Nice tool... but Chicago Tools make a cutoff tool as well... It works.
The Dewalt sells for about $250... the Chicago sells for $20. They mostly do the same thing... Are they equal?
Me? I'd go with you.
Posted on 04/22/2008 1:45:14 AM PDT by Swordmaker
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
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.
According to NPD Research, Apple's share of the retail market has climbed to 14 percent as of February 2008. Gartner and IDC report that the Mac's share in the U.S. as of March 31 was 6.6 percent. Alongside that home-based shift from PC to Mac is a significant uptake for Apple among businesses, as Forrester estimates organizational Mac adoption tripled last year to 4.2 percent, mainly on the backs of enthusiasts seeking approval for Apple's silver boxes in small workgroups.
[ Discover the pros -- and cons -- of the Mac in business in our special report. And become a Mac pro through Tom Yager's Enterprise Mac blog and InfoWorld's Enterprise Mac newsletter. ]
Perhaps a better barometer of the trend is the effect increased Mac sales are having at outsourcing firms, which have traditionally been reluctant to support the platform due to a perceived lack of market in the past.
Centerbeam, a Windows management outsourcer for midsize businesses, is one such outsourcer eyeing the possibility of extending its services to cover the Mac, says Karen Hayward, Centerbeam's executive vice president. Security firm Kapersky Labs has already created a Mac version of its anti-virus software for release should Mac growth continue (and the Mac thus finds itself prey to more hackers), while Boingo Wireless, a Wi-Fi hotspot federator, is developing a Mac client to allow Mac users to tap into the Boingo network.
Couple this increasing attention to services with the falling away of another knock on the Mac, price, and you can see why even the federal government -- which has pockets of Mac users in a diverse set of agencies, including NASA, the U.S. Army, and the National Institute for Standards and Technology -- is prepping for increased use of Macs in business environments, having put together an official guide to implementing Mac security to conform to federal requirements.
After all, as Publicis' Plavin notes, Macs -- which cost the same as equivalently configured business-class PCs -- are cheaper to support because they are easier to support. And when it comes to diverting IT resources toward competitive advantage, doesn't ease of support sound compelling?
What has changed to make the Mac fit better
IT can embrace that Mac momentum, not just tolerate it, thanks to several shifts in computing that make the Mac a better enterprise fit than in the past -- first and foremost being a rising threat to Microsoft's other mainstay in the enterprise desktop environment, Internet Explorer.
Firefox, which has risen in popularity to account for 16.8 percent of browser use on the Web, according to Net Applications, as of December 2007, has broken IE's stranglehold on Internet app delivery, which it had maintained through ActiveX controls. Because Microsoft never released a version of IE for Mac OS X, Mac users were frozen out of ActiveX-based Web sites, making many SaaS (software as a service) offerings and enterprise-app Web clients off limits to the Mac.
[ Discover how to make Apple's other platform, the iPhone, fit in your business as well. ]
But to ensure operability on Firefox, developers had to configure their wares to support Java instead of or in addition to ActiveX -- with Mac gaining compatibility as a client at the same time.
WebEx is one of the more notorious examples of this switch. The popular Web conferencing tool became fully Mac-compatible only last month, as new owner Cisco Systems decided to abandon an ActiveX-only deployment strategy and add both Java and Mac-client options. (Until then, ReadyTalk and Adobe Connect were two of the few Mac-friendly Web conferencing tools, notes Peter Lincoln, IT director at temp-staff agency Aquent.)
Of course, not everyone is hip to the Java-based Firefox push. Many of MSN's excellent tools require Microsoft's browser due to the use of ActiveX, as do the support tools at a variety of companies with heterogeneous customers, including Seagate and AT&T.
Still, many other vendors have avoided ActiveX dependency and the customer exclusion that results. Those options have driven vendor choices in environments where heterogeneity is the norm, such as at college campuses. Southern Polytechnic State University in Georgia, for example, chose Juniper Networks' wireless VPN tool mainly because it didn't require a client on user devices, nor limit itself to ActiveX for on-the-fly client provisioning, which would have excluded the large number of Macs that students and faculty use on campus, says CIO Bill Gruzka.
The rise of Web-based computing
Another trend facilitating Mac use in business is the increased enterprise dependecy on SaaS, wherein a diverse array of applications -- from sales-force automation through supply-chain coordination -- is delivered through the browser. Most SaaS applications have not relied on ActiveX, given SaaS' inherent goal of making apps available to anyone, anywhere. This push toward platform agnosticism translates to the use of standards, letting the Mac right in. Ted Elliott, CEO of recruiting software provider Jobscience, says he has noted a rise in Mac customers now that Jobscience has moved to the SaaS model -- customers his Salesforce.com-based platform supports out of the box.
Beyond Firefox and SaaS, many enterprise app developers have adopted the Web as a portal to their apps, following the strong Web-portal drive of the late 1990s.
"The trend in the enterprise is to Web-enabled apps," notes Ezra Gottheil, an analyst at Technology Business Research. Thus, a Mac user can access Oracle or SAP ERP apps over the Web, regardless of whether there is a Mac-specific client available. Even Microsoft takes this approach to provide Mac compatibility in its SharePoint collaboration environment, which its Mac Office tools don't directly support. (More on Microsoft later.)
Mac-heavy organizations tend toward Web-based apps rather than packaged ones because of Mac compatibility issues, says IT director Lincoln. That's precisely what happened at his company, Aquent. Almost everything is hosted or available as a SaaS application, including sales-force management, ERP, Web conferencing, and anti-malware apps. Aquent's packaged apps are largely limited to Office, e-mail clients, and Web browsers.
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Many mainstay, client-installed business apps -- Microsoft Office, IBM's Lotus Notes, Intuit QuickBooks, and the open source EnterpriseDB, for example -- come in mostly compatible Mac versions. And, of course, creative apps such as Adobe Creative Suite and QuarkXPress have long been cross-platform. But many of these, especially enterprise apps, "are late on the Mac and aren't as elegant as their Windows versions," says analyst Gottheil.
Compatibility: Physical and virtual
The rise of virutalization, as well as Apple's shift toward standardized PC components, has also helped pave the way for Mac use in business.
First Parallels Desktop, then EMC's VMware Fusion, enabled Apple's Intel-based Macs to run honest-to-goodness Windows, not just in a separate boot volume (Apple offered that capability a couple years ago with its free BootCamp utility) but within the Mac OS environment. Users can now run Windows-only apps in the Mac OS, or in a separate window if they prefer, with cut-and-paste, shared directories, and shared hardware access. Armed with virtual machines such as these, Mac users can access the full array of applications available to their Windows-based brethren.
And thanks to the Mac's move to standard PC components, such as Intel processors, USB ports, Ethernet ports, and 802.11 wireless capabilities, such compatibility uses are falling by the wayside. As late as the mid-1990s, Macs included a series of proprietary connections, such as LocalTalk and ADB, and tapped SCSI drive interface technology found only on high-performance PCs. This hardware divide complicated not only IT work but also application development. Most of these hardware issues have been rectified, leaving just a few special keyboard keys to map between Windows and Mac OS when developing cross-platform apps.
Managing Macs in the enterprise
If you concede that your Mac users can run any software they need, either directly or via a VM, you may raise an old IT canard: manageability.
It may surprise you that Mac OS X Server and the separate Apple Remote Desktop software have for a decade facilitated Mac management, providing functionality akin to any Windows-oriented management tool. Developed for Apple's education market, these tools allow you to manage OS updates and app installations and upgrades. With Apple's Automator tool, you can automate much of the management workflows, essentially by creating executable scripts. You can also configure your Macs to boot into a network volume, to cope with drive failure, or to provide visiting employees or guests a nonlocal copy of the OS.
Apple Remote Desktop also allows you to control a user's PC for troubleshooting and technical support, as well as inventory the Macs. And Apple doesn't charge a per-client license for the software, just $500 per copy installed on your administrators' Macs, supporting an unlimited number of clients. (You can also manage Windows and Linux clients using Apple Remote Desktop's VNC support.)
If you don't want an Apple-owned tool, consider FileWave's cross-platform management tools, recommends Publicis' Plavin. Or the cross-platform Client Management Suite from Symantec's Altiris unit, suggests Aquent's Lincoln.
For managing users, access control, and related security policies, Mac OS X Server's Open Directory works with Microsoft's ActiveDirectory, so you can apply ActiveDirectory permissions to and enforce policies on your Mac users and Mac-based file shares from ActiveDirectory. Or you can manage them from OpenDirectory, such as when you have a separate Mac workgroup whose initial policies you want to inherit from ActiveDirectory but then customize for that workgroup in Open Directory. Apple says it supports every one of Microsoft's ActiveDirectory services.
Galen Gruman is executive editor of InfoWorld.
You have zero information about who I am or what I do. Is this how you make your investment decisions?
“There is, IMHO, absolutely NO reason, whatsoever, for the continued MS Office extortion game....”
Not all Powerpoints open in OO.
Geez, have you guys done any business. People send you powerpoints, If they are your vendors sometimes you can hammer them to cut down on the features and send compatible files. But if they are prospective customers the last thing you want to do is say, ‘dude, before we do business you’ve got to give up MS-Office 2007 and go backwards or stop using this or that feature.”
That said I will try it again. Do you know of ANY thing that can go into an Excel spreadsheet or Powerpoint that OO does not handle perfectly? I have this one client that hires these kids out of college to do models and presentations that find the most obtuse Office feature. Drives me nuts but part of the job?
I personally haven’t run into compatability issues with MS Office...but then again, everybody we interact with uses OO.
There is a good help section at the website...
http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/Search;jsessionid=54747FD7155321E6E8F49E71A5A515E1?resultsPerPage=40&query=ms+office&Button=Go
that has some info about MS Office compatability
good luck........
Relictele,
I apologize. You may indeed make more money than I do although I am not going to get into a “you show me yours and I’ll show you mine” discussion.
My comment was very wrongly worded,and not intended as a personal attack but I have grown increasingly sensitive to the “flaky” description aimed at me and the people I work with every day. What we do is critical for the success of the enterprise and we are, on the whole, a highly educated and well-remunerated group.
(On the other hand, the fact that you have been on FR 4 years and never been personally attacked is astonishing. For most of us it is a daily occurrence.)
Thanks, believe me I would love to find a way out of using windows. Drives me nuts. One thing AAPL could do is join OO and push the technology to support more compatibility - if enterprise users mattered to them.
I wonder why there is not a complete ActiveX compatibility box in Firefox. Somethings work and some things do not. Frustrating. When a website does not work I end up in try this, then try that, then try something else, then fire up Parallels then windows then IE then go through all the update nonsense then bang the website connects. Frustrating. Sometimes these are call that are only set up a few minutes before they begin and I end up missing the beginning screwing around. AAPL needs to do SOMETHING.
I tried your link and it was kind of not that helpful.
I found these two:
http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-430774.html
Not very encouraging. Again, my complaint is that Macs are not compatible with industry (vs. open standards) and it is a real problem for many business users. I have no problem paying for technology but I need compatibility and that is were AAPL is lacking.
The Mac fanboys just don’t get it and most anti-AAPL posters complain about imagined problems: cost, liberal management, blah-blah.
I have been a Mac user since 1980 and the compatibility is going backwards.
That is amazing, considering that Apple didn't start selling Macs until 1984.
What is that magic number, FastGlock?How many Mac OSX users will it take before spammers and hackers will be knocking down the door? Especially when you know that at least 90% of them run no anti-malware on their Macs, have more disposable income than PC users, and are, according to PC users at least, unsophisticated computer illiterates?
Is 10,000,000 enough of a target? How about 20,000,000?
Self propagating viruses have been written by hackers for vulnerable populations of 12,000 machines. Viruses have been written for populations of under 1,000... but somehow the crackers who will write for those miniscule numbers refuse to write a viable virus for a population that is now 32,000,000 and growing far faster than the computer market in general. That strikes me as a significant target... that still has ZERO viable viruses in the wild, ZERO viable spayware,
I had a nice Apple Mac, I could not give the thing away, i paid literally to ship it to a third world country where they (family) would appreciate it.
How old was your "nice Apple Mac and how long ago did this event take place," Fast? I find it hard to believe you had to pay to get rid of it. Macs hold their resale value far beyond PCs... that's been proven time after time in numerous studies.A six year old iMac that sold originally for $1300 still brings $350-$450 on eBay or Craig's List... yet you had to pay someone to ship it to a poor family overseas? Heck, 10 year old original iMacs still bring $100 when you count shipping costs... and they can run, albeit slowly, OSX.5 Leopard.
My five year old PowerMac G5 Tower, that I bought new in June 2003 for $1799 is still being sold on eBay (as of April 6, 2008) for $650 - $900. And it runs Leopard faster than it did Tiger, which was faster on the same hardware than Panther before that. How many PCs of that vintage would bring those kinds of prices? And how many PCs of that vintage could even load the latest incarnation of Windows? None.
In what way did Newheart attack YOU??? What Newheart said in post 44 was:
"As one of the flaky types in the “art” department (who by the way probably makes more money than you do) the reason “why ‘no Macs’ is no longer a defensible IT strategy” is because it was NEVER defensible.The usual argument is “security.” True enough. IT fears Macs because we don’t need them the way PC users do.
That was a comment. His comment about "probably" making more money than you is less offensive than your generalization that people in the art department being "flaky" (Dictionary definition: Crazy or eccentric) is hardly an attack.
If that's an attack, then you haven't seen some of the attacks on Mac users on FR.
Camino is faster, better integrated, smaller, and less configurable than Firefox.
Firefox 3 is supposed to help with integration and speed.
thanks for the reply...
False. Macs are incompatible with proprietary Microsoft standards. That is by Microsoft's design.
And nobody at AAPL gives a crap.
I'll warily take your word for that, but there's not a lot Apple can do if developers use someone else's proprietary technology. If Apple tried to come up with some way to run ActiveX controls natively in MacOS, they'd be set upon by Microsoft's lawyers before you could say "Bill vs. Steve in a steel cage death match."
That is not true. There have been many business sites that when appraised of the facts, such as there are approximately 25,000,000 Mac OSX/Safari users in the United States, most of them consumers, customers they do not want to piss off, have changed their websites to be Mac compliant.
ChevronUSA's website is one that comes to mind. The website literally required customers to be using a PC with an Intel processor, a Windows OS, and Microsoft Internet Explorer to use it. I first tried to use Firefox and the website insisted that I had to use Internet Explorer. So I opened the site with IE for the Mac and the site told me I had to be using a Windows OS... so I fired up VirtualPC running WindowsXP SP2 and used IE for windows, and was informed by the website that I had to be running a PC with an Intel processor... I had an AMD machine here that I was working on for a client and fired it up, only to be informed that I had to be running with an Intel processor! Talk about restrictive.
After getting no response from repeated emails to their website managers, I wrote a letter to both the President and CEO of Chevron complaining about their PC/Intel/Microsoft only website. In my letter I politely pointed out that I spend almost $3,000 a year at Chevron Stations, that there were (at that time) 22,000,000 Mac users like me that would be offended by their website requirements, and then asked if Chevron was in the business of selling gasoline of promoting Intel and Microsoft products. I received very polite apology letters from both the President and CEO saying they were unaware of the problem. Two months later ChevronUSA's website was fully international HTML compliant.
Just five years ago there were FAR more non-standards compliant websites than there are today. Apple also wants to be informed of non-compliant websites and will work with those web designers to redesign their sites using international HTML standards so that they are compliant.
3) Mac sure the people you do business with will not send you MS-Office files with Macros, etc.
Then don't get MS Office '08 for the Mac... buy a copy of the older version which works fine. The fact is that very few organizations use Macro's any more because so many places will strip them out because of the threat of Macro viruses.
Your last two points are just FUD. 99% of people will not have a problem. A2 more and more of the now 32,000,000 Mac users complain to the owners, presidents, CEOs (not the offending website builders) of companies with non-compliant websites, more and more of them will move into compliance with international standards rather than building sites with tools from Microsoft that are designed to maintain their monopoly.
I have been a Mac user since 1980 and the compatibility is going backwards.
1980 = 1980’s
Got one of the first. Also had a Lisa. Never owned a Apple II.
Nice tool... but Chicago Tools make a cutoff tool as well... It works.
The Dewalt sells for about $250... the Chicago sells for $20. They mostly do the same thing... Are they equal?
Me? I'd go with you.
And that is different from a sole source "operating system" vendor how?
One is harware and the other is software. Running Windows may lock you down to a single OS vendor, but gives you the widest possible choice of hardware vendors. Running generic Linux gives you mostly the same choice of hardware, and some range of choices of OS vendor. Mac gives you no choice of either. Any of them involve some compromise. There is no perfect answer.
“Your last two points are just FUD. “
Come on Sword...give it up.
People, do not listen to Sword on this. Listen to me - carefully check out all websites and apps before buying a Mac. They are great computers but may not be compatible with the websites and applications you need and/or require kludging around.
Some consumer sites may have caved in. But others have not. Delta last time I flew I could not print the boarding pass on Safari.
But that is not my VALID point. Before buying a Mac users should carefully check out the websites they need for their jobs or business. Some may not work. I used to NEVER have problems with conference calls but there is a fair percentage today that require IE6 or later. And if you understand how this works IN THE REAL WORLD you would know they are sometimes set up just before they begin so testing and jerking around with Flip, switching User agent under Firefox, etc, sucks.
If you listen to a lot of earnings calls or look at company presentations or models just use windows and save the hassle.
If you are even a modest active trader you need windows. Even Schwab does not support Mac for its premier retail software. Forget professional trading tools.
I am in windows at least once a day out of necessity. Parallels is my first windows machine in 20 years or so. During earnings season I live in windows.
The dilemma for some people using MS Office is that the old Mac versions do not open the new file formats and the new ones do not run macros. While some users do not, if your customer saves his MS-Office files in the new format with macros, you have to find workarounds — Windows again!!
Macs are supposed to be easy. But when it turns out that your job is Doctor or Wall Street guy it is becoming obvious you need windows.
Try to run the hottest EMR or Practice Management Apps on a Mac - go ahead - try.
I was at HIMSS and something very close to ALL of the vendors only offered MSFT required application. No linux, no Mac, they all REQUIRE IE6 or better.
The MSFT booth was PACKED with developers all doing this. PACKED. You can tell me this is crazy and I can tell you this is crazy but it is a fact. Now can you if you are the CIO of a hospital require open only apps - sure - but your choices go down dramatically - and if you are not the CIO or CEO you get what the practice of hospital supplies and these guys are sucking firmly on the MSFT teet.
These are REAL compatibility issues and not FUD. Look I do not like MSFT any more than you do but to belittle my points is not appreciated.
I don’t care what your opinion is on this but Mac is not ready for the enterprise generally, by MSFT design, because of compatibility.
But MSFT is worlds ahead of AAPL and IBM in setting industry MSFT proprietary standards for real world business applications.
There, fixed it for you.
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