“Commonwealth Bank’s Sydney workers will be the first to move to an activity-based workplace this year,” Liz Tay reports for iTnews.
MacDailyNews Take: As opposed to an inactivity-based workplace; you know, like they have at Microsoft.
Tay continues, “This week, staff were notified that they would receive 11-inch MacBook Air laptops instead of Dell desktops when they moved to the new Commonwealth Bank Place at Darling Walk. According to an internal email sighted by iTnews, most will be issued 11-inch Macbook Air notebooks; devices with bigger screens may be issued depending on need. Staff are expected to continue using Microsoft’s Windows operating system to avoid them having to get used to new software. ‘It is just a hardware change,’ the bank wrote.”
MacDailyNews Take: For now. Watch and see what happens next. In the meantime, pray for those MacBook Airs and salute their shared sacrifice as Mac OS X lies in wait.
Tay continues, “Instead of desks and offices, Commonwealth Bank Place will have docking stations, each with a 24-inch LCD screen, mouse, keyboard, and network access.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: In a related move, IndyCar team Penske Racing will give all drivers brand new 2012 Formula Ones, each drawn by its very own mule.
Love your analogy MDN! Australian Grand Prix is on this weekend 🙂
I think a big thanks should really go to the IT dept, for being brave & thinking of the company’s interests & not themselves.
Hell has finally frozen over. I’m sure a few pigs have also taken flight. A company dumping Windows for OSX seems almost impossible considering how narrow-minded IT managers are. For 20 years all they’ve had to say is Dell, MS Windows, MS Office to keep their jobs secure.
They haven’t dumped Windows yet. They just replaced Dells with MBAs. Still booting into Windows, though.
I can’t help but wonder if they will ever actually migrate to OS X…
too much exposure makes one a target. it’s good that they’ll continue to run windows. best of both worlds–they can look hip, not have to learn a new os and OS X can remain off hacker’ radar.
Still subscribing to the “security through obscurity” myth, eh?
Yeah, what Metryq said! Mac OS X has now been out ten years. If that hasn’t gotten OS X on the radar screen of “hackers,” I don’t know what would.
Face reality – Mac OS X is far safer and more secure than Windohs.
Wouldn’t that be the worst security of both worlds? Easy to steal valuable 11″ laptops instead of giant desktops, and easy to compromise Windows operating system?
Step 1: Install decent hardware (Macs). Check.
Step 2: Virtualize the old software.
Step 3: Install new software under native OS.
Step 4: Have the Windows CD-shredding party.
Would love to do that in my Company. Nice and easy! What really bugs me is that we pay our crappy Dell PCs the same price as the MBAs and with the corporate rules, W7 etc… they’re sooo slow!
I love Apple computers but seriously I cannot think of a worse machine to use for a portable work computer where docking at a corporate location is a normal part of your day.
It has no *official* docking station from apple and was not even designed for one.
These people won’t be ‘docking’ these things, they’ll be lining up some 3rd party adaptor to a machine never designed for the purpose. Its not going to be as quick as walking in popping the computer down on the port replicator and firing up.
As much as this hurts to think, they should have stuck with the Dell in this case. At least that is a machine designed for docking in a corporate setting.
Dude, simply plug the Display Port and USB from the 24″ Apple Monitor and you’re done. Not technically a “dock”, but similar.
4 ports. Sure, with Thunderbolt it would be just 2, but 4 ports isn’t the end of the world.
I dunno, I give Australians a little more credit than that.
MacBook Airs running Windows because “Windows Staff are expected to continue using Microsoft’s Windows operating system to avoid them having to get used to new software.”?
Really? Australians can’t learn to close windows from little dots on the Left side instead of the Right side?
Australians can’t learn that START does not mean STOP?
I think that the people in the country that produced David Unaipon, can learn to call the Control Key, the Command Key.
Translation: It has little to do with the employees, its more that the bank does not want to spend the money or resources on stuff like
Risk Analysis – (if they are not currently running OS X no Corp Security Officer for something like a bank will allow this one to slip)
Infrastructure integration – Sure it seems simple, just plug it in, but they’ll need to spend resources integrating OS X into their existing Directory services (likely Active Directory). That could be easy or hard depending on how they have evolved their system over the years.
Training – Depending on the software they are running, it may not be as easy as just switching to an OS X version of something. There may well be no OS X version of various line of business apps they are running. Going virtual with some apps might work, but then you put yourself into a position of having 2 operating systems on one machine that must meet various internal, industry and government compatibility and security requirements.
I’m sure they can get there, hell we did it at the place I work, but it is not as simple as just installing OS X and learning to use a Command key instead of Ctrl.
There will literally be a laundry list of requirements that IT will need to check, implement, integrate and then test… and test some more. 🙂
If the bank was really smart their main software was not windows based. I don’t care if you’re using Windows NT 4.0. I don’t consider that mission critical software that I would trust to reliably do billion dollar transactions. The interface software may be windows based and that should be easy to replace with OSX native variant. as for docking, a bluetooth connection to the monitor and a wifi connection to a network printer, heck are physical connections really needed anymore. The bank software is probably web based and the laptops were just acting as terminal interfaces.
Most banks I’ve seen in Manhattan still use terminal emulators (green-screen systems, talking to mainframe machines). Still, Dude McFarland is correct — there will be a massive laundry list of requirements that must be checked, each and every item, before any migration is possible. One item doesn’t work, and it is a no-go.
We are still using IE6 in my office because an archaic web-based Performance Appraisal System was developed in the early 2000s using Lotus Notes (???!!!), which ONLY properly displays on IE6 and NOTHING else. Until someone in the senior management is ready to invest half a million dollars into the replacement of this system, we’re all stuck on IE6.
That’s how enterprise IT works.
Have you seen the latest MacBook Pro unboxing video posted by DJ Zomanno & Dumbfoundead? There’s a video up on YouTube. I can’t embed it here using my iPhone but you can do a search for it.
Anyway there are a couple of classic lines uttered by DJ Zo, one of which goes like this:
Points to Thunderbolt port on new MacBook Pro 2011 and says:
“F*ck USB.”
“F*ck FireWire.”
“Thunderbolt man!”
Well, that about sums it up.
“F*ck Dell.”
“F*ck HP.”
“MacBook Pro man!”
Okay, I know Penske Racing used iPads last year, but I don’t get the MDN take.
IndyCar = Dell, F1 = MBAs, Mule= Windows.
I had a tenant at my building once who mostly several Macs and a couple of Dells. He never had any trouble from the macs, but the Dells were nothing but trouble. He never bought a new Mac except to upgrade. At least once a year he would have some issue with a Dell that was costlier to fix than buying a new one. Why do you buy Dells, I asked him. Because they’re cheaper, he replied. I don’t think so.
There is *NO WAY* they would be doing this unless they had plans to move to OS X at some point in the future. This is a move to get the hardware deployed quickly and allow them to do OS X training on a timeline of their choosing.
Think about it this way: If a company is going to an “activity-based” workplace (i.e. less space but more flexible/sharable), then they’re probably looking to streamline their other cost centers as well. Moving to OS X will allow their IT department to support more employees with fewer analysts. That explains the move to Mac Hardware. Running Windows is an intermediate step in a larger move to OS X.
I noticed a month or so ago large screen iMacs had appeared in the customer service area of the Commonwealth Bank on Edward Street, Brisbane City.
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