Everyone who has said something against Mac's in a business environment is right.
Everyone who has harped on downtime for PC's is wrong.
I often wonder where this mystical downtime associated with PC's is?
Sure PC's can get viruses, and yes, viruses can cause downtime. If downtime is that important, get a IPS.
If downtime is so important buy a better warranty. I sell Lenovo's as a standard business desktop, $549 w/ a 3 year NBD on site warranty, can't wait NBD, tack on another $90 for a 4 hour response warranty.
If up time is important than you do things to mitigate that downtime, and I don't care if you add up every single thing out there to mitigate that risk you won't come close to the cost of implementing Mac hardware.
And that's not even getting into software compatability, backup, service, and all the other things mentioned here.
I have never, EVER, had a user call me due to downtime on a virus or anything else where we had put in a proper security system. User security, IPS, network security, etc.
I rarely even have my customers use their warranties, even though we sell them with each machine. I've had one bad PS in a HP Server in the past 2 years and that was a installation error. The customer had a new phone system installed and for some reason the installer decided to move their server connection to the phone system's UPS, which is not capable of protecting the server.
I sell uptime and business continuity and Mac's don't offer it. It's also obvious Apple wants no part of it by getting rid of the Xserve's, but even before that their absolutely INSANE 30K or whatever it was for 1 year of on site warranty was ridiculous.
Still, even if they fixed all that, SharePoint is an app killer for Mac's, without ActiveX its useless to most business customers.
Specifically mention how video resources can easily be composed with OSX Server's Podcast Producer and served to mac's iPhones/iPad.
Another aspect ... no NEED to purchase different PDF volume licenses for Adobe Pro/Standard 9/10 for simple editing [I'm unsure if Preview can edit Tables/create them].
MS Office is now properly available for OSX and is up to par with 2010 for Windows: including ability to import, edit and add-on to PST files. This will be an important mention.
* Key point. Mention a server based email anti-virus license solution - for outbound emails, or FTP/Sharepoint sites that have files uploaded to Windows users that your company/employees communicate with.
* MS Office Communicator [OCS] is now available and COMPLETELY compatible for Mac - part of Office 2011 as I'm ALREADY doing this without need for a VPN connection [using OWA settings] with corporation contacts in OCS.
* more standardized ordering of hardware makes support MUCH MUCH easier. Having a high level apple certification for both hardware/server - makes your argument THAT MUCH more sound and heard in a more official and presentable voice.
* Mention how Open Directory supports Active Directory infrastructure - again certification and a direct line of specific Apple support in this respect WILL be crucial and helpful.
Wrong. We're a SharePoint Developer, yes if you want a pretty calendar for all to see Safari cuts it, beyond that its not even close.
Sharepoint Workspace does 10 times as much as the Mac SharePoint app. The Mac SharePoint app is there to make up for the lack of some ActiveX connectivity but you cannot sync entire projects offline.
What good is open directory? I can manage every single thing on every single Windows box, can't do that with a Mac.
You have 100 PC's and you want to publish a new SharePoint list to Outlook for every user.
How do you do it without Active Directory and group policies...well first, SharePoint lists don't work in Outlook for the Mac so guess you'd stop there.
All your doing is wasting your companies time, effort, and money, trying to shoe horn something in there that should not be just because.
You want standard hardware, fine, go pick a spec and buy it. Who exactly from Apple is going to come out and fix the computer, no one. Yet you can get same day on site service from IBM, Lenovo, and Dell, cheap.
Mac's in a business environment make no logical sense, it is an emotional decision because when put down on paper and looked at from a TCO/ROI aspect they will always come out on the losing end.
I could go on and on, but this is a productivity issue: I am not as productive on Windows as I am on a Mac. Microsoft has been in disarray for years and it shows. Why on Server 2008 does the utility "Server Management" and "Manage Server" point to 2 totally different applications? Sounds like someone is shipping off projects to India and not paying attention.
Now before I get accused of MS bashing, I will point out that MS makes excellent front-end applications such as Office. This is where the company shines (Access is really great product). They just make crappy operating systems and servers.
Windows Server 2008 does not have a Manage Server option, and in fact its Manage My Server. SBS has that, but not server 2008.
Crappy servers? Really, find me anyone, anyone, who is a system admin, who complains about MS's server operating systems?
They are rock solid. I've never had a single server crash, not a one. They run, night and day, without problems.
If you think servers are for sharing data then it shows how little people know about the true reason you put in a server. You manage entire networks with them.
1. I have had to fix the registry twice after installing Opera -if you install that into Windows 7 the system starts generating security errors and warnings, and you can no longer open hyperlinks in Outlook. This is Microsoft preventing you from installing 3rd party browsers into Windows 7 -I don't have these issues on my Mac (I run 3 browsers there)
Really, then why not do it all via GPO and be done with it? It has nothing to do with MS stopping you from installing browsers. I'd question the common sense of installing some 3rd party little known browser in a business environment.
The fact your using the windows installer to push out an app in a business environment with AD available to you is a problem in itself. If you need to install software and then push out REG patches it can all be done via GPO in 1 step.
I look after 250+ macs across 8 advertising companies across 3 countries.
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All very true. I would guess however that your industry is more Mac centric and your setup while most likely robust was not something that was put together in a day.
The value of running a Mac for business reasons outweighs the extra cost of managing your system. The integration software is not cheap, I'd suspect you make a good bit more than a standard system admin, and if you don't, you should because of the stuff your running.
I'm sure your system works well, but I'd also guess your system cost quite a bit more to implement than something all Windows based.
Your company did it for a business reason, not just because, which is what a lot of these answers are here, lets just run Mac's because.
If Mac's made more business sense to a customer I'd be all over it, value is what you need to provide. I had a customer, 9 Mac's, 2 PC's, once we sat down and looked at what it cost to do it the right way, like your doing it, out went the Mac's. There was no specific reason for them to stay on Mac's.
As far as the comment on the Enterprise vs the smaller business. We implement Enterprise quality systems in small businesses. That is our business model. It is not expensive at all, at least today. I doubt we could do what we do today for the cost 5-6 years ago.
MS is not stupid, they are creating a lot of solid smaller business apps that are cost effective.
