I recently wrote an article about why I cant switch to a Mac for my work. If anyone else is looking into putting their Mac in a Windows network, here are my experiences to help save you some time.
I recently wrote an article about why I cant switch to a Mac for my work. If anyone else is looking into putting their Mac in a Windows network, here are my experiences to help save you some time.
He uses all Microsoft software, not even looking for Mac equivalents except in the PowerPoint vs. Keynote situation, and he’s surprised that he has trouble getting it working?
If you read the article it says he had a hard requirement of microsoft office since his business requires it…
If it had been a soft requirement, sure keynote/… might work.
I am a mac/linux fan, but if your job has a hard requirement for microsoft tools, there is little you can do besides virtualpc/…
synk is a good, cheap tool for syncing files as the author describes. It’s also free for academic users (a truly great policy).
Microsoft office products often don’t even interoperate very well with other versions of themselves. So it’s no surprise they don’t interoperate with their own Mac versions or other Mac software. Microsoft has been pulling the “non-interoperable” trick for ages with file formats and undocumented api calls.
What software should he have chosen instead?
For:
E-mail/calender
Converting access database
Syncronizing/Back-up
Remember that he has to be able to send files that the others can read, and also be able to read files that the others send.
Not a trivial task.
His conclusion comes as no surprise. It is hard to differ from the rest. 🙁
You actually blamed OS X for Microsoft’s OS X versions of it’s software. Why are you not blaming Microsoft for Microsofts mistakes?
“OS X is not ready for use in an Exchange 2003 environment.”
OS X will, I hope, never be ready for that. However, I hope that someday the Outlook available for it will be.
Roguelazer: He uses all Microsoft software, not even looking for Mac equivalents except in the PowerPoint vs. Keynote situation, and he’s surprised that he has trouble getting it working?
Yes, he kind of has to – he’s talking about why he can’t use a Mac in a Windows environment. I’m sure he’d be happy to use all Apple software, but that probably won’t help the situation much.
Having said that, I thought you could get a mail client to talk IMAP to Exchange – it’s not quite as good as Exchange’s proprietary protocol, but it’s gotta be better than Entourage using OWA.
He shouldn’t be trying to use Word to compose e-mail either. It may give it a more professional look, until someone sees it in something other than Outlook where it’ll most likely look hideous. Word is not good at HTML.
Frankly that’s hardly a big deal at all – everyone I know seems happy enough with pretty basic e-mails. They use HTML, but not for much – at the end of the day it’s a text-based means of communication, like writing a letter.
Samba and file sharing, sure. This simply isn’t as slick as Windows’ approach.
Backing up his documents, well, cp would probably work… Frankly this doesn’t sound all that hard, I’m surprised it was a problem.
Yes, Access is difficult like that. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a good alternative – and if he’s working with Access he should probably know that a Mac simply isn’t a good way to go.
I think he is a bit unfair about the lack of interoperability; this has come a long way. OpenOffice is pretty good at talking Word and Excel, which covers most of the work people are typically doing. On a Mac you can buy MS Office which will do them pretty much perfectly anyway.
“OS X will, I hope, never be ready for that. However, I hope that someday the Outlook available for it will be.”
Not a very helpful comment. Shifting blame doesn’t solve the issue: that he had trouble with communicating with his fellow workers.
I, too, work at an all Microsoft shop – with the exception of our finance databases which run on Solaris.
My job function is that of a Senior UNIX and Windows Engineer so I must touch both aspects of these worlds.
I, however, find it very easy to navigate both worlds with ease. My Microsoft Office applications (2004 on the Mac) interoperates very well with all the ‘Winodws’ based systems at the company – the Entourage client is slower than my Windows Outlook client – because of the WebDAV protocol being used.
If you require MAPI – then look to Outlook 2001 for Macintosh – the ONLY MAPI client developed off of Windows – unfortunately – you will need to run this application in Classic OS form – but it does work – I choose to use the WebDAV client instead of booting my OS9.
As for Access… I do wish that Microsoft developed ACCESS on the Macintosh – we aren’t talking a ‘huge’ stretch for them. Two of the biggest issues with Access on Mac is ODBC and Visual Basic (both notoriously Windows based apps/clients). I am actually using Excel with an ODBC compliant client (actualtechnologies.com) to connect to a MS SQL 2000 server and run queries that way… The VB stuff can be handled by RealBasic client – too bad they don’t include a free version with your office purchase.
I am hopeful that the future will make their Office applications more like their Windows counterparts – other than that, I am using remote desktop to terminal into my Winodws based servers to function.
I cannot tell you what a piece of mind I have knowing that:
1. I won’t be affected by viruses (at this time)
2. Spyware has no affect either (at this time)
3. and the rock solid stability of the Mac OS X operating system (I have not had any issues/problems with stability on my 3 Macs)
All I can say is that this is a similiar ‘reason not to leave Microsoft’ article that we would see if he was reviewing any LINUX distribution. For this, I cannot agree with his final analysis.
I wish him good luck – but I will keep trucking with my Macs – and remote desktop to my PC when I absolutely need a Windows client – which is about 2-5% of the time for a specialized app.
T33ps
“Operating on a Mac in a Windows office takes more time than it is worth.”
Is this because Microsoft MacOffice 2004 is so “useless” on a Mac ?
Or is this because the Microsoft Office is an “almost” Windows only feature ?
If you write decent software for the platform, the platform will run it at it is made. No more, no less.
Please feel free to call Microsoft and tell them about your experience.
MS Office – gooooooood, not once again, please!
The next article will probably be about: Why is OpenOffice not Microsoft Office
Well, what do you expect when trying to do this. I’m more shocked his company let him bring in a personal machine and use it. Must not have issues of security and so forth.
But what he says is pretty straightforward. If you company is windows/office, like 99.9% of companies are, well this is the way it will go. And like he says, you have to use MS products, which is fine. In the end if he was to tell his bosses he wants to use OpenOffice he would for sure get a “I have a better idea, use you PC we gave you”
I sorta have to ask though, why buy a powerbook if you apparently have no personal use for it?
What software should he have chosen instead?
For:
E-mail/calender
Evolution is the clear choice (MacOS X version available here: http://astcomm.net/screenshots/X11/Evolution/) Through the (now-open source) Ximian Connector Evolution provides complete interoperability with Exchange.
So what are this guy’s main problems? His Microsoft software won’t work together with Microsoft software. Who is to blame? We don’t know, but we can conclude that:
1.) There’s no good software for the Mac
2.) Linux isn’t ready for the Desktop
3.) Open Source software is crap and probably illegal
4.) Microsoft solutions work because they adhere to standards
5.) Microsoft software increases productivty and security.
6.) HTML email looks more professional. People who send plain text email are just too poor to buy a decent computer.
And this is especially for you, dear friends from America: </SARCASM>
Not a very helpful comment. Shifting blame doesn’t solve the issue: that he had trouble with communicating with his fellow workers
Yes, he had trouble communicating, but that really comes down to Microsoft proprietary protocols/formats than the fact he was using OSX. As someone said more recently, he would have had basically exactly the same result on Linux.
Why should we blame every other manufacturer for not integrating with Microsoft when MS have gone out of their way to make that as hard as possible?
I am surprised there’s no open source Exchange client though – SMB was reverse engineered for Samba, why not MAPI?
Obviously this is easier said than done though 🙂
Shifting blame doesn’t help, that’s precisely my point; thanks for reading my post and not understanding reality. The truth is, it’s the fault of the application with the major failure (which he did admit earlier, but in his conclusion he fails to mention who is truly at fault and instead shifts blame to OS X; which shouldn’t be blamed for not supporting something which it likely can’t legally support anyway).
But thanks for making it look like I was trying to shift blame, when I was simply correcting a previous blame shift. Shifting blame is always a good thing iff(sic) you are shifting it to the side that, in fact, is to blame.
SMB was reversed engineered for Samba
This a common myth and untrue. Read http://samba.org/ftp/tridge/misc/french_cafe.txt
A few comments…..
1. Yeah, Entourage doens’t support MAPI. Yes, this sucks, and MSFT needs to get on the ball an add support to Entourage for it.
2. HTML email does not come across as more “professional”. In fact, 99% of the HTML email I receive is spam. A good spam rule filter is if it’s HTML, ditch it. What comes across as professional is good grammar, spelling, and punctuation. (Most of which I admit to lacking.)
3. MS Office 2004 for Mac is great and inter-operates very well w/ the Windows counterparts.
4. Yeah, the Access issue sucks…
I’ve been using a Mac in a Windows dominated environment for a little over two years. The biggest issue I’ve had is with Java and Flash not working well on the Mac. Also the lack of AD login support in Firefox or Safari.
It kinda seems like every week there is a new quirk to figure out. Often it’s web stuff, where things are written specific to IE. Or some silly little tool has to run that is only on Windows. So, I still get good use out of VPC for odds and ends. It would be very nice if MSFT would release Visio for the Mac, but oh well….
– Kelson
Okay, so if it wasn’t reverse engineered what exactly is that process called? They basically listened to the packets Samba was sending about the place and figured out how to work with them; this was rather what I thought had happened and comes pretty close to what I thought was the definition of reverse engineering.
Kelson: HTML e-mail isn’t great, sure, but it has it’s uses – conversation threads are very hard to follow properly in plain text (those >’s get lost after a few word wraps). Simple things like blockquotes and text colours are very effective, and very legitimate.
It would be nice to have a cut-down HTML e-mail spec; so it was HTML with formatting and quotes and etc, but without pictures and other silly embedded things. And obviously Javascript isn’t really necessary…
Umh… doesn’t Evolution still use WebDAV for authentication or is it strictly IMAP?
I know it doesn’t use MAPI…
Bill
I still look forward to a time when I can use my Mac at work. I think if we werent running Exchange 2003 and used IMAP and an LDAP directory it would be. Maybe the next version of Entourage will work. I sure hope so.
Given that AD *is* LDAP and Exchange is quite capabble of serving up IMAP, I don’t think this guy tried very hard to get his email going…
Entourage is definitely a poor cousin to Outlook, however – although I don’t think the rest of Office X is as bad.
I agree that it’s MS proprietary formats that is the source of the problem. I also agree that the problem is not OS X-specific, Linux:s, BSD:s also suffer from this.
But I didn’t get the impression that the author was blaming anyone for this. He just made the observation that this and that didn’t work, and then just moved on to someting that did.
Hate to say this…
Microsoft did not develop SMB protocol.
It was IBM in 1985 with a little help from Microsoft…
They developed it for usage in OS/2 based systems…
http://samba.anu.edu.au/cifs/docs/what-is-smb.html
Microsoft then took the ball and developed SMB into what you get today in Windows networks – that was around circa 1987.
versiontracker.com or macupdat.com
Good luck. And another place you should try and look for user support is arstechnica.com –mac forums section and Apple’s discussion forum– and other places like macnn.com http://www.google.com/mac.html everything Mac related.
Bye.
for the data backup part use cron to do the task, and rsync to do the backing up. better leave computer on and don’t think about it.
sorted using free tools
No. HTML in mail does NOT have its uses. If you have problems seeing the quotes, change your mail-reader to something that displays quotes a bit more intelligently.
What we end up with is basically a tool for spammers to make their mail obnoxious. That’s why I’m filtering all HTML-mail as spam. Once in a while legitimate mails gets classed as spam, but I don’t give a shit any more. If anyone can’t be arsed to write a proper mail, I won’t contact them. This filters out most of my spam without the use of any spam filters.
So he expected to buy into a completely differenty computing experience, and expect it to work 100% perfectly, inside a totally sperate system, within 3 or 4 days – yeh right – why did he buy it anyway then….
Try bringing a Windows laptop into a Mac photography studio and see how long it lasts….
Simple analogy (kinda…) – I bought foo. Everyone else has bar. Why can’t my foo be a bar…
OS X is not ready for use in an Exchange 2003 environment.
Hahahahaha….no really? I got some news for you, it never will. Apple has different plans. Apple makes the best software in the world, yet you think they can’t make an office app that competes with one of the worlds worst software makers in the world? Is that what you’re saying?
“Composing email on the Mac is not as sophisticated yet as it is in Windows.”
ease of use–> ease of use–> ease of use!!! Less is more, espically if you’re a newbie to computers. This has been Apple’s thinking since the F++KING BEGINGING.
“Word, Excel and Powerpoint interoperate acceptably
Operating on a Mac in a Windows office takes more time than it is worth.”
Bizzaro Superman: Me no like way it works, it teh sucks!!!
Doesn’t he know the reason “os x isn’t ready for exchange” is because apple already has their own server software. Why would apple give a crap if mail can connect to exchange when they already have mail working prefectly fine with their own server software? This would of been more interesting if he tryed to use linux instead.
Doesn’t he know the reason “os x isn’t ready for exchange” is because apple already has their own server software.
Really ? What “server software” does Apple have comparable to Exchange ?
Just a note that Exchange can be accessed from a non-windows platform using Evolution and the ximian-connector. I did this last week on FreeBSD 5.3, installing evolution and the ximian-connector from the ports. I was able to access my email, and access the exchange calendar and see my appointments. I had found this link http://helpdesk.its.uiowa.edu/exchange/ximian.htm.
Great article on groklaw.net
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20050205010415933
I hope you were joking about what you wrote. If not, I pity you lack of knowledge.
I stuck a big </SARCASM> at the bottom of my post. You managed oversee it and actually assume that someone could mean these positions seriously.
I know people have already said something to this effect, but all of his problems are with Windows file sharing or Microsoft Office, and he concludes by saying OSX isn’t ready for a professional environment?
OK, Entourage is worse than Outlook when dealing with with an Exchange server. Office X does not include Access. He’s right, insofar as he’s saying these are potential problems of using Macs in the workplace, but to imply that these are shortcomings of the platform is a little silly. It’s a little like saying Windows is an inferior OS because Apple doesn’t have iPhoto for Windows.
If you work with closed standards this is the result, so please:
1) Do not use exchange, if you have to share contacts or caldendars, use ldap and iCal/WebDAV
2) Do not use msword to write e-email, “professional looking” is not achieved using msword, better to think at the content of the email
3) Do not use powerpoint, use openoffice or just plain html for your slides. Animation and transition effects are EVIL (I use latex for my slides and it’s great, but i think not everyone will feel comfortable with it)
4) Do not use access, i don’t know what to tell you to use instead since i’ve never used acces. Just don’t use it.
and then, blame microsoft.
It’s all very well to say “don’t use closed standards”, but unfortunately there aren’t always alternatives.
“Do not use access”, well that’s nice… what is the alternative?
There isn’t anything I’ve ever seen which has a database and a GUI rolled into one – Access isn’t really good at what it does but it gets a job done.
“Do not use powerpoint” – ??? Don’t be ridiculous… HTML for a slideshow would be horrible, it isn’t meant for printing and becomes a total nightmare to manage.
In my (albeit fairly limited) experience OpenOffice works with Powerpoint okay. If frame transitions don’t, big deal – they look childish anyway.
Yes dammit, HTML e-mail DOES have uses. When used properly.
So my mail reader doesn’t display those silly bloody >>>>>’s you get after multiple forwards properly… how is it meant to do it? Especially after someone else is using some weirdass client which decides to wrap lines at half the width of the rest of them, which causes more >>> chaos.
A little tweaking gives me nice coloured quotes down to about ten levels or something – this works for me. If you like to have the entire e-mail in plain black text, go ahead…
Obviously that doesn’t justify what spam e-mail can do with HTML. I think there might have been a happy medium somewhere, but it’s a bit late now. Unfortunate really, I don’t like the idea of reducing functionality just because it *can* be abused.
Every single day we see :
1° I switch from mac/wintel/lintel to mac/wintel/lintel
2° why linux/mac os is/isnot ready for desktop
3° my workstation os : replace by any new distro you saw on a mag
4° I’m in high scool/this is my first year in college, here’s what I think of an os :
cool I can set up my mail in few click, it can read doc files, woaw i can do some stuff with it
I really miss the time when Eugenia really took care about osnews (debate about usability, gui comparative, great stuff about new os (and not a yet another successfull install)
I think it’s time to move on, anyone with a really great a la osnews when it was interesting ?
Djamé
Microsoft rules the desktop (ie. Windows) and collaboration server (ie. Exchange) busines. It’s a fact. Consequently, you can debate whether it’s Microsoft’s fault or Apple’s fault … but, at the end of the day, it really doesn’t matter. What matters is whether you can interoperate with your Mac — or not. As it stands, Microsoft products serve the purposes of the vast number of businesses that use them. Trying to force Macs into that environment when they clearly weren’t designed with that purpose in mind is like using the wrong tool for the job.
I use my PowerBook at work and have not had very many issues. I was using Entourage 2004 which worked for me as well as Outlook ever had. I switched to using Apple’s Mail.app a couple of weeks ago because I already use it for personal email and noticed it now supports Exchange. My biggest headaches have been with VSS, but looks like we’re moving to Subversion soon!
…if you really want to call it that – it sounds more like moaning to me.
I have two macs (my personal laptop and my work mac) that are running in a windows/Dell shop at my university. I setup my own machines and admitedly I know more than computing services at my worksite (aka my university).
My university is a majority windows shop (with some exceptions like solaris and macos x). I can use outlook to have live connection to the exchange server, I use office, and I can access windows volumes on the network without problems. Access is a pretty bad database which doesnt scale well, and I wonder why windows users even use it. Access, AFAIK, is based around the windows file system – so having it on the mac is pretty impossible.
if you want to make something work, you can make it work. just dont complain that it is apple’s fault because microsoft apps dont work well
mini
Okay, never trying before I was able to set up VPN to my work network and pull down my mail off an exchange server via IMAP to mail.app in about 10 minutes. Now I just need to figure out how to set up the address books, probably nothing google can’t help me solve in a few minutes….
i was wondering if anyone was able to compile evolution 2 with the free connector for mac to run on X11?
>This is a joke, right? Microsoft refuses to adhere to the
> IT industry standards and instead try to force others to > use theirs. Look up http://www.w3.org/.
10 percent of desktop PC market is hardly a standard btw.
Microsoft’s variant IS the IT industry standard since they dominate ~90 percent of the desktop PC market. This is what you call “defacto standard”.
you need to maintain resource forks… there is an rsync on OS X that does this. and you can use another for zip files (which is what I do for my backups.
umm… no, MS’s “standard” is not a standard just because they have 85% of the browser market…. and it is 85% now.
>umm… no, MS’s “standard” is not a standard just because >they have 85% of the browser market….
What do you call an IBM PC/AT standard then?…..
In terms of practical standards, the committee is pretty useless atm. Note my “defacto standard” label.
Refer to http://www.answers.com/de+facto+standard&r=67
“de facto standard”
“Hardware or software that is widely used, but not endorsed by a standards organization”.
He wasn’t serious. In your mad rush to shoot your mouth off and “be right,” you probably didn’t notice the little </sarcasm> tag at the end of the post to which you were replying.
…moving right along… No, while the author does not come right out and say, “rargh hulk am think squirrels stupid blargh. Oh, and also, Apple sucks because wtf it’s so hard for me to integrate it into my Windows only work environment blah eats stick of butter,” I, and apparently quite a few other readers as well, get this feeling that it was the underlying theme to the article. As such, I’m going to add my voice to the many who have already stated that this is not Apple’s fault, rather it is the fault of Microsoft, who apparently enjoys making it as difficult as possible to use any other product than theirs while putting on a show of cooperation.
So in conclusion, papaya am long time fun fish rice.
You DO know this article was written as a troll?
Why do people continually reply to such drivel?
“Through the (now-open source) Ximian Connector Evolution provides complete interoperability with Exchange.”
I love posts like this. Definitely from people who have never actually used Evolution in a real work environment with exchange.
Guess what? The experience is awful. Very very (very) slow. Flakey. Sometimes randomly refuses to connect. Global address book support is basically a joke. Mettings I schedule sometimes refuse to show up in other people’s calendars. Really the only option here is a *good* imap client like thunderbird and OWA for calendaring. Painful but really this is the state of evolution connector.
If the Mac Would/Read RUN Acad Cad, Solid Works Works Files,
MS would be gone from MY network,
But NOOO Steve Won”t Fark With Bill.
You DO know this article was written as a troll?
Why do people continually reply to such drivel?
======
The reason that people reply to these types of articles is because they sense the inferiority in themselves. There operating systems from a technical standpoint are sound, but they have to feel justified in the low marketshare. Neither Linux or Macintosh will ever have more then ten percent of the market due to economic considerations, that however should not take away from the strategic advantages of either system. The simple matter of fact is that Windows is easy and familiar with all of its little quirks.
There are a lot of people who like to use Windows. They are not forced to use it, but rather use it because of the range of applications that are available. It can be a descent PVR, Wintendo, business suite, or web server. .NET is really interesting, the PocketPC platform is superior to palm, and the Office 2003 office suite is currently the best viable option for most businesses. A platform that can run AutoCAD, Access, MySQL, Apache, Firefox, Outlook, and Halflife II; all at the same time (NT kernel is fairly stable) and natively…
Many companies DO NOT ALLOW HTML MAIl for security reasons. It is not cute and it is not neccessary and nobody cares.
“It’s all very well to say “don’t use closed standards”, but unfortunately there aren’t always alternatives.
“Do not use access”, well that’s nice… what is the alternative?
There isn’t anything I’ve ever seen which has a database and a GUI rolled into one – Access isn’t really good at what it does but it gets a job done.”
Thats an incredibly uninformed statement. Start with Filemaker Pro and then do a search on Google for the many, many other altenatives to Access.
“The reason that people reply to these types of articles is because they sense the inferiority in themselves. ”
Is that why you try to use lame pop psychology to analyze people you don’t know based on a few sentences they wrote? Feel better about yourself now?
Thats an incredibly uninformed statement. Start with Filemaker Pro and then do a search on Google for the many, many other altenatives to Access.
If you read said “uninformed” statement, all I said was “what is the alternative?” and “There isn’t anything I’ve ever seen which has….”
I am in fact totally informed as to what I have seen. If there is something else, as it seems there is, I’m sure you’re capable of telling me so without being abusive.
One merely assumed that Filemaker wasn’t an alternative (I’ve never used it) because the author hadn’t had any luck with it – in fact I don’t think I’ve ever heard much positive about it. Possibly I’ve been reading in the wrong places – fine. In which case feel free to post a reply telling me I’m wrong – there’s no reason you can’t be polite at the same time.
—>Is that why you try to use lame pop psychology to analyze —>people you don’t know based on a few sentences they wrote? —>Feel better about yourself now?
Not on a few sentences they wrote, but rather the community has a whole. For the most part, Macintosh and Linux users are hostile. I thought the statement was justified in the way that it was of typical limited insight
As for the comment about pop psychology, I’ll let it go, but FYI my I’ve had a number of 400 level psychology courses at the University of Wisconsin.
>The reason that people reply to these types of articles >is because they sense the inferiority in themselves.
(SNIP)
It’s unwise to generalise.
interestingly, all his problems are not in Apples hands, but in Microsofts. This article provides some examples in which the penetration of MS software with its proprietary standards harm competition, evolution, and the consumer.
Reading this article what comes up is that:
in a Microsoft based office, bind to MS so called “standards”, using Microsoft application for Mac, bind to MS-imposed lacknesses, things aren’t going well.
Well, MS impose the problem of compliance to their sofware, MS bad fixes those problems in their suite on Mac you have payed for… IMHO, twice blame on Microsoft, not on Apple!
I wrote a similar sort of article about a year ago and received an astoundingly hostile response.
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=6563
As much as I love my Mac, I think that the take home message for people considering buying a Mac for use at work is clear. If you work in a Windows-centric environment, attempting to use a Mac productively is more hassle than its worth. If your workplace uses Exchange server for e-mail, currently Outlook really is the only viable MAPI client solution. Outlook 2001 on the Mac was great. Its replacement with Entourage could only be interpreted as a deliberate attempt by Microsoft to sabotage the viability of the Mac as a corporate workstation solution.
As many posters have pointed out, this is all a Microsoft problem. However, the reality is that it this impacts heavily on the usefulness of the Mac platform in such work environments.
Access isn’t that good on windows either, the new 2003 version breaks some stuff written for an older version again.
It seems that the Excel developers are a bit brighter. (importing stuff in excel works better then in access)
As for Outlook, this can be a sucky program too, installing is sometimes more difficult then it should be.
(on some pc’s it installs fine, on others it don’t)
I found a good osnews type site.
http://www.silicon.com
In the end, does it really matter if its Microsoft’s fault or OSx’s fault that the guy cant integrate a mac into his work environment?
The end of the story is, that whatever the reasons, he is not being as productive as necessary.
I myself am a Linux user, and a happy one at that. It works for me. But it works for me because I am flexible in which software I use. I am not too tied down to a specific app.
For businesses to use OSx or Linux in their existing windows environment requires a lot of forethought and effort.
Microsoft has done a good job to ensure that when it comes to compatibility and interoperability, no other platform seems as attractive. Its like saying, “Your free to go at anytime.” But the doors are locked, the windows have bars, and the only way out is to crawl through a sewage pipe and leave all of your belongings behind.
.
In the end, does it really matter if its Microsoft’s fault or OSx’s fault that the guy cant integrate a mac into his work environment?
Yes definitely. When filing the complaint is important that the address label on on the envelope is correct. Otherwise the postal service cannot deliver it and the complaint will never be heard
The correct address is:
cannot be found
Yellow pages says:
You searched for Business Name – MICROSOFT in VA .
We’re struggling to find the Business Name – MICROSOFT in VA .
Have no fear! First, check the spelling for MICROSOFT . If you are absolutely 100% positively certain you have the correct spelling,
Try: A wider Distance Search (exxxpppands your search)
OR search by Category
OR check out our Search Tips (we’re good tippers!)
OR try your search again!
Is http://www.yellowpages.com owned by – nea, it can’t be true …. Have no fear!
.
I think a few people in this thread have it spot-on…
Due to the lack of Microsoft Support for the platform, a Mac is just not a good choice for use in an Exchange Centered environment.
And that is neither Apple’s fault, or a shortcoming of MacOS X.
That is a deliberate decision by Microsoft NOT to support the Mac Platform for use in their own environment.
We can surmise it to be so that people will blame Apple and MacOS X (as some have been doing in this thread) and getting the impression that because Macs can’t replace Windows based PC’s at work, they aren’t as good.
Maybe Evolution + the Exchange connector will make a difference here.
I agree with the gist of the article, which is that in THIS environment, one can’t replace a PC with a Mac.
Which is NOT to say that you can’t do it in OTHER business environments.
I do it all the time at my workplace. I have both a Mac and a PC on my desk, and can do my work equally well with either one.
About the ONLY reason I use the PC, is that I have ONE application that doesn’t run on the Mac, and while I *COULD* run it in VirtualPC or GuestPC, my company for some odd reason decided deploying a whole PC was preferable to buying a VPC License…
i think microsoft is in WA
If you use your 400 level classes to determine that mac and linux users are riddled with an inferiority complex, then your classes are worth $h#%. Hate to be offensive but that observation is an egregious error.
So far we’ve determined that interoperability is fine for all office apps other than access and mail. Thunderbird and the new Entourage have limited interoperability, and access is a brick wall. Filemaker Pro was brought up, but are these two apps friends? Is there anything that can read access databases other than access itself?
/out
xlynx wrote:
> interestingly, all his problems are not in Apples hands,
> but in Microsofts. This article provides some examples in > which the penetration of MS software with its proprietary > standards harm competition, evolution, and the consumer.
I second that,
no: I take it to the second power 😉
I sincerely hope Apple will come with very nice, home-brewn alternatives productivity apps. (without breaking interoparability) [Safari-IE, Keynote-PowerPoint, Mail-Outlook/OE express, Pages-Word, and so on)
thanks for the link, I’m checking it out… (I don’t like the presentatio but it looks interesting)
Cheers
Djamé
Because as far as I know, there isn’t a version of iSeries Access for a Mac. I guess I can use the web version, but I would prefer the full version instead for the added features. Other than that, most of the software I use have Mac versions or equivalents. Oh wait, is there a version of putty for the Mac?
It’s as if we are reduced to noob status or have been using computers for all of 12 months.
Guess what folks, Apple just seriously broke compatibility with their older software with the introduction of OS X. Filemaker 7 breaks Filemaker 6 files and they must go through a conversion, iPhoto 5 breaks iPhoto 4 in a serious way http://www.xvsxp.com/articles/050123-iphoto5.php. iTunes must regularly be updated or it breaks with the ITMS and iPods. Tons of new Apple software requires Panther 10.3 to be supported. The list from Apple is just as long as it is with MS.
Flash at the obvious: varying computing platforms have always had problems working well together. Take your pick, Windows, Mac, Solaris, Linux, AIX, HP-UX, SCO, whatever. And has been mentioned briefly in this thread, thats why we have de facto standards: end users want compatibility and dont need governments to give it to them, they just buy the equipment and software that suits them and that is why MS has won the OS and Office Suite battles. The market chooses.
One must be incredibly inexperienced, immature, or quite rich to toss around the cost of a Powerbook to just see if it will work right when the experienced, mature, and fiscally responsible decision is to just use what works for the job at hand. Buy a nice PC laptop loaded with the necessary software and be done with it. If you are not satisfied with your Mac experiment, give it to the poor.
This is nothing more than the story of a computer fanatic wealthy enough to be able to play with $1500+ just for the hell of it. Or does a college education today not inform you that better than 90% of the worlds computers run on Windows and that the Macs share even in its old bastions of education and the creative arts is steadily declining?
Look…if you use a mac because you like it, go ahead. I like macs too; more than wintel machine, by a long shot. But I still have to learn to adapt my Mac practices to the Windows world. There isn’t any other way.
Like with any UNIX/Linux setup, there may be a little steeper learning curve and prep time involved, but OSX can do almost anything a wintel box can, and some things it can’t, like Firewire target mode (which kicks ace!)
jofas
I work in an all-MS shop, but have a Mac laptop and dual boot Linux on my desktop.
There’s really no 100% MS-compatible solution other than Window sitself. With Office 2004 running on my Mac, I can do almost everything beyond our company’s proprietary Windows apps. Those I do inside VMware on Linux, via VNC to a Windows box across the office, on Virtual PC on Mac, or — gulp — in native Windows.
For me, the idea is to stay on Mac or Linux as much as possible. I never do email or browse in Windows, and I’ve not yet lost data.
We can all do *something* to reduce our personal exposure to Eindows, but i think it takes a company wide commitment, money, and plenty of planning to completely move over.
Or does a college education today not inform you that better than 90% of the worlds computers run on Windows and that the Macs share even in its old bastions of education and the creative arts is steadily declining?
It was looking like a good post till you had to spice it up with a little trolling. 90% of the worlds computers running Windows doesn’t automatically mean that Windows is the best OS for *you*. There’s still the 10% and you could fall into that category.
Mac sales are increasing year on year. With the introduction of the mini and iMac G5s, we’ll see how much they increase this year.
You know, I really wanted to switch to a CD player for my music, but I have all these proprietary format 45’s and 8-tracks that I just must play. CD players just aren’t compatible enough. They suck.
…I mean, what he says is true about Microsoft Office for the Mac not working as well as the version on your “pc” at work… If you are forced to comply with company rules then it could be a problem. I don’t think he really meant to imply that Mac OS X is to blame, or that Apple is to blame. I didn’t get that from the article, anyway.
But someone made a comment that he was “surprised that his company lets him use his own computer”… I was surprised too. Our company does not allow that.
Ximian is simply a connector, and not a MAPI connector. Try pulling up a public folder on Evolution using Ximian. Nope. Hell, Exchange connectivity is built into Mac OS X. Apple’s Mail app is MUCH faster than Entourage and has the same support. Use iCal for calendaring, it is built in too.
And yes AD can be accessed using any LDAP tool, including AD support built into Mac OS X (Applications/Utilities/Directory Access). Sure it is not a cake walk getting any *nix system to live in a Windows-centric world, but it is doable. And by the sheer number of people trying to do so, I would say that enough of them are sick of viruses, spyware, etc to attempt it.
BTW, Microsoft bought VPC for a reason – Longhorn will not be backwards compatible. So guess what, they will be using VPC as a compatible environment as Apple does with Mac OS X’s Classic. And how well do you think these tools will work? Hell at that point, everyone should be using OS X. If you have to run an emulated environment, it may as well be on a stable, virus/spyware-free platform, right?
they must go through a conversion, iPhoto 5 breaks iPhoto 4 in a serious way http://www.xvsxp.com/articles/050123-iphoto5.php. iTunes must regularly be updated or it breaks with the ITMS and iPods. Tons of new Apple software requires Panther 10.3 to be supported. The list from Apple is just as long as it is with MS.
If you read the article you posted you would realize that there is a problem upgrading to iPhoto 5 only if your library is *corrupted*. I would call that a bug, not a deliberate attempt and forcing an upgrade.
I don’t understand the iTunes comment. I have never had a problem with iTunes needing to be updated regularly. Apple only updates iTunes to add new features like, ipod photo, Airtunes, ipod shuffle etc. How do you propose Apple propogate new features?
MS’s software demands hoop jumping, … like they’ll make it easy?
http://www.macwindows.com/
This will get you going.
hylas
BTW, Microsoft bought VPC for a reason – Longhorn will not be backwards compatible.
False. VPC was bought for their virtual server product.
Longhorn will most certainly retain substantial amounts of binary compatibility.
I didn’t see the author apportioning blame anywhere, yet all the distortion field victims immediately jump into the comments and start saying “WHY BLAME APPLE?! IT’S ALL BILL’S FAULT!!!1111!!!!” The point of the article was – there are significant problems using OS X in a heavily-Microsoft based work environment. That was the *entire* point of the article. It didn’t blame Apple, and it didn’t blame Microsoft, it simply explained, for the benefit of others who might be thinking of trying, some of the problems with using such a setup.
I don’t see the problem, so long as the network is properly configured. Access control is based on the user not on the machine, or at least it damn well *ought* to be. So there’s no difference from a security perspective between logging in as bobroberts from a company machine, and logging in as bobroberts from your own laptop. That’s how the network is where I work. I guess the only issue would be taking sensitive data out of the company – but then, does your company also block off all USB ports and search people for USB keys and floppies?
“Ximian is simply a connector, and not a MAPI connector. Try pulling up a public folder on Evolution using Ximian. Nope.”
From http://www.novell.com/products/desktop/features/evolution.html :
“Public folder support allows users to share documents and files in existing Exchange public folders. They can also create new public folders for collaboration.”
Thanks for all of the great comments and help people have given in response to my article. Ximian Evolution is an excellent product which I have only used in version 1 on RH Linux and did not look into it for thsi experiment. It seems as though the Ximian Connector is an excellent way to connect to exchange – certainly superior to the way Microsoft expects users to connect in Entourage. I am very intrigued by it and will give it a try on my laptop. I hope to post an update to my article documenting how and if I was able to get it working!
I noticed a bunch of people curious about this. I work for a small-business with a total of 14 employees. They are pretty flexible, and even offered to compensate me for using my own laptop (if I was able to get it working). As long as I get my work done, it doesnt matter where, when or how I do it. If everyone in the office wanted to use their own computer, I dont think it would work, but by doing everything myself, I dont cost the company anything extra trying to get my Powerbook working.