“In the last year, I’ve witnessed a sea change in Macs’ acceptance in business,” Galen Gruman reports for InfoWorld. “To be sure, Macs have been the standard PCs for designers, layout artists, and the like since the mid-1980s, and Silicon Valley developers adopted the Mac as the preferred dev platform years ago (because it runs Unix, Linux, and Windows, too). MacBook Airs became senior execs’ preferred status-symbol PCs a couple years ago as well.”
“But for bread-and-butter computing, it has been a Windows-only world. Those creative, dev, and exec Macs were the ‘other’ handled outside the normal IT processes,” Gruman reports. “That’s changing — fast. Gartner says IT will consider Macs to be as valid as Windows PCs next year. The tools to enable that are already coming.”
Gruman reports, “The latest is Acronis’s enterprises backup tool and its newfound support this week for OS X and its Time Machine backups, letting IT integrate OS X’s native (and free) backups into an enterprisewide workflow. It’s long been easier to back up Macs than PC, locally via an optionally encrypted backup drive or department ally via OS X Server. Now Macs can be backed up at enterprise scale.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Welcome to the light, cubicle dwellers!
Related articles:
BYOD boosts Macs vs. WIndows PCs: The final barriers to widespread Mac adoption in the enterprise are eroding – February 19, 2013
Apple Macs continue to invade the enterprise – September 5, 2012
Gartner: Apple Macs invading the Windows PC-dominated enterprise – June 6, 2012
Mac attack: The world finally begins ultimate personal computing upgrade – January 17, 2012
Mac Attack: Get ready IT doofus, your world is about to be turned right-side-up – November 28, 2011
Hell freezes over: Forrester urges IT to support the Mac – October 27, 2011
Corporate Mac sales surge 66% as Apple makes huge enterprise gains – May 20, 2011
Mac vs. Windows in business case study: Macs have 1/3 fewer problems that are solved 30% faster – June 2, 2008
CIO: Apple’s Mac OS X is the most cost effective operating system – September 24, 2007
Apple Mac desktops, notebooks top PC Magazine’s Annual Reader Satisfaction survey – again – September 18, 2007
CIO: Eight financial reasons why you should be using Apple Mac – August 01, 2007
Switching business from Windows to Mac offers significant savings – July 23, 2007
Ah, the Dilbert Edition iMac is nigh…
Tipping point?
Welcome to the light indeed!
My sister and brother-in-law just bought their first iMac, after years with cheap commodity PCs.
How does my sister tell me? “Well, we’ve finally gone to the dark side!” – What?
Former PC users seem to suffer from a bad case of Stockholm Syndrome these days.
Let me correct your sister for you.
“We’re finally gone from the dark side.”
We are the light side, baby.
“Come to the dark side, we’ve got cookies…”
Hopefully TCO is now duly considered to Enterprise. It’s those hidden PC support costs that are the Killer, including supporting the remaining dufus IT jokers.
That means when the #s get higher, there may be advantages to attacking the Mac with advanced malware. Right now, the #s are not high enough for organized crime to pay any attention to the Mac. All we see now is Tibetan directed malware that has zero affect on USA Macs. Add Unix with 1/3 more code and code that has not been vetted by the guys from Russia and China and the Mac will have some hits to take.
The “security through low market share” myth has been debunked so often and so thoroughly that I’m surprised anyone would waste their time raising this red herring yet again.
WTF are you talking about? Please do not talk shit on a tech website because you’ll get called out for it.
Let me remind you that UNIX is inherently more secure than Windows. What you’re effectively saying is that popularity equates to hacking, but hacking Swiss cheese Windows security is not the same thing as hacking a UNIX compliant platform.
yeah! what he said.
So by your reasoning, the iPad should be one of the most easily hacked computers out there. iOS should be one of the most malware-infested operating systems, completely shunned by enterprise due to its inherent vulnerabilities from having all that market share with no protection. Isn’t organized crime all over the iPad?
not certain i can agree on the assertion that the mac is “not worth the time of lifting a finger to”
granted, windows is far and away the most widely used operating system, and, from all evidence, the easiest to hack.
however you can never underestimate the attraction of a challenge to the truly talented.
whoever could successfully hack the mac in a fundamental fashion would be heir to some serious bragging rights… plus hacking and discrediting the macs perceived strengths would work to diminish its (for a long time slowly) growing popularity.
in other words force the mac to lose its reputation of relative safety against hacks and thereby strengthen the hand of microsoft – which is great for hackers because it is so easy to monkey with.
that being said, apple really needs to put more effort into fortifying its operating system, just like everybody else needs to as well.
The hard truth when it comes to security is that across all platforms there is awareness and best practices in place that make it much harder to exploit an OS.
Beyond the legacy holes still left in java the vast majority of security breaches are done with Trojans that try and trick the end user into running them.
even on windows when was the last time something just spread like wildfire and brought entire networks down? Its been a few years.
The first worm was built on Unix in 1988 and when I started coding in the early 90s there was no thought given to data validation beyond simple things like determining if a phone number was entered correctly.
These days we are coding on high level frameworks that do data validation, that verify beffer lengths and a host of other things for stability and security.
Sure there are still security holes but the wild west days of simply sending unexpected data to an input buffer and crashing an entire OS are largely a part of history now.
OH GOD No!!! Not on my OS X. I will look the other way and totally discount that OS X is affected by this. Then all the Apple Dogma and folklore I truly believe in ill mean I will have to, Well…………………
Where is that clueless TED, he told me this could happen, but I don’t believe him. TED wrote that article!!!! OS X is grand, viruses viruses, Ted OS X can’t get viruses. Make me a virus TED!!!……………………..
WTF! Seriously dude, I think you got a brain virus or something.
We’ve been handling Macs for a few years now. Ipads and iPhones the last 2 years.
Its all integrated easily enough and I don’t recall any show stopping issues.
we even have our macs joined to our windows domain.
Our real work has shifted from keeping things running (that includes PCs, they aren’t much work since windows 7) to role based security and access provisioning.
There is such a large amount of data flowing in most enterprises and multiple devices accessing that data that the real work has become managing it all and providing easy access that also takes security and protection of company assets into account.
Actually TED, OSX can be just as much as a walled garden as iOS.
1. Install only App store vetted software (Same as iOS vetted software)
2. If you “must” install software make sure it is reputable. If you install software you found lying in some back alley, well then you get what you ask for. You can make it as open as much as you want.
3. I love walled gardens. America is one if you hadn’t noticed.
And as OS X and iOS increasingly merge (iOS X?), the walled garden around the Mac will only grow. This will further secure the Mac from ever becoming a hotbed of viruses and malware as market share rises. I for one welcome our walled garden overlords (Wallgords?).
I beg to differ. No longer is America walled nor is it a garden. Well, maybe it’s still a garden but it’s overrun with weeds.
I haven’t had to post this in some time, but TED, it’s time.
My standard retort to those who scream that Apple’s OS will soon be as riddled with malware as Windows follows:
Mac OS is not impregnable. There are currently several Trojans which can be downloaded and run on a Mac. They have to be ACTIVELY downloaded and PERMITTED to run by a user with an administrative login.
Having said that, OS X is a version of UNIX, which was designed to be networked, unlike Windows, which was designed to be stand-alone. Windows has massive holes and spaghetti code where all sorts of malware can run without the user knowing.
In UNIX, nothing can run unless it’s been approved to run by an administrator. Also, every piece of software resides in a library, and there are a limited number of them. There’s really not much room to hide, and if the virus is not running on the Admin account, very little damage can be done anyway. Read more about that here: http://daringfireball.net/2004/06/broken_windows
Additionally, Macs are virtually invisible on the internet right out of the box. Even without a firewall on, you are essentially in “stealth mode.” “… by default, OS X doesn’t leave many ports open. In contrast, most versions of Windows ship with a bunch of open ports, which is one reason that operating system is a riper target for malicious hackers. http://www.macworld.com/article/132558/2008/03/connect2504.html
Because Macs are hard to crack, and Windows is easy, the goons target Windows. But that doesn’t mean they haven’t tried. Read about the “Hack-my-Mac” challenge here: http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/mac/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=181502078
Finally, Windows is inherently easier to run malware on because of the way it handles DLLs compared with the way Linux and OS X do. See this: http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/08/new-windows-dll-security-flaw-everything-old-is-new-again.ars?comments=1#comments-bar
To argue that Macs are only safer because they are too obscure is pointless. It’s INARGUABLE that there are tens of thousands of known viruses and malware for Windows and only a few, including zero viruses, for the Mac.
“Listen to organized crime. See what they do. See what they say in the hacker forums. Why work hard when you can work easy, Windows is too easy to spend any time on the Mac.”
What they say and what they can actually do are two different things. They obviously don’t want to say they can’t make a Mac virus. Tell them to try and make one and leave the excuses they hide in.
BTW your scientology shtick is almost as tiring as your FUD. When we state facts that you can’t fight and start your name calling it doesn’t bolster nor support your opinions in the slightest. Liking products that work and don’t have viruses does not make you a scientologist, brain washed nor a zealot. It makes you smart.
Like I said before… make that Mac virus. Try it. You can’t.
Of course I can’t, I am not a coder.
But your total lack of knowledge on how stuff works is relly evident. Getting sucked into the Mac security dogma like you have after here only Mac zealots and zealots writing articles about how Mac security is not about security from obscurity when any security expert knows, Mac’s are exponentially more secure then windows because of security through obscurity and following the pathway of the Grimes corollary What ever is most popular, will get attacked the most”.
This could never happen in your world… Read the whole thing.
http://www.intego.com/mac-security-blog/pint-sized-backdoor-for-os-x-discovered/
R2, I will give you that, they are merging more and OS X will be more secure as it always does every version. I am all for that, I don’t mind the walled garden. I am a long term Mac user, so not having 5 ways to do something like windows lets you, does not bug me.
It does in mine. I don’t believe Mac zeolot security dogma. Any OS other then OpenBSD is weak, if a good hacker wants in and wants to spend monumental time to write an exploit he is in. Windows- OSX alike.
Thanks MDN for deleting my post. Go let this TED guy have the last word. He is in fact dissing your blog with his comments but somehow my and other people’s comments MDN felt compelled to delete. There was no swearing or notable reason for you to delete the comments. Are the editors of this site still angry that I posted a mention of Ghostery? Free thought rocks.
Can Apple make enough computers to satisfy demand? Not so much lately.
Apple is currently shipping iMacs in 1 to 3 days now.
Same old media machine, and MacDailyNews keeps it going, over, and over, and over, and over, and over…
These articles have been cropping up for years.
“Apple takes on the enterprise!”, 2007.
“Apple dominating corporate America!”, 2007.
Here’s one of many headlines from MacDailyNews on this topic, this one from 2009:
“How Apple’s Mac Once Again Became Red Hot in the Enterprise of Businesses.”
Yet, OS X remains with very little growth overall in terms of marketshare.
This article is just bullshit: no real data. Bottom line, OS X is great, but it’s marketshare has been stubbornly stuck for years. One issue outside North America is the cost of Macs are just so high.
Just imagine where AAPL would be today had Steve Jobs not converted Apple Computer Inc. to a “mobile device company” – a company, after banking the quick profits for “wow” but temporary products, that has now run out of ideas of what to do next now that the competition has pushed all of Apple’s mobile devices aside? What if Apple was selling Mac Pros to the endless and hungry corporate and government markets across the world. Just imagine.
What makes you and stupid jerks like you qualified to say “Apple “has now run out of ideas?” Are you privy to what’s going on there right now? I thought not. STFU disingenuous one, with an obvious Apple Hater agenda. Guys like you are LOSERS PLUS. Such arrogance and bravado backed up with nothing. You don’t know squat about Apple’s future and near-future plans. Too bad they outlawed tar and feathering.
So if you say Macs will get attacked more…then why are they not getting attacked right now? If the market share in the USA is what 13% give or take?
Then Macs should have 13% of the virus malware problems right?
MDN had an article recently, in the past 3 weeks, I believe, whose reputable source that showed Mac US market share is 20%, huge difference. But again, Market share is not the goal for Apple, smart, virus-free computing products is.
I work at EMC (we have 55,000 employees), and our IT department started officially offering Macs in 2012. Before that, Macs were I officially allowed if you bought and brought in your own. HUGE change for our IT dept, and it seems quite a few are taking advantage.
BTW, you may not know “EMC”, but we own Networker, VMWare (majority owner), RSA, Data Domain, Iomega, Greenplum, Avamar, Eric, etc…