If Your Company Runs on PCs, Should Anyone Get a Mac?

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stdragon

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OSX has some unresolved issues involving stability and performance accessing an SMB share from a Windows file server. So go ahead and use a Mac, just don't complain about it within a Windows environment. If you insist, run Windows as a VM.
 

gburke

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Apr 25, 2013
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We are 150 PC users but the few who want to use Macs have their own and either VM or have both PC and Mac. Their PC sits on the desk in the corner... just in case. : )
 

AnimeMania

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Would your company be in any legal trouble if you gave your employees Hackintoshes? You legally purchase the Mac OS and software, but don't run it on Apple computers.
 

stdragon

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Hackintosh systems I'm sure violate the OSX license agreement. At the very least, the OS is non-supported in that hardware setup. Either way, no respectable IT dept would ever allow such an abomination to be used in production as it's inherently unreliable.
 
Sep 15, 2018
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6 years ago if someone told me that wants to "integrate" Macs on the company network my answer would be, "Are you nuts?". But, having worked at a company of a couple of thousands of workstations, I want to say that in the year 2018, we are more flexible and the management is easier and simpler for our iMacs instead for the Windows 10 machines. (Win7 is a different story, they are still good).
All these macs are working at the domain, have restrictions, policies etc. just like the Windows machines.
At this time it is easier to push settings and applications to macs than Win10 pcs.
I am not comparing the cost of the workstation, since you can get a PC for 500euros+150 for a monitor for office work, and the cheapest iMac is at 1000. Win10 has a long way to go until they are usable like their predecessors on a company environment, and I am starting to losing hope.
 

Dosflores

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You can't legally purchase macOS. You can only legally purchase a Mac, which is licensed to use macOS. Hackinstoshes are illegal.


 
things to consider....why mac has never truly been on the industrial scene;

1) Training; the number of people that have use a pc for a decade at work, and you would slap a Mac under their nose, you would find a huge drop in productivity as people ( the large majority of users in the workforce) have never seen, never mind used a mac for work.

2) Security; buying mac to run windows in a vm is funny, if that is your purpose for security reason, then why no step up to the next generation industry systems instead of buying expensive mac desktops; Virtual servers running desktops for users, and run dummy terminals (minimal workstations) on the desk. cheap, safer and far more controlling than either having a mac or pc on a desk. (and yes I see this being implemented in Schools and companies more and more, why? cheaper and far more secure than a desktop of any kind)

3) Price; Mac is twice or trice the price of a PC for a work environment at best, 99% of user have zero need for the power and capabilities of a mac over a workstation desktop pc, if mac made a "workstation desktop" that competes with the dell and Hp of the industrial world, then I says why no.

4) software; why buy a mac? my company already has 1000 license of MS office for pc, they will not convert those into 1000 Mac office licenses, so aside the price of the mac desktop I also have to consider buying more windows license to run software I have to convert to mac software licenses double my costs for my office.

Note; in my arguments above I am not speaking about an office starting from 0. then argument 1 & 4 could be mitigate by hiring mac lovers/users and purchase of mac software to begin with.

Personal note; and this will pass as judgmental, but is truly a fact, I have been around mac and pc for last 30 years, and in the last 10 years the more I have to interact with mac "companies" the more I find the "mac" users to be hipsters that think they know everything about their macs, compared to the pc users that at time painfully admits their barely know how to use a mouse.

The truth is neither know anything about their personal computer, but the Mac user will try their best to tell you what to do on their mac when your better qualified than they are to fix the issue.

I, as a professional traveling technician, covering 10 states, and about 3500 companies, have no issue having someone using a mac for their corp, but have serious reservations in my interactions with their IT and user, that always blame professional software and hardware and have problems understanding the relationship with drivers and lack of support most mac drivers have from cops that make the hardware ,why is that?, it is because mac computers is less than 1% of the industry standard systems, and not worth millions of dollars investments by most corps.

This sad fact; it is not a fight against mac's, it is because apple still in this day an age force companies to jump through so many hoops to produce hardware and drivers for the mac that it is too much work than produce drivers for a windows based system. This has been the issue with apple hipster mentality from the start and why IBM and other PC based companies have taken over the industry.

Mac best purpose is graphical and photography, without a doubt always have been and always will be the better computer for advertising and printing shops designers etc... you can have a mix of a few Mac inside a corporation of 1000's of desktop workstation using office.
 
This would never happen where I work.
The computers are purchased by the company for use by employees.
This is done for consistency and security.
If an employee came to me (IT dept) and asked if they could replace a broken PC with a MAC the answer would be a resounding NO.
 

Bill Wendel

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Another reason to not assign a Mac to an employee if they are that much trouble is that all of a sudden other employees are going to suddenly have computers breaking down and want Macs as well.

I've seen it happen in a similar instance.

Also to the guy that suggested the Hackintosh... The problem isn't the hardware it's the software. It's OS X networking and security. You can throw Windows on an Intel based Mac and it'll work fine on the work domain. If you manage to Hackintosh a PC tho you're going to run into the same problems if not more.
 

gburke

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I can't tell that to one of the lawyers in the firm I support. : ) Luckily there are only two that insist on using their Mac. But that's fine. Supporting them is a piece of cake.
 

NamelessBryan

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Nov 27, 2014
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I work in a mixed-OS office (our network is doing fine, btw) and I am always astounded when we work with partners who claim to support all platforms, but don't have a single device with supported software installed.

If any of your customer base is using a Mac, then you should at least keep one for testing. If someone wants to take it upon them self to be the resident Mac expert, then why not?
 

qparsons

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I know this is anecdotal but a year or two ago I was reading about how IBM went Mac and it was great with lower desktop support costs. But I have a friend that started working for IBM about a month ago and I asked him how he liked the Mac. To my surprise he said he and everybody else is running a Lenovo.
 
I run support in a company where we have a full mix: mainly win10, some leftover win7, a couple Linux and 4 Macs - 2 for graphists, 1 for a marketing guy who mostly works with the aforementioned Mac users, and a hardware driver programmer. They run in their own little world and I mainly communicate with them through the cloud. Forget about integrating them in our domains not accessing the shares - at best we go through a NAS that supports both CIFS and bonjour...
 
Sep 15, 2018
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Also, the repair question is foolish. Anyone who has ever dealt with Dell or Microsoft, knows how difficult, cumbersome and time consuming those companies can be. In my experience, Apple repair is easier, and the machines are more reliable, although I admit, I have never actually gotten the repair parts from Apple ;~)
 

stdragon

Admirable
Wrong! Getting a repair on a Dell (especially with Pro support) is far easier than with Apple. It's also quicker.

Last time the Dell diagnostic utility (ePSA boot diag) reported a drive failure, it provided a validation code for that failure. I just navigated to support.dell.com, typed in the code for that machine, and the RMAed part was mailed. Didn't even have to talk to single person.
 
Macs actually play very well in a corporate environment. I was just at a company where the entire engineering group worked on Macs, and they were maintained quickly, competently, and well by the IT department. The heros of the IT department built out 230 new ones one month.

However, if IT is geared up for PCs and only PCs, it's either totally unfair or a huge expense to have them take on Macs. Since no device that's not managed by IT should be on the corporate network, period, that means that even the CEO can't have a Mac on the network. Unless s/he personally pays for new IT staff and space for those people.
 
Sep 16, 2018
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Working in silicon valley, we have the opposite problem. Engineering departments which are 90-95% Macintosh and 5-10% Linux (and even less or no Windows), and people building internal tools which forget the Linux minority.

Support staff is often still on Windows, but basically, if you're not doing Windows games, dot-net (or other Windows software) development or in a legacy company with a big investment in Windows infrastructure, Windows is dead for software development in NorCal.
 

Karadjgne

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I've seen companies use pc's for accounting, office type apps, and use Macs for their graphical/web design services. The only real requirement to a mixture of both (IT needs not withstanding) is a common format that's usable by either. Like http or c++ etc when saved to the NAS. A *.doc could really care less if it's opened on a Mac, windows or Linux OS, as long as it opens.

If you need to make a phonecall, it really doesn't matter if it's iPhone or Android, just as long as it'll dial like a phone.
 

stdragon

Admirable
The irony is that Apple explicitly got out of the enterprise market. Short of an OSX add-on, there are no "Apple Servers" to be found; not even in rack-mount. And you can forget about virtualization such as VDI as it must be on bare metal Mac hardware.

Apple is not enterprise. It never was, and probably never will. At best, it's allowable BYOD device, it serves a niche vertical market purpose, or is used by the independent contractor.
 
Sep 11, 2018
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I agree totally with JOHNNYTS. Total nonsense. Macs are easier to manage, pretty virus and malware free and cost of ownership significantly less that PC. Sys Admins complaining about their own inadequacy and lack of knowledge, not the OS.
 
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