Posted on 04/12/2008 2:04:10 AM PDT by Swordmaker
A recent upgrade to the Mac operating system moves Apple closer to challenging Microsoft for overall computing dominance, even in the corporate market
The 20-year death grip that Microsoft has held on the core of computing is finally weakening—pried loose with just two fingers. With one finger you press "Control" and with the other you press "right arrow." Instantly you switch from a Macintosh operating system (OS) to a Microsoft Windows OS. Then, with another two-finger press, you switch back again. So as you edit family pictures, you might use Mac's iPhoto. And when you want to access your corporate e-mail, you can switch back instantly to Microsoft Exchange.
This easy toggling on an Apple computer, enabled by a feature called Spaces, was but an interesting side note to last fall's upgrade of the Mac OS. But coupled with other recent developments, the stars are aligning in a very intriguing pattern. Apple's (AAPL) recent release of a tool kit for programmers to write applications for the iPhone will be followed by the June launch of iPhone 2.0, a software upgrade geared toward business users.
Taken together, these seemingly unrelated moves are taking the outline of a full-fledged strategy. Windows users, in the very near future, will be free to switch to Apple computers and mobile devices, drawn by a widening array of Mac software, without suffering the pain of giving up critical Windows-based applications right away. The easy virtualization of two radically different operating systems on a single desktop paves a classic migration path. Business users will be tempted. Apple is positioning itself to challenge Microsoft for overall computing dominance—even in the corporate realm.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessweek.com ...
how many Fortune 100 or 500 companies have torn out Windows infrastructure and replaced it with OS X and Macs?
Sorry, no. The major driving force in profits for Apple is *still* their Macintosh computers. See their quarterly statements.
You are right.
I told you what one of the original seven founders of the company told me. I must have misunderstood. He told me they "bought Stacker" for quite a large sum of money. I assumed that Stacker and Stac were the same thing: the company. That resulted in me making an ass out of myself.
It may be that my acquaintance was practicing some "Spin" when he told me the story of what had happened to his company.
Thank you for showing me my error. I will not repeat it and when I see it published on the Net... as it has been... then I will correct that wrong information as well. I apologize for misleading you.
And thank you for admitting you "blew the [Apple] settlement" as I blew this one.
You did see that what MS did, in the aftermath of losing the Stac suit, was to buy an exclusive license from Stac for Stacker the disk compression application for a huge amount of money invested in Stac, and a large royalty. Note that MS, to settle the suit, engaged this time in a post trial and verdict settlement agreement to reduce the $109 million court order to save money... and also became an major stock owner of the Stac company, although not the sole owner.
The Mac computers account for more than 60% of Apple's profits. Read the 10K and 10Qs. That makes the Macs the major driving force of the company.
Pro developer. Other relationships previously.
Apple is going cautiously with this, mainly courting small business, scientific and supercomputing. You're not going to see a big switch like that until Apple starts wooing the PHBs away from the Microsoft reps. It's also not going to happen until the large IT contractors stop pushing Windows on their clients.
Given the scenario of a company having a disaster that renders their corp. HQ unusable, and the need to get, say 2000 workstations and 200 servers delivered within 48 hours, what kind of shape are they in if it's a Mac shop?
What the biggest Mac/OS X network you've ever set up or worked on?
I’m done with the grilling.
Hit a nerve?
Now that Apple's on Intel they're doing just fine. Enterprises have run just fine on one-vendor hardware for years, like Sun.
HQ unusable, and the need to get, say 2000 workstations and 200 servers delivered within 48 hours, what kind of shape are they in if it's a Mac shop?
Apple seems to be able to deliver hundreds or even thousands of servers for supercomputing clusters, so they have the capacity. Whether the channels are there for 48-hour delivery, I don't know. Apple is currently aiming at small and medium business right now. But I've never seen that scenario.
And if you are talking about huge enterprise, there are still better options than Windows. Linux with a hardware contract from Dell or HP and support from Novell or Red Hat for example. Even if you want your desktops Windows, at least put the email, calendaring and file sharing on something other than Windows.
Do you maintain the users in Windows, or something else? What the solution for managing single sign-on, and getting the the "other than Windows" to recognize Windows security principles for access control?
Apple has also put a lot of effort into making OS X work seamlessly with Windows. Simple workgroup networking between my Mac and my PC is easier than between two PCs.
"Simple workgroup networking" between a couple of computers at you home is one thing. When it has to scale to several thousand, and pass an FDIC security audit it gets a little more complicated.
It was a simple example. OS X is designed to run networks of Windows systems, or run nicely under Windows networks, and of course it plays nice with the other UNIXes.
As long as you don't worry about it beyond the protocol level, maybe. It doesn't appear to be designed to manage, or be managed by a Windows network.
You do have to stay within the same vendor to get the very high level of control and monitoring. Hardware monitoring is also a place Mac does better, as Apple knows all the hardware it can be running on, and has designed that hardware to allow monitoring. On the server end, the XServe has over 100 hardware monitors, all processed by a dedicated chip and remotely viewable even if the OS won't boot (Remote Desktop will work in that case too). Very good LOM. Oh yeah, the remote monitoring software for the whole network (hundreds of servers) is included.
What do you consider "very high level"? I'd consider the idea of trying to manage a Windows network of any appreciable size without AD and group policy to be insanity, not inconvenience.
You are nit-picky, aren't you? You can enforce some policies with OS X Server and Windows clients and vice versa. But neither platform inherently knows the down-and-dirty of the other. With extra software you can lock down OS X clients on an AD network as if you were running them on a Mac network. Vice-versa probably exists.
It looks like you have to go special-case in order to justify Windows in the first place -- we have special Windows-only apps with no alternatives, etc. And even then you could use Citrix or one of the many alternatives to avoid having to run Windows on the client to use Windows server apps.
If it's "nit-picky" to take exception to someone telling me I can rip out AD and my Windows back end infratructure, and put in OS X servers and my Windows network will work just like it did before, except it will be easier and cheaper and now I can have Mac workstations too.
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