IT hates the Mac. The explanation as to why has always been up for debate: IT is slow to adapt; IT doesn’t like diversity; IT is masochism disguised as a career; IT people want to keep their jobs; etc., etc. Whatever the reason, the Mac has always been the leper of corporate tech.
But the times they are a’changin’, at least according to a colossal opinion piece by Galen Gruman at InfoWorld (reproduced at the Mothership) on the growing infestation of Macs in the workplace. Users are demanding Mac support, and the skyrocketing Mac user base is actually making it easier and thus more feasible for IT to consider embracing the budding platform.
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.
Gruman looks at many trends, including the Mac’s growing market share, Internet Explorer’s declining influence, compatibility, web-based computing, and more. He leaves out the fact that tons of IT people own Macs at their homes — they fix computers at work; they want some peace at home — and that Windows Vista absolutely blows…but he makes some good points anyway.
He notes, of course, that the Mac isn’t an “equal player” by a long-shot…but things are improving. Check the piece for the full analysis, and be sure to let us know if your company’s IT department is warming to multi-platform possibilities.
I have always asserted that Windows was dominant in IT departments because the guys that went into computers as a profession were guys who learned computer skills editing the autoexec.bat and config.sys on their parents' computer in 1990 to get as much memory as they could for playing the latest memory hog game.
I think that if Macs had been the go to gaming platform in the late 80s the IT world would be very different.
Nothing annoys me more than calling IT for a problem and hearing them read the 1-2-3 help steps from a screen. The moment they tell me to 'go to the start menu', I know that they're going to be zero help.
"IT is masochism disguised as a career"
Isn't that the truth. I'm going to have to remember that quote.
Removing NetInfo Manager in Leopard was not very helpful in a business environment.
Our power mac we upgraded to Leopard had many problems migrating the Windows network settings.
Apple still have a long way to go to get macs to integrate well into a mixed OS business network.
IT used to be a career for truly tech-savy people who could strip a machine to its parts to find the problem. But now, all you get is some guy who got certified by MS, and if its anything beyond what he can fix in Windows, he can't help.
tsk tsk...now who's wearing the blinkers? I'm "someone from IT" and I love Macs. I have a 17" MBP which I use for work and play. I would never buy a PC for my personal use. BUT the reason Macs don't cut it in a big way in the corporate environment is that (from a configuration and management perspective) they're undeniably pants: you just can't mass-manage them in a multi-user environment. No-one in their right minds would argue that configuring and managing 5,000 Macs centrally in a 15,000-user environment is remotely feasible. Unfortunately, doing the same with that number of PCs is.
I work in IT, but in web design, not support. Our IT standards and support are so rigid they only support IE as the "standard browser"--Firefox is considered illegal around here. But I am one of those IT people who uses Windows at work because I have to, and a Mac at home because I WANT to, without any of the PC grief.
I am the IT department at my work, we have a modest network that includes PCs and Macs and we have few issues with either. Frankly I believe both platforms are significant and the whole mac v PC debate is blown out of proportion.
(But in my free time I prefer the Mac!)
I work in the medical field specifically IT. I also use a Mac. I used my Mac at my previous job (large ISP in Texas). There are many companies out there that refuse to look at a Mac let alone allow one on their network. I was surprised that both jobs had a "whatever" attitude when it came to putting my personal Macbook pro on their network. The most I get is, "Wow it that a Mac?!" or "Is that a Macbook Air?" and occasionally, "Isn't that Mac hard to work on?" Though mostly from the Nurses or Doctors, some of these questions are asked by the upper IT guys.
It blows their mind that I am on a Mac, RDPing to a Win2k3 Terminal Server to admin it, and I actually know what I am doing. One track minds I tell you. One track minds. It makes me wonder if they really believe that people that drive expensive cars are millionaires because of what they drive.
And VMware, (I have XP Pro for Office stuff since the company gave me a license for it) some of the IT people cannot grasp the concept of running multiple OSes on one machine at the same time.
But I will say this, it would feel different if I had to support a bunch of Mac users in this field.