“Property asset management company Capital & Regional is evaluating Linux desktops and Apple Macs as a way to reduce its dependency on Microsoft,” Andy McCue reports for silicon.com.
McCue reports, “The company has around 700 PC users and currently runs Windows XP Pro and Office XP Pro but its CIO Richard Snooks has hit out at Microsoft’s aggressive licensing policies.”
McCue reports, “He said: ‘I feel we are being railroaded and the market generally forced into a corner or even a cul-de-sac. In a free market we have made Microsoft dominant and now we have the collective responsibility to reverse this situation to re-establish balance and competition. If I am being driven down the Vista route then an Apple Mac is smarter money and cheaper.'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The world awakens a little bit more with each passing day.
My gawd! A CIO actually capable of independent thought! A major blow to Microsoftian groupthink.
A new day dawns, finally!! It’s nice to know that some people are finally waking up!
Alot of talk, CIO…a good way to back up what you say is to tell your IT guys to support the iPhone.
Tipping Point®
Of course with Apple it’s a a hardware AND a software lock in.
Then of course is the zillions of trained zombies on Windoze that will cost in lost productivity switching to another OS.
These are the fundamental problems that Apple needs to address.
However, cost to operate per unit, per year. Apple is substancially cheaper, as long as you need the mid to higher end machines. With the lower end, a dumb terminal lacking just about everything, the PC wins hands down.
Of course then there is the problem of a all in one unit’s, like iMac’s which if the display goes, the whole machine is worthless or not cost effective to fix.
Of course there is the Mini, but it lacks performance of the iMac.
Then of course is the Mac Pro’s, but prepare to pay a arm and a leg for upgradable modular machine.
However all of these things are trival compared to the constant WORK THAT IS REQUIRED TO KEEP WINDOWS SAFE AND OPERATING.
I think people are waking up.
This is a classic example of the fight for survival, M$ chokes your wallet to near death, your wallets involuntary reaction is to struggle to gain breathe at what ever cost, in this case, a massive knee jerk into M$ balls (Ball/mer-sillie) when M$ recoils, your wallet takes a massive gasp of air and then runs for its life….Once it has recovered, it looks for a source of food (money) that will not choke it to death.
@Road Warrior
Exactly why Apple NEEDS to release a mid-range tower.
Please move along….nothing to see here.
MacDailyNews Take: The world awakens a little bit more with each passing day.
Well, perhaps, perhaps…..
But World still buying Windows machines. I guess World needs a better alarm clock
“Of course then there is the problem of a all in one unit’s, like iMac’s which if the display goes, the whole machine is worthless or not cost effective to fix.”
If the display goes in a laptop, the whole machine is worthless or not cost effective to fix. I guess it doesn’t make sense for companies to use laptops, either.
If something physically goes wrong with the display, you can plug in another one and keep working. Before you get it fixed, you keep a back-up iMac around and copy the data over and leave them the back-up iMac while you send in the other for maintenance–just like you would with a CPU.
LCD Displays are pretty reliable, except for the planned-obsolence backlight (my last LCD lasted five years).
“Of course with Apple it’s a a hardware AND a software lock in.”
If IT writes applications that are standards based and work in any browser, then how is there any lock-in? Do you mean major commercial productivity software? Because that exists for all major commercial operating systems. If you run standards-based, or even (gasp) open source systems, then databases and interfaces aren’t tied to any particular system.
If, OTOH, you write your apps to run only in IE on Windows, then you have vendor lock in. I know of no corporate apps that only run on Safari.
Go, ChrissyOne, Go!
The whole “lock-in” crap is BS. What do you get when you get Windows? Locked in. Windows is loaded with proprietary formats.
There IS intelligent life out there.
If the display goes in a laptop, the whole machine is worthless or not cost effective to fix. I guess it doesn’t make sense for companies to use laptops, either.
Topic title says “desktops”
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />
And with desktops it’s better to have them modular so in case one part breaks or you want to upgrade a part it’s up to decide how to spend your money.
Sure laptops are “all in one devices” but on the PC side they are usually cheap and easily disposable for the buisness world needs.
If something physically goes wrong with the display, you can plug in another one and keep working. Before you get it fixed, you keep a back-up iMac around and copy the data over and leave them the back-up iMac while you send in the other for maintenance–just like you would with a CPU.
So one is suppose to keep a spare monitor and another iMac around just in case the first one breaks, a bit expensive wouldn’t you think?
Wouldn’t it be better if a mid range Mac tower’s monitor goes to simply run to the nearest computer store and replace it with another? Than to have another whole computer on standby being wasted and cost invovled sending the first one off to be fixed?
A iMac is like a Playstation 3 married to a HDTV, it doesn’t make any sense.
@ChrissyOne
It’s a hardware lock because once a buisness buys Mac OS X based software, it will only run on Apple hardware.
So from a buisness point of view, Microsoft is a mere hatchet, but Apple is a double bladed ax.
With Windows a buisness has a choice to move their software to another hardware company. HP, Dell, even AppleIntel hardware if they choose.
Apps running in browsers are very limited. For instance you wouldn’t want to run processor intense 3D games in any browser.
Apple where the monopolistic antecedant of Microsoft if you remember your history. The obvious difference was of course the Woz and Apple actually had fantastic products relative to the market back then. And of course the market found a way of dethroning Apple and hoisting a false idol (The S**t Monkey: Ballmer and his Lord, Gates all Puny). So these things take time. Apple however is helping to rebalance the market back to rightfully accepted products that are market leaders (or close to). Like any cult members, it’s hard de-programming MS lackeys: feeble minds and weak personalities, they worship any mirage and cling tight to what they have been indoctrinated to believe is the ultimate truth: MS is good. Ah, such a delusion. So perhaps we who use Macs and hold Apple in high regard, it falls on us to draw these fools back from the grip of Gates’ Hell. And show them the true path: Unix based operating systems- OSX, Linux, anything but windows…
Amont other things Any McCue says, ” In a free market we have made Microsoft dominant and now we have the collective responsibility to reverse this situation to re-establish balance and competition. “
These are the first words I’ve ever heard that actually give me actual hope that the world is finally getting the real issue here. I’ve said it so many times over the last 20 years I’m weary beyond words – but alas, a ray of hope pierces my long standing gloom.
Even if you decide you don’t like Macs, then at the very least do yourself, your company, and the world at large an enormous favor and don’t keep enabling MS to do what it does the way that it does it. Stop screwing yourself and others, would be another way of saying the same thing.
Please help return choices to the consumer, private and enterprise – And pass the word while you’re at it.
MW: “believe” – As in I’m beginning to believe that change is really possible.
While I’m at it: I remember a tongue-in-cheek “documentary” on the TLC [The Learning Channel] about 10 years ago that was all about how being better did not guarantee success in the business world, and yes the Macintosh was the featured example of this somewhat satirical look and the Mac vs. Windows state of things at the time.
My point is this, how about a deadly serious documentary on the zillions of dollars thrown into the MS abyss in the name of being serious about business. I’ll bet that’s a documenary that’ll never get produced by the likes of MSNBC, or NPR, or ABC, or any of the other broadcaster/producers that MS has in its back pocket.
“Of course with Apple it’s a a hardware AND a software lock in.”
No, because Apple hardware can run Mac OS X, Linux and Winblows.
@RoadWarrior
In the IT business environment, you have spare portions of EVERYTHING waiting on the sidelines, since you never know what’s going to fail: computers, monitors, peripherals. When a large company uses iMacs, yes they should have a couple spare iMacs to use in the event of a system problem. Downtime = lost productivity.