Macs rarely belong in the enterprise

Its a pity they dont

Mac is not more expensive for the same wintel. The hardware is just better, see the monitors for example, they cost roughly double, but if you have worked with one then you will love it.

Started with Mac some 15yrs ago, switched to Windows95, then last year converted back to Mac and will stay there. I was fed up with crashes and incompatibilities of XP, never switched to vista.

The thuth is that CFOs compare the bottom line, they buy the cheapest, full stop. this is a pity, as there are no measures of ROI for office equipment.

I was wondering what it takes for Macs to get into the offices. One huge advantage was Vista. It would be a pity of Apple to reduce quality in order to make up the cost difference. If more macs get into the office, client ERP SW will be developed its not a big deal.

Bull

The hardware is the same. The OS is different, not necessarily better. Vista is resource intensive, but very stable (by my own experience only). Plus, you can't get macs comparable to pcs for certain tasks, such as engineering or even photoshop (find my a mac w/ the nvidia CX card). I think the main reason artists prefer macs is culture, the same reason enterprises look at windows first. Apple's quality is not so much higher, just their control and premium. I use macs all the time, but I hate your ignorance.

macs are very much more expencive.

The Mac mini a perfect example of how Mac's are overpriced!
If I wanted a pc with a similar bare bones setup and a worthless onboard video card then I could look to nearly every pc manufacture out there to find a box for $299 rather than the 700-900 for the mini. Part for part the apple are 30% higher in price because of the name.
Evan when you build a box with the same level of quality the price is still cheaper. They only sell to those who don't look any further. Those who jump on the band wagon.
My G5 2.5 Liquid Cooled is a good example. I paid nearly double of what I paid for my Quad Core Intel Pc and If the Only determining factor was quality and speed then my G5 was not worth the price over the pc.

The comment by mac fan does

The comment by mac fan does not surprise me coming from a fanboy.

All points are valid

But this article is rather obvious. It's basically saying Apples aren't oranges (pardon the pun). You'll have mac users scrambling to point out things like macs hold their value, quality of parts, quality of design, cost of virus software etc etc but in the end it boils down to the fact that apple doesn't target enterprise; they are consumer computers. Their cheapest mac, the mac mini, is targetted to people interested in switching their box only, not their monitor et al.

I think if apple did target the enterprise market, you'd see an incredibly innovative approach which would of course address the overly hashed issue of cost per machine.

The people running apple didn't just fall off the turnip truck ;)

Yes they are better.

The Mac OS is BSD. The hardware is PC. The difference is that the amount of hardware is limited to what Apple decides it should be. So they can tweak the OS to a very limited list of hardware. If Microsoft had that option I bet Windows would have far fewer problems.

No viruses = hell of a lot less problems

There are lots of reasons Macs are better. But just one makes all the sense in the world: no viruses. And, by implication, no anti-virus software (which is sometimes as crippling to the machine as the viruses, plus it costs you money).

I agree that Macs are more expensive, which means they will NOT be appropriate in many situations.

But let's clear this myth of Macs being only for "designers". Macs are fantastic for ordinary users, business people, and definitely for developers (because they are essentially Unix machines). I personally do an enormous amount of programming (PHP, Java, etc.) on a Mac, and it is an absolute pleasure to use like this.

Deploying Macs across an organisation can virtually eliminate the need for full-time IT support staff (in a small-to-medium enterprise). That is not a myth, either.

Where is the Beef (Data)???

I see many statements but no statistical data. Anyone can go blog about a technology, but please don't make comments without proof.

To Stephen

Oh, my how I lol'd at your comment...

"There are lots of reasons Macs are better. But just one makes all the sense in the world: no viruses. And, by implication, no anti-virus software (which is sometimes as crippling to the machine as the viruses, plus it costs you money)."

OK. So you receive an email laden virus from somewhere. You're Mac is not affected, but you then forward that email to someone else and infect them. Very considerate of you. In an ENTERPRISE, not your kitchen, ANTI-VIRUS policies are mandatory. For ANY business worth it's salt you want to protect yourself AND YOUR PARTNERS.

"Deploying Macs across an organisation can virtually eliminate the need for full-time IT support staff (in a small-to-medium enterprise). That is not a myth, either."

Oh my... So... You hire five people. You buy them all a Mac plug them in and walk away? No shares required? Domain rights? Email? What the hell kind of business are you running? Lemonade stand? I suppose if you have Macs you also don't need an acceptable use policy since Macs know what is safe and what is not?

It's obvious you're still in high-school. If you ever get a chance to see the power that MS gives to an organization that deploys 13000 PCs, you might find it impressive.

Am there, won't do it again

I work in an PC-centric company (6000+ employees) and give the opportunity to purchase my own laptop for work use, chose a MacBook Pro. Would I do it again - no.
I love Macs. At home I have an iMac and it is fantastic.
My experience is a test of those 'you can do it with no IT support' because our IT department doesn't support Macs at all. I'm on my own.
Luckily I'm kinda cluey and have been able to set everything up but simply - the negatives outweigh the benefits.
Finder is crap for serious use. Connecting to LAN is fickle to the point I gave up and used Windows Explorer in Fusion. The MBP runs freakishly hot, and I don't run more than five to eight programs at any time (Entourage, Firefox, Fusion, SQL Developer, Word, Excel, Leap, plus maybe stickies, activity monitor etc...). Hardly an unreasonable or resource heaving apps.
But if I had to put it down to one thing that made me regret going to a mac it is this: Office 2008.
Entourage is crap. Excel - no macro support. It is like the Mac Business unit of MS intentionally crippled the programs.
In eighteen months when I upgrade, cheap Dell on the sweet looking Windows 7 with Office 2007.

Typical

How typical that neither the OP nor any commenters have the first clue what they're talking about. Nobody wonders anymore, why IT programs are administered through b-schools...

First of all, OS X is not BSD, even though it has borrowed from and contributed to a couple of BSD projects. It is closer to NeXTSTEP than to any other OS. But none of you here are old enough to remember that.

NeXTSTEP machines and OS were designed for engineers, scientists, and yes, Virginia! ENTERPRISE. NS was a robust enterprise platform with many features we now take for granted that were unique in the market in its time. Mission-critical enterprise applications were deployed on it before Windows could even be taken seriously as a client, much less as a server.

Seriously, the level of discussion here is pathetic. For an example of big business using Apple hardware and software successfully, you need look no further than Apple. The level of integration they have between POS, inventory, logistics, accounting, and management is impressive and seldom imitated anywhere.

If you want proof, all you have to do is go to an Apple Store and spend a couple of bucks. You are rung up in seconds. Your receipt comes to your email immediately. The backend systems all just do the right thing. Now try to return that item. It takes seconds to undo the whole process. You can return the widget you bought to any Apple Store. Same thing.

Apple's logistics? Also second to none.

They have $25 billion in cash. Your company doesn't. Ever think for a moment it might have something to do with the fact that they eat their own dog food? I didn't think so.

Game over, stooges. Thanks for playing.

Mac vs PC - Macs will always win.....

You allude to making a point that PC's are cheaper than Mac's - absolutely not true - it's the TOTAL COST OF OWNERSHIP that is the key issue here. In terms of no anti-virus software needed, minimal tech support, etc, etc - Our experience in a large corporate and the SME space is that Mac's win hand's down. Corporate tech departments hate having Mac's around because it puts them out of a job!

Computers are just like a tradesman's tools, the real experts use the best tools - it's as simple as that. I for one am extremely happy that so many people use Windows machines - they are all at the lower end of the market........

I recently threw out five PC's (all working "perfectly") from a real estate company and replaced them with 24" iMac's - what a difference in terms of virtually no cabling, not to mention a more professional look to the business.

Been doing this for 20+ years - Apple is exactily where it should be - At the top.

Keep my PC running fast and efficiently.

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