RSSNew alliance aims for Mac manageability in heterogenous systems
By Jacqueline Emigh | Published July 1, 2008, 5:50 PM
Can the "Mac experience" be made to co-exist better with mainly Windows environments? Members of a new alliance say so. The EDA wants to spur greater adoption of Macs in enterprises.
With various studies pointing to a boom in popularity for Apple's venerable Macs, five software companies banded together this week to form the Enterprise Desktop Alliance (EDA), a group aimed at making Macs more manageable in mostly Windows environments.
Essentially, the EDA seeks to extend the Windows-based management environment so that Macs can act as peers to Windows PCs in an enterprise, while still maintaining the "Mac experience" for end users, the new organization said in a statement.
Specific management functions targeted by the group include virtualization, identity and access management, enterprise data protection, systems life-cycle management, and file and print services.
Under the EDA's strategy, administrators will be able to deliver the same standards of service and enforce the same compliance policies across both Mac and Windows, while also applying these capabilities to the virtual version of Windows running on the Mac.
One of the founding members, Parallels, produces virtualization software for running Windows, Linux and other applications on Mac OS X desktops.
The other founders include LANrev, a maker of automated client management tools for Macs and Windows PCs; enterprise back-up solutions provider Atempo; Group Logic, a producer of software for file and print sharing across Windows servers and Mac desktops; and Centrify, which sells a suite called DirectControl for extending Microsoft's Active Directory across multiple OS.
But are there enough Macs out there yet to warrant the EDA's efforts? Although hard data about Mac installations isn't all that abundant, some analysts have used Web metrics and sales statistics to prove rising usage share for Macs.
One way of estimating the actual density of certain types of machines in the installed base, as opposed to sales, is by determining how much of the world's Web browser traffic comes from certain machines. This is the approach analytics firm Net Applications takes. News sources have mistakenly referred to this as "market share." That's an inaccurate term, since "market" implies "sales;" Net Applications measures use.
Using Web traffic analytics, Net Applications currently estimates a 7.94% usage share for Macs, in comparison to 90.89% for Windows, 0.80% for Linux, 0.16% for iPhone; 0.93% for PlayStation 3; and 0.01% for the Nintendo Wii. That compares with a 7.07% usage share for the third quarter of 2007, according to Net Applications' analysis. Thus the statistics show that the rate of growth for Mac usage share based on Web traffic is about 4% per quarter -- not a lot, but growth nonetheless.
Relying on hardware sales numbers instead, blogger Daniel Eran Dilger estimated this month in Roughly Drafted that "Apple now has an installed base of around 16 million Intel Macs, but only about 7.5 million PowerPC Macs that are five years old or less."
About 6.5 million of those Intel Macs are new over the past nine months, since the arrival of Mac OS X Leopard, according to Dilger.
Yet if the installed base for Macs is climbing fast, nobody could convincingly argue that it no longer remains small in comparison to Windows-based PCs.
In establishing the EDA, the five founders are articulating a goal of pushing for broader adoption of Macs in workplaces. Yet unless an organization already has a hefty Mac user base in place, will administrators really pay much attention to the new group's integration approach? This could be a chicken-and-egg type question.
Enterprises will only become much more efficient and virus free as they adopt Macs.
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|Well, since most of those enterprise Macs will be running virtual XP, you're not much safer than you are on a PC. And as for the "efficiency", I have yet to see anything from Apple outperform a comparable Windows install on the same task, with the possible exception of digital layout and illustration. I'm sure there's a fair number of Macs in design studios and newsrooms, but that's a pretty small niche and hardly enterprise level utilization. I suppose you could include overall stability as part of the "efficiency" gain, but XP is pretty darn solid at this point (a shame they just didn't build on that instead of giving us Vista). The bottom line is, as usual, the bottom line. Macs cost twice as much as a similarly equipped PC with no ROI to justify it.
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|"Macs cost twice as much as a similarly equipped PC with no ROI to justify it."
With your dubious mathematical ability, I am just waiting to see your ROI calculations.
Interestingly absent in the article above, is the mention of the ability of the Mac to effectively and NATIVELY bridge the divide between 64 bit UNIX backend systems and the desktop - for which admin tools are readily already available to completely administer mixed desktop environments.
Oh, and let's not forget another tiny expense... (as some here think comparably equipped Macs cost 2x as much as comparable mainstream assembled desktops... oh, and while you're at it, quote me a competing dual quad core XEON workstation for anywhere near the ~$3K Mac price!)
You can admin a Windows desktop environment without the Windows server licensing costs! So add that tiny expense into the cost of your Windows server and tell us about cost effectiveness. So many walking 'new math' casualties...
No enterprise level utilization? ROFLMAO! Ever hear of UNIX? Oh, and how does YOUR Windows box talk to Unix? Ain't terminal emulation fun! Stick to desktops and games.
Your lack of understanding of the total enterprise environment is staggering.
This is exactly the niche Apple should have been going after. Yet the internals of Apple have never been effectively structured to handle enterprise support - something Apple would need to address - and NOT in their usual "here is how YOU will do it" POV! It will need to incorporate a decidedly UN-Apple attitude of 'how can we enable you to do what YOU want to do?"
Te irony is the hardware and software are essentially already there - and have been for several years now. What the real hurdle will be is the ability of Apple to adjust to supporting an enterprise environment without Steve Job's typical effete arrogance and typical attempt to tell others how they must conform to his vision of how to do things. ...A problem that has tormented many Mac users from DAY 1 in Apple-land. Heck, it seems like only yesterday that we in the physics and engineering worlds were being told by Apple that the Mac was a desktop publishing machine and not intended for that 'engineering' stuff!
It will be interesting to see if others can overcome the ineptitude of Apple Corporate to facilitate such functionality in the event Apple doesn't wake up and cooperate in a very real opportunity - an event which there appears to be little chance.
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|Very true foxfyre,
Apple seems comforatble centering themselves on the personal computer edge and not chasing after any of the MS based business. This would be an advantage for them and increase their sales expecially considering their ease of use for the new user.
Those Mac Pro quad core towers are impressive...
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|Most PC owners I know of usually consider a PC bundled without the software pack that accompanies every Mac. That makes them far cheaper. It should also be noted that most of such users tend to use non-legit copies of Windows, while most Mac users have legit copies of their OS, which is still by far and wide the best combination of security, lightness and user experience. Let's not forget that you pay for quality devices, and Macs have a very high quality. The iMac is one of the rare examples of a computer that has very decent built-in video camera, and speakers - I don't even use external ones, in both cases. And that has a cost.
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|The problem with this point is that what the alliance is trying to do is increase ENTERPRISE penetration!
Citing facts that Bozo desktop users have counterfeit copies of Windows is not exactly presenting a viable counter to the issue! But hey, they save money! LOL! I mean, perhaps some broke into a school and stole their machines too...Does that count?
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|It should also be noted that most of such users tend to use non-legit copies of Windows,
Care to back that BS up?
...didn't think so.
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