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Enterprise expansion to be "challenging" for Apple

updated 02:30 pm EDT, Mon May 9, 2005

OS X enterprise


Apple faces a "challenging environment" as it struggles to expand its role in the . Apple hopes its new Tiger operating system will help boost popularity of its Xserve line, which currently "lags behind Windows, Linux and other Unix offerings" in market share. Analysts say it's unclear if the 10.4 version of Mac OS X Server, which has built-in support for more than 100 open-source software technologies, will propel Apple beyond its traditional user base. Fourteen of the sixteen IT managers who responded to a random Computerworld e-mail poll last week said they have no plans to consider Tiger, either because they aren't familiar with it, or they see no need to change their existing technology environments.


by MacNN Staff

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  1. LittleSaint

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: May 2005

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    05/09, 02:41pm | report spam | Reply |

    I would probably help...

    if enterprise standards like Active Directory and VPN actually worked in Tiger.

  1. jumanji

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    Joined: Apr 2004

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    05/09, 03:30pm | report spam | Reply |

    as an IT administrator

    and a mac fan...there is no way Tiger can compete. You can't do any worthwhile policy management and there are several little things that just suck in the server software. as a client, macs rule....as a server...there is a long way to go. its my hope that apple buys novell and uses them as their server. novell has it down and it is moving to a linux base.

  1. beeble

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Mar 2004

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    05/09, 04:17pm | report spam | Reply |

    Statistical relevance

    There were only 16 participants in the poll. I've just polled everyone in my office (just me) and they all think Mac OS X is the best thing since oxygen. Obviously it is, the poll result says so. Sheeeeeeesh!

    As intellectually deficient as the poll industry is today with insanely worded questions that can be picked apart by a two year old to see the statistic that the pollster is attempting to create and carefully chosen "random" samples, this really takes the cake for shear lunacy.

    Computerworld has placed itself into the realm of compete irrelevance.

  1. aer

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Mar 2004

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    05/09, 04:43pm | report spam | Reply |

    i believe this is true

    I believe this is a true representation of the IT staff out there. Apple does have a ways to go in the enterprise.. they aren't there yet with AD integration. SMB intermittently sucking on Tiger, all issues. Of course Microsoft doesn't make it e-z since all their stuff is proprietary (like MAPI- god- can we Mac users have a decent MAPI email client??) Why can't my Windows batch scripts "map" drives at login for Mac OS X clients? Why can't I adjust ACLS from a Windows box to a Mac XServe when the Mac is bound to the AD? Windows admins find all that s*** highly annoying.. and it is. No one wants their job to be so complex that they can't function. These doods go to Windows MCSA class and stuff and WG Manager is just too foreign, too easy, and it doesn't run on the XP box sitting on their desk. But then part of this is Apple's fault- being so irreverent that their technology is the best (which it may be) and being staunch about it to the point of NOT doing something that could be helpful to a Windows admin- Such as NOT making a Workgroup Manager GUI for Windows or Server Admin for Windows. Why not make them both? That's a sure fire way to get the foot in the door. Look at iTunes!!

  1. jumanji

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    Joined: Apr 2004

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    05/09, 04:44pm | report spam | Reply |

    agree with you on

    computerworld, but how many of those 16 people know how to use not only an apple server, but a novell server and a windows server. the apple server lacks....a lot. there is no denying this.

  1. Keith Whitehead

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: May 2000

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    05/09, 04:52pm | report spam | Reply |

    Of course...

    it may mean there is a reduction in the number of staff needed to run the IT department. If nothing else IT departments are very good at protecting their own self interest.

  1. southtdi

    Dedicated MacNNer

    Joined: Aug 2003

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    05/09, 11:59pm | report spam | Reply |

    One way Apple should try

    Besides the lcking features that OSX Server has Apple does have a great produc for small business networks. It's cheap, simple, and low cost to maintian. That is thte market they should be puching into. Learn from there and scale the product up over time for the larger enterprise groups.

    Apple really needs to start getting a message out about this instead of how fun and great the iPod is.

    They also could make a push as the network fornt-end for internet based services such as security, web hosting, and email. Improve there and you would have a great door into the rest of the enterprise.

  1. Tdassel

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Apr 2004

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    05/10, 04:31am | report spam | Reply |

    Still missing a lot

    We use an Xserve in an otherwise all Windows environment. Active Directory integration was not possible, because our AD seems to be too large, even an Apple consultant could not fix it, so we had to go via LDAP, still with a lot of strange behaviour and not stable. For a server the support of UPS is only rudimentary. Xserve only support UPS with USB connection and there are very few of them in the enterprise market. Most use network agents or serial connections. SNMP support ? Have fun to configure it. Apple claims that it is there but look at their documentation to find out how little it is. Thank goodness some companies have made their tools work with OS X, so we could integrate the Xserve with out Legato backup solution and there are some more. Apple needs to find some companies, who will port their applications to OS X Server ( like Domino or some intranet applications like Livelink, Hyperwave or Filenet ). I doubt that MS will port SQL server or Sharepoint to the Mac but Apple has to come up with some similar options. Other companies sell boxes completly with Oracle configured on them, why can't Apple ? Virus protection is also an issue. While there are no viruses for the MAc you still have to prevent that you route the viruses via you Mac mail system or file server to Windows clients. Is there a solution that integrates into OS X server and protects the mail server and the file server from viruses ? The virus solutions I know concentrate on the Mac as a workstation or home PC. There is no integration into Enterprise Virus protection systems. Apple runs SAP, but not on Xserves I guess. Without server applications there advantage for IT departmenst to switch. Having Windows or SUN servers for applications and Xserves for file&print and mail is not something to go for. Having everything on one OS is the way most it departments go and Apple needs to support this in a much better way.

    Thomas

  1. winterlandia

    Forum Regular

    Joined: May 2001

    0
    05/10, 09:01am | report spam | Reply |

    groupware

    Apple needs some groupware server software with ourlook/exchange functionality. You need to be able to schedule and plan meetings with others, drag an email onto your calendar and have it create an appt, route documents through a list of mail recipients for review and have it come back to you, have shared calendars with resource tracking/scheduling. Entourage is close but isn't very enterprise aware. The other problem is that most enterprise apps just aren't written for OS X yet. Major business apps like SAP, CRM, ERP, Peoplesoft, Business Objects, etc just do not exist for OS X. Heck, until Tiger came out one couldn't even participate using granular permissions like you can in ntfs with local, global and universal groups, inheritance, denys, etc. The best way for Apple to get into enterprise would be for them to get enterprise app writers to actually write apps for them. I think they have Oracle for OS X but that is about it.

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