Why 'no Macs' is no longer a defensible IT strategy

[Harbourmaster]

More users are demanding Macs in the enterprise.
Thanks to key computing shifts, supporting their appetite for Apple is now a straightforward option for IT

[quote InfoWorld] Once confined to marketing departments and media companies, the Mac is spilling over into a wider array of business environments, thanks to the confluence of a number of computing trends, not the least among them a rising tide of end-user affinity for the Apple experience.

Luckily for IT, many of those same trends are making it easier for tech departments to say yes to the Mac by facilitating IT's ability to provide enterprise-grade Mac management and support.

"We're seeing more requests outside of creative services to switch to Macs from PCs," notes David Plavin, operations manager for Mac systems engineering at the U.S. IT division of Publicis Groupe, a global advertising conglomerate. There are so many requests that Plavin now supports 2,500 Macs across the U.S. -- nearly a quarter of all Publicis' U.S. PCs.

And Plavin is less of an anomaly than you might think. Buoyed by increased interest in the consumer arena, Macs are cropping up in more and more organizations, in large part because end-users are pushing for them.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/04/2...ess_1.html

[Jimmypoo]

... and because of the XBOX -- M$ gets all PC makers and mobo makers to shift to the
G5/ IBM 970 chip and PPC architecture, just to make the Mac an obsolete x86 platform!!


"I/T Managers Follow Lead of M$ and Become MCSE-PPCs"


followed by....


"Scott McNealy Kills CEO Balmer in 10 Year Rage Explosion"
Crowds Mourn Event Not Pay-Per-View

[Chris Y]

So my wife's company switched all of it's laptops to macbooks, but it's a little odd, because all the apps are still Windows (citrix and the database and server stuff) so you just boot up in vista and you don't really have access to the mac side.

If you could run stuff in parallels or fusion it might be helpful, but right now it's just a windows laptop that happens to be made by apple.

[Silencio]

I thought Citrix has a Mac OS X-native client, which was one of the beauty things about it.

[Mac1337]

For years I was the lone voice in pushing for Macs at our school. They wanted none of that. The claim is they can't provide support but when pushed I was quietly told Dell does not want to see other brands on campus and the school has to be loyal to them. Now there is a bottom up push, from students who ditch school issued Dells in favor of MacBooks. Still small in numbers though. IT claims there are still issues with fully integrating Macs. Exchange is one example.

[Ombligo]

We use Citrix on our macs

[N-OS X-tasy!]

[quote Jimmypoo]... and because of the XBOX -- M$ gets all PC makers and mobo makers to shift to the G5/ IBM 970 chip and PPC architecture, just to make the Mac an obsolete x86 platform!!
That would be hilarious. Tragic, but hilarious.

[incognegro]

the company i support is about 75% Mac, and they're huge.

[cbelt3]

Self-imposed reasons still exist, and Micro$oft's "networking" systems are still problematic.

[mrlynn]

[quote Chris Y]So my wife's company switched all of it's laptops to macbooks, but it's a little odd, because all the apps are still Windows (citrix and the database and server stuff) so you just boot up in vista and you don't really have access to the mac side.

If you could run stuff in parallels or fusion it might be helpful, but right now it's just a windows laptop that happens to be made by apple.
Why can't you use Parallels or Fusion? I run our Windows VPN client under WinXP in Parallels, and use it to access the office Windows network. Works fine.

/Mr Lynn