desktop based, and the IT managers and upper “wannabe geeks” could not login to a *nix based system and look around if they tried.
I deal even with “web application developers” that don’t understand they are simply “windows application developers” as their end products while called using a web browser only work in IE on Windows systems… that is not a web application, a web application works in any web browser… all idiots… but it will be that way forever now… Job security directly equals corporate network insecurity as there has to be someone there to “save the day”… no need to save the day… instant cutback in that department you will see.
-All
Well, I AM and IT guy for a large manufacturer and I can say proudly that Windows is relegated to the desktop and if it is in the server farm it’s regarded with level 4 bioconamination measures. We are primarily P5 AIX and Linux right now, however, those Xserves are starting to look rather tasty.
Why would we do this? Amazingly, we’re trying to reduce costs and headcount, and the best way to do that is to keep or reduce the amount of Windows boxes (Oh, and server consolidation helps too).
This company, for one, surpassed the breaking point of having to keep feeding the Windows beast.
I don’t know what fairy tale you mac people are living in but the Mac OS X is not immune from security problems. In fact, over the past 6 months Apple has released more security updates for it’s OS then windows.
By the way… a new security warning was issued for MAC OS X server today… where’s that article MacDN? Nice job contiuning to show your bias reporting (I prefer the term propaganda).
Apple needs to get to the higher ups and show how much money they’re throwing away because they’ve let the IT department make decisions…
>>>With Macs, you’re locked into both hardware and software.
Apple OS X will not make signifigant inroads into the IT community until it can run on multiple platforms.
It’s never a good idea to be locked into one supplier, no matter HOW good their stuff is. That’s common business sense<<<<
But that’s also the REASON the Mac works so well with the OS… because Apple controls everything. Maybe Apple should spin off a business division that can handle its own manufacturing…
One or two years back, I was working for the Los Angeles Unified School District. I was out on vacation. My temporary replacement called our IT people to handle an issue on my Mac (which actually was not a Mac issue). The IT guy came out and asked the substitute how to turn on the computer! (My replacement didn’t know Macs, but could find out where the power button was.) I did not believe the story when I first heard it and thought he was kidding. After hearing it from a second source, I was finally appropriately appalled and disgusted. My position was always to keep the so called “techs” away from my Macs.
The school district has lots of Macs, but has clearly been marginalizing them by hiring MS certified techs and almost no techs who know Macs. Thought not an official policy, they have encouraged – and sometimes all but required – new (and old) schools to standardize on Windows. They had been and, last I knew, continue to be incompetent in handling Macs. That department’s bias is obvious.
I had spoken to one Mac-friendly tech who told me he was often scoffed when he spoke favorably about Macs by the other IT techs.
Where are the…:
Security warnings about theoretical exploits that might exist if a set of conditions align are one thing, actual “in the wild” security threats, malware and viruses are another.
To pretend that, because there has been more remedial activity for one platform instead of another over a highly selective period of time is a totally chicken-shit propagandist way of looking at reality. So let’s ask a question…
How many viruses exist in the wild for either MacOS X or OS X Server?
How many adware or spyware exploits?
Now answer the same questions for MS’s Swiss Cheese operating systems?
QED…
It may have been mentioned before, but the security through obsurity BALD FACE LIE just doesn’t hold true. If it did, then Apache would be the most hacked and exploited web server since it is by far the most popular.
MS denies lies and ignores thousands of known security issues for months, years, or (almost) a decade before doing anything to secure them. Apple issues very timely security updates as flaws and exploits are found. Thats a long ways from MS LA LA LA I can’t hear you so it doesn’t exist
People or virus software companies write proof of concept stuff for mac that just don’t fly since it needs to have an admin password, and security companies “tech journalists” and analist all cry MAJOR CRITICAL SECURITY THREAT CRIPPLES Macs blah blah blah.
Did anyone actually read about the new security breach on Mac OS X? Its a kernal memory error. The company that discovered it admits its a pretty low risk. It was discovered by ImmunitySec, a security company that makes invasive software tools that attack systems to discover security flaws. They discovered the flaws in June (think OS 10.3) They published information about the flaws to their “private subscriber list” They announced the flaws to the public in a seminar, and then said oh yeah, we never bothered alerting Apple about the flaws. They also never bothered to see if the flaws still exist since Apple has released several security updates since then, and 4 OS updates. This company doesn’t seem to follow standard OP of informing the company that makes the OS first, privcate subscribers later, and the public at large LAST after the OS company has had a chance to fix the problem. These ImmunitySec bozos and the tech writers who flock to them to dis OS X aren’t the brightest lights in the house
Sorry for the mistake,
“They discovered the flaws in June (think OS 10.3)” should read “They discovered the flaws in June (think OS 10.3.3)
The 4 OS revisons later refers to OS 10.3.7. Sorry for the confusion and the long rant.
Wow, there are a lot of heavy hitting IT guys amongst the MDN readership.
I love the way the MDN’s links are growing. IT staff is a significant cost item. Companies that don’t make purchasing decisions using overall costs are poorly managed — simply said. Sadly, that is not too unusual.
Tyk, you either make the widget or you don’t.
But on point 2, if you refer to this document you can see that OS X server is pretty flexible and easy to modify admin and client passwords.
Thanks Jadis One.
unfortunately I cant speak on behalf of our head admin although I would imagine that being a Unix fan since he was using NeXT he is probably more familiar with Admin security than I am (I am just a Mac Operator). I was just mentioning the point because those are his two main “beefs” with OSX.
The IT guy came out and asked the substitute how to turn on the computer! (My replacement didn’t know Macs, but could find out where the power button was.)
This occurance is not unusual in a PC dominated work place. At my previous work place where I was 1 of 3 Mac operators in a head office of some 350 staff, we basically had to know how to deal with our own problems on the Macs. Initially we were running OS9 but migrated to 10.2. We need the head IT guy combined with the Mac tech support to help us get onto the new network because IT guy knew the IP addresses for each Mac and the Mac tech support knew how to connect the Macs( Moving from the familiarity of apple talk to TCP/IP Unix). After that it was up to us Mac Ops to support our selves. Mainly MS PC IT guys are pretty usless on Macs unless they are Unix or Linux fans then with a bit of help you can show them around or put them in to the Terminal and they can take it from there.
How DO you turn on a G5?
Why does it have to be so complicated???
“IT bosses claim Apple ‘irrelevant’ to businesses” That’s fine if these IT bosses have evaluated Apple and made and educated decision. However, the majority are not going to let lack of knowledge get in the way.
Mike
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