Is your company ready for the Apple Invasion?

[Niheel]

The Apple invasion into corporate has started and I can't say if I am excited or scared. As an IT manager, I have nightmares over all the support and technical issues of integrating Apple hardware and software into our company. As an owner of ample Apple products, I'm excited about being able to use my iPhone and MacBooks at the company.

For years many of us have fought to get Apple products into our company's infrastructure. Much to our dismay, the cost involved with supporting Apple products across the whole enterprise always outweighed the benefit. It didn't help that even Steve Jobs for many years held a firm stance on being a consumer oriented company.

Things are changing. There is a whole new level of curiosity and excitement about getting Apple stamped devices ready to work with our corporate IT. There are more and more employees demanding access for their Apple hardware. Even the bosses from the top are more open. They are curious and in some cases even ready to make the changes. I'm sure their experience with other Apple products had nothing to do with it. ;-)

Take a look at these excerpts from corporate executives and CEO's in the latest Business Week magazine article "The Mac in the Gray Flannel":

• • Anthony Decanti, Vice-president for technology Werner Enterprises ($2B in sales)
    • Werner Enterprises (WERN), a trucking company based in Omaha with $2 billion in sales, decided to start letting employees use a variety of computers a few years ago. When they began to choose Macs, the company reached out to Apple. "They all but told us to take a hike," says Anthony Decanti, vice-president for technology. But Decanti persisted, and Apple eventually sent an account rep.
  • Michele Goins, Chief Information Officer at Juniper Networks
    
    • "If we opened it up today, I think 25% of our employees would choose Macs," she says.
  • Scott Kriens, CEO At Sunnyvale (Calif.)-based Juniper
    
    • One of the people with a new Mac Book laptop. "Everybody told me I should get one," he says. "It's not anything to do with negative perceptions about Microsoft. It's just that Macs are cool."
  • Mark Slaga, Chief Information Officer of Dimension Data
    
    • A large computer services firm based in suburban Johannesburg, says he has received 25 e-mails recently from employees who want permission to use Macs at work.

In a survey of 250 diverse companies that has yet to be released, the market research firm Yankee Group found that 87% now have at least some Apple computers in their offices, up from 48% two years ago.

Companies are stepping up for their employees and starting to support Apple in the business environment. Notable ones include:

• IBM
• Cisco
• Google

Many CEO's and Leaders are already using some sort of Apple product for their professional life.

• Dayton, Sky; CEO EarthLink Network
• Eisner, Michael; CEO Disney Corp.
• Gore, Al; U.S. ex Vice-President
• Hawk, Tony; skateboarder
• Jobs, Steve; co-founder Apple Computer
• Lerner, Sandy; founder of Cisco Systems, Urban Decay
• Lowe, Bill; former IBM bigwig
• MacCready, Paul; inventor
• Lucas, George; director/producer
• Rao, P.V. Narashima; ex Prime Minister of India
• Sheetrit, Meir; Minister of Justice, Israel
• Jay-Z (Yes, HP paid me. But I use an Apple.)
• Tigret, Isacc; founder - Hard Rock Café
• Yeltsin, Boris; ex Soviet president
• Larry Ellison, Chairman, CEO and Founder Oracle Corp.
• Roy Disney, Disney Board of Directors

There are also legions of celebrity endorsers and media darlings that support and promote the Apple Invasion to consumers (our corporate employee base in most cases).

Another factor that could drive increased usage in coming years is the droves of college students who have known nothing but their Apple during their higher education coming into the workplace.

According to a survey of 1,200 undergrads by researcher Student Monitor this year, 43% of college students who intend to buy a laptop plan to buy a Mac, up from 8% in 2003.

Combine this with constant word of mouth marketing from colleagues, friends and family and there is a significant shift in usage patterns in favor of Apple in corporate environments.

All this translates into changes for many of our corporate IT policies . We have to adapt to the demand and to be open to the idea of sharing our corporate networks and resources and even support Apple devices on our own (no in-house Genius Bar).

The best advice given we've heard so far . . . keep an open mind and get ready to be Appleified.

Is your company ready for the Apple Invasion? What kind of resources are you setting up to support the influx of Apple users in your company?

[mattfox]

No. Show me how to deploy active directory security profiles and applications and then it can be used in a secure environment (i.e. financial institutions etc)

Its hard enough dealing with the multitude of user environments as it is without having to support unsecured macs too.

Agreed.

While you can do a bit to lock down a Mac that is a member of an Open Directory domain, Apple's Workgroup Manager doesn't even scratch the surface of what AD's Group Policies can do.

I recently installed OS X 10.5 server on an XServe that was sitting around my office (it was literally sitting in the back of a closet) and while the AD/OD integration takes some pain out of having to deal with both platforms separately, I'd really like to see some more of an equivalent to AD's GPOs instead of Apple's weak Workgroup Manager.

[craveness]

A follow up to your post:
http://www.cravenet.ne t/2008/05/apple-in-enterprise-architecture.ht ml

[russ960]

Steve Jobs uses a MAC? No way. I totally thought he was using a Dell! This makes the list look lame!

[rifaavalon]

I would agree with some o the comments that the Mac isn't totally ready for the enterprise, but also at the same time, I can disagree.

For one I have worked in shops before were there has been a mixed bag environment on both the desktop and the server. Mostly Linux and Windows, but if Linux can play nice in an enterprise why can't the Mac? AD integration is awesome pushing GPOs are fine, but if you are relying on just Group Policy to protect your network, install software, etc, I say your lazy.

Am I wrong or does Thunderbird also connect to an Exchange environment? Thunderbird runs on a Mac. Mail.app is by far a better mail client than Entourage and it connects to Exchange.

I seem to recall that today when I was working on AD it gives you options to make it easier to connect your Mac to Exchange.

Least you not forget that all OS X essentially is, is UNIX wrapped in a pretty window manager.

Understandably a Mac can harbor a Windows bug and not know it, but Symantec even allows for an enterprise installation of their anti-virus software for the Mac.

I have seen alot of networks ruined because of WSUS, don't get me wrong it is useful (if setup correctly). But it isn't the end all be all for updating your Windows boxes. I agree that Patching systems is important so don't get me wrong on that.

Look as some one that has advocated Windows for so long I have seen the trouble it causes hence the reason I use a Mac at home! We could have this debate over and over, but look things up before you start throwing things out there!

[tomtermite]

As an Apple developer since 1989, and on my second successful company relying on Apple (well, formerly NeXT) technologies (WebObjects, XServe, Eclipse on Leopard), I would say Apple has been ready for business. From the other comments, it seems business is not ready for Apple.

But if others choose to stay in the 1990s mindset, that is their choice. They are missing out on the competitive advantages the hardware and software lends.

In the era of cloud computing (our offering, http://www.bluedog.net/workbench is a SAAS / web 2.0 app), Apple tech and tools can help differentiate.

[semanticprecision]

Boris Yeltsin is dead.

[tikatam]

Guys, I have a very important question which relates exactly to this article:

In a couple of days I'll start working at Adobe and I get to choose what kind of laptop I want. Either a MacBook Pro or some kind of Lenovo. I chose the MacBook.

Upon this, I was informed that there is almost no inhouse support for and I have to make sure things like Flex Builder and AIR SDK are running. Pretty much, I have to ensure myself that everything is running.

NOW the QUESTION: If something shouldn't run in OSX, I can just boot into Windows and get it to run there, right? A MacBook booted in Windows (through Bootcamp) behaves EXACTLY like any other PC, right? If something doesn't run there, it shouldn't run anywhere else.

I would tremendously appreciate a quick answer.

[jrwhite8]

If you run Windows through Boot Camp on a Mac, it is no different than running Windows on a PC. In fact, PC World rated a MacBook Pro the fastest Vista notebook: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,136649-page,3-c,notebooks/article.html

Guys, I have a very important question which relates exactly to this article:

In a couple of days I'll start working at Adobe and I get to choose what kind of laptop I want. Either a MacBook Pro or some kind of Lenovo. I chose the MacBook.

Upon this, I was informed that there is almost no inhouse support for and I have to make sure things like Flex Builder and AIR SDK are running. Pretty much, I have to ensure myself that everything is running.

NOW the QUESTION: If something shouldn't run in OSX, I can just boot into Windows and get it to run there, right? A MacBook booted in Windows (through Bootcamp) behaves EXACTLY like any other PC, right? If something doesn't run there, it shouldn't run anywhere else.

I would tremendously appreciate a quick answer.

[arksyne]

You missed one significant Mac user…Steve Ballmer!

(He was caught on camera using a Mac to give a presentation recently.)

[NeoPa]

There will always be users who know that things are fine (Mac works in AD environment etc) because they've seen it in various places. What is hard to explain to people that use that type of logic is that simply because there are circumstances where it doesn't have problems, is not supporting evidence for "There are no problems".

It's very rare (in my experience at least) for all facilities available (to most systems, but AD particularly) to be taken advantage of and implemented fully. This being the case, it's hardly a surprise that there are many situations where Macs are used with PCs in an AD environment without noticeable problems.

Clearly that's not a bad sign for the Macs in future, but it's not evidence that all is straightforward now.

When things don't work according to plan, it's never the ones with the bright idea of introducing the new kit that get left with the problem of making it all work. This is left to IT to sort out. Is it any wonder they would like the opportunity to be prepared for this in advance?