The Macalope says it’s go time with Microsoft:
[…] This is not about price. This is about making “safe” choices. For years enterprises have chosen—and let themselves get locked into—Windows because, yes, no one got fired for buying Microsoft.
But these companies also bought Microsoft because, like AIG, Microsoft simply seemed “too big to fail” and Apple did not. Well, that’s as may be, but there’s “fail as a company” and then there’s “fail to deliver”—and Microsoft has certainly failed to deliver.
So, congratulations, enterprises! You’re left holding the bag for an outdated desktop operating system bundled with a costly and uncertain path forward!
Seriously, if it were solely about price and choice, every company in the world would be running Linux.
Sorry, but this guy is out of his mind. Windows is "outdated" and has "a costly and uncertain path forward"? Name one operating system that doesn't!
I think one reason you don't see OSX in the corporate world is because there's a real cost, both in time and money, to train new hires on their jobs. They've got enough to do to learn the business processes of their departments and the quirks of the institution for which they now work, and asking them to learn their new job skills while also learning a (presumably) unfamiliar OS, no matter how friendly it may be, is like handing them a boat anchor and asking them to swim.
Keep in mind that corporate IT departments are about as flexible as a geriatric in a body cast. Before Macs ran on Intel chips, there were countless compatibility issues with critical enterprise software, and document compatibility problems still persist to this day (mostly due to training issues. Imagine that!). Most places — certainly, the ones I've worked — have invested tens of thousands of dollars into site licenses for critical applications, including operating systems. We should just throw that money away, and switch to the OS du jour?
There are a lot of practical implications of OS choice that this guy just glossed over on his way to his Happy Place where everyone's abandoned Microsoft and wears black turtlenecks.
Hey, that's my happy place, too. Unbeliever!
It is of course hyperbole (it's the Macalope), but these are real questions. As the type of computers many people have in their homes has begun moving in the Mac direction, more and more people are asking to use them in their places of employment. Personal familiarity with a Windows environment might not be such a given in a few years.
Now that Macs *do* run on Intel platforms, does that decrease the barrier to acceptance from an IT standpoint?
This is going to present challenges to IT departments as they attempt to give their (internal) customers the tools they need to adequately perform their jobs. Microsoft unfortunately doesn't seem to be doing themselves any favors with the current state of the operating system re: Vista going over like a lead balloon at the enterprise level.