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Final Conclusion: Which Operating System Wins?
Macs Could Make an Enterprise Move
After three months of experimentation and comparison, Halamka concluded that his dream machine is a Dell D420 notebook that runs OS X. Unfortunately, such a machine doesn't currently exist out of the box.
He prefers Dell's hardware over Apple's because it weighs 3 pounds less than the 5-pound MacBook he toted around for a month, and it emits far less heat. "[That's] the only thing preventing me from using the Mac," he says.
He prefers OS X's security, reliability and simple user interface over that of XP. And though he still has high hopes for running a version of Linux that is reliable and full-featured, he hasn't found an OS that's up to the task. (He says that SUSE on the Lenovo T60 may be the answer, since it will be the first commercial laptop with Linux configured and supported by the manufacturer.) But until Apple develops a lighter-weight laptop or decides to license its software for installation on other machines, Halamka is sticking with XP on his D420 for professional use. For personal use, he's keeping the MacBook. Having two computers—one for work and one for play—is a change for Halamka, who used one computer for both prior to this experiment.
Nevertheless, Halamka did take the first steps toward deploying Macs in the enterprise. Before this experiment, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center employees could use only PCs. But Halamka has changed the hospital's official computer purchasing policy to allow the use of Macs, with the understanding that medical center workers may not get as much support for their Macs as they get for their PCs. Halamka simply doesn't yet have enough Mac experts on his staff.
Meanwhile, at Harvard Medical School, which has a separate IT staff and different purchasing policies, 50 percent of desktops are already Macs. Halamka has promised Mac users the same level of service and functionality to which Windows users are accustomed. For instance, Mac users at the medical school had trouble maintaining access to their centralized storage, which was not designed for use by Macs. So Halamka purchased Macintosh servers that sit in front of the centralized storage, and Mac users now connect to it via these servers.
Although he has no immediate plans to replace any Windows desktops with Macs, Halamka says he's going to watch the price and performance of Apple's newest OS, Leopard, which Apple is scheduled to release in spring 2007. If Leopard offers better administration tools than OS X and is more tightly integrated both with Outlook and with Microsoft's Exchange server, Halamka would be more inclined to initiate the broader use of Macs. He would want such improvements to ensure that Leopard users won't encounter as many of the problems he ran into accessing his Outlook calendar and delegation functions.
Halamka says testing alternatives to XP has been a valuable exercise because it made him realize that the Mac can be a viable computing platform for enterprise users.
"I used to think that the Macintosh was something used by free spirits just to be different," he says. "Now I realize the Mac has such superior human factor engineering that it's used by people because they can be more productive. If Apple comes up with a 2- or 2.5-pound 12-inch-screen laptop that runs cool, has better integration with Exchange, and if Vista turns out to be the beast it could be, then I probably will move to a Mac."
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WinXP is obsolete... its over 5 years old... Why didn't he review Vista?
Just a thought but while that's all well and good unless someone could come up with some hard productivity numbers that they would commit to (reduce FTE by $x vs. the old soft cost argument of the 80s) and they came to any of the company's I'm associated with and pitched this idea they'd come close to being fired if not fired outright.
That's not a slam at any particular operating system, just an observation between companies that are in business to make money for it's shareholders vs. apparently, a medical school where feeling good about your computer is more important than anything else, like maybe creating affordable medical service and producing graduates at the lowest possible cost.
If anyone wants one I would suggest the DV9000t series with the Intel Core2Duo though...(He bought his before they were available)
Here's the conclusion for the Mac segment:
Conclusion: Halamka says the MacBook's reliability far outweighed any challenges he had with the learning curve. Though he's not ready to deploy it yet, he thinks it has potential as an enterprise platform. He'll have to test it out on a larger number of CareGroup employees to be sure. However, he does think the MacBook suited his needs as a CIO superbly.
"At the moment, where my role is so much about change management and effectively communicating with everyone who works for me and with my customers, multimedia is very important to me. A MacBook, which is extraordinarily good at managing multimedia, is actually a superior knowledge worker tool to XP, which is probably a better development environment," he says. But since he's not writing a lot of code, he adds, "the Mac does seem to hit the sweet spot of what I need."
Unfortunately Jobs makes it illegal... But Gates allows you to use Windows on a Mac... go figure..
That's a good notebook if what you need is a low-powered ultra-light. But the MacBook has a bigger screen, 50% faster processor and twice the battery life of the 3 pound Dell, so it isn't dead weight that he's talking about in the MacBook. And of course the Dell is cooler, because it only comes with very slow processors.
And of course the Dell is a lot more expensive similarly configured, but then you pay for extra for small in notebooks.
Okay, two words , Linux - Free
productivity and ease of configuration be damned.
On most days, that is.
This guy seems to be most upset that his XP machine interrupts him with updates.
Somebody should tell him that he can turn that feature off and do his updates manually. Some CIO.
Z-z-z-z-z.