Secure Me, Please > Unbelievable

Unbelievable

"Microsoft found the secret to getting their OS into all corporations - IT recommends the systems, and of course they are going to recommend the one that keeps them with huge staffs "working" at removing all this junk."

Wrong. Properly maintained business computers (running controlled user profiles) are not subject to these infections.

At my site, we recommend Windows operating systems above others due to:

1. Best application compatibility. I can't count how many applications we run through that just aren't Mac/Linux/etc. compatible.

2. Lowest downtime. At our site, procurement only allows us to purchase Mac or Windows systems. Our Macintosh systems have had a long history of failed components, OS quirks that require an entire reloading to fix, and easiest to implement network-based administration control. The Macs on site require about 3-4x the matinence of a Windows computer. (Our Windows PCs are set & forget...Macs we gotta reload every so often to keep them running properly)

3. Better support. Windows has tons of software/tweaks written to get done just about ANYTHING you want done to your PC. Granted, we do have access to top-level Macintosh support anytime we have a business question to ask...usually Mac's engineers answers consist of:

A. Buy Mac OS X v +1, that feature is fixed/implemented in that release.
B. We must be using the products incorrectly. (Our Mac mice kept blowin' on us, same with many other sites like ours. We need to return approx. 1-2 of these mice a week...I guess just all their customers are using these things wrong)

With Windows, features are either built-in to the operating system, or there are 3rd party solutions. (freeware at that) No "feature" is really a guarantee with the Mac until we test it out.

But again, that's just our experience in this matter at our location.

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Wrong. Properly maintained business computers (running controlled user profiles) are not subject to these infections.

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"And that's what the huge IT staff is for."

Noo...properly maintained business computers using network-centralized security is what keeps IT staff ballooning out of control.

Listen...with today's W2K and XP computers, all you need is:

A. A Windows 2K or 2003 Server.
B. A small IT staff.

Your client computers are locked down via their delegated rights from the server...so there is only one place necessary to "tweak" security settings to make things work. With the server up and running, a minimal IT staff is required to perform basic computer matinence. (ie. simple troubleshooting, network connectivity, etc.)

This model is MUCH more easier to maintain than the home user practice of letting each user go hog wild on their operating system. Were a business to allow this practice, regardless of operating system, you would need:

A. One HUGE and honkin' IT staff.

Granted, you save the cost of buying a server, but you make up for all the extra matinence of having to correct computer settings at the workstation level.

To summarize things up: a properly maintaned (ie. servered) business computer setup requires much MUCH less IT staff resources than doing workgroups. If you find yourself in a business that has a huge IT staff, and it's not necessarily warrented...your IT staff are goofin' off. (2 or us are maintaining 500+ computers, and we just recently got our Windows 2003 server order in...gonna make us a lot more efficient and add a lot more functionality to the computers on site...think we're goofin' off? lol!)

At my site, Windows has made our jobs of maintaining these systems a HELL of a lot easier than Apple & Macintosh ever has. As I said before...our Windows systems can be set up, and left alone for a year (or more, dependant on the user's computer skill) before we need to service it...and even then, it's normally modest & light tune-up and clean-up. Our Macs require reformats & rebuilds every 6-8 months at the very least, and in high usage areas, they need it every 3-4 months. (and these are the desktops, mind you. Apple's laptops are 3x the pain in the @$$ these are)

I work in IT and the typical IT manager-type folk always believe in this model which does work for PCs. Yes a managed model is the most cost and time effective solution.

In fact, like you, and many others preach this to no end and say that Macs are a "pain in the ass".

My counter is this: Have you researched a solution from your other platform providers to give you the same results? The answer is almost always NO or some sort of weak try. You Microsoft junkies think you know everything when you get your AD domain set, your policies in place, SUS server running, yada yada yada, then you close your mind to managing the rest of the heterogenious network! What fools! But I can't expect much out of these types of guys since this is the single-minded mentality forced into place on these exams and training materials.

I can intertwine three platforms, Windows (with Zenworks), Linux (with Red Carpet), and Mac OS (with XServe) to all accomplish the same results. I have yet to meet someone who can preach all three at the same time much less give a balanced post in a forum on all three.

You Microsoft weenies crack me up!

"Have you researched a solution from your other platform providers to give you the same results?"

Actually, yes, I personally have. I was a previous Mac believer (until I got to this position, and experienced Mac corporate "love") and for our problems, I've done many things.

A. I've contacted our Apple support contact, who is an Engineer in the field. He's one of the top Mac representatives with the company. His response is usually either:
1. Buy Mac OS X +1, it will fix/address that.
2. Macintosh does not support that feature, and has no plan to. (like something as simple as FTP calls within the browser)

B. I've hit Mac user forums, done extensive web searches, and I find "sort-of" workarounds for our problems, or 3rd party solutions. I often have to develop our own Applescript to address issues that are native in the Windows platform.

"But I can't expect much out of these types of guys since this is the single-minded mentality forced into place on these exams and training materials."

No...we keep very open minds here, and would adopt any platform that addresses our users' needs and our needs as well. Again, I'm just reporting that our Macs need a LOT more matinence compared to our Windows computers. This is not my "opinion", but just facts based on our matinence records. Maybe if they were as reliable as Windows, we'd be preferring to deploy more Macs...but as things stand now, our only need for them are for dependant software that runs on the Mac, and image/video rendering. (Yes, Macs have that niche) But for any other workstation, based on our experiences on site with our Macs...we'd pick Windows hands-down.

"I can intertwine three platforms, Windows (with Zenworks), Linux (with Red Carpet), and Mac OS (with XServe) to all accomplish the same results."

LOL...alright, I'd love to chat with you about the issues we've been having. Apple has told us that our needs "simply can't be done on the Mac platform", scrounging the web only picks up 3rd party (and expensive) solutions...let's chat sometime.

reply to Thaler

True!