By Andy McCue, 12 July 2007 16:27
NEWS
The cost of upgrading to Windows Vista is forcing more organisations to evaluate alternatives including Apple Macs and Linux for the desktop.
Half of silicon.com's 12-strong CIO Jury IT user panel said the Vista factor is likely to lead to an increase in Macs on the desktop in the corporate computing environment.
That echoes the comments of Capital & Regional CIO Richard Snooks who said in an interview with silicon.com this week that given the cost of being "railroaded" by Microsoft onto Vista, Macs are now "smarter money".
Nicholas Bellenberg, IT director at publisher Hachette Filipacchi UK, said his company runs lots of Macs with good cross-platform compatibility with Microsoft applications - though he added Entourage on the Mac doesn't match Outlook on the PC for functionality.
Bellenberg said open source is another serious alternative on the desktop. He said: "What I would also expect, is that there will also be more people trying out Ubuntu Linux and the like. If fellow CIOs haven't checked this out, they should do. Perhaps it's obvious but the quality of open source desktop software has come on no-end since I last reviewed it."
But Gavin Whatrup, group IT director at marketing agency Creston, said the cost of Apple hardware is still a barrier preventing more widespread deployment of Macs.
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He said: "With a mid-range Mac still being approximately 33 per cent more expensive than its Dell equivalent, don't expect a mass migration to the Mac any time soon. OS X may be improving but it still has a long way to go to be as heterogeneously robust as Windows XP."
Graham Yellowley, director of technology services at investment bank Mitsubishi UFJ Securities International, said the mass population will stay with the PC due to the number of applications that work with the hardware and operating system.
He said: "There would have to be a seismic shift in total cost of ownership to force a number of companies to jump from PC to Mac. The cost of transition is another barrier to wholesale change."
Increasing adoption of thin-client infrastructures is also tipped to have an impact on the desktop. Mark Devine, IT director at ACCA, said: "The end-points will become less important but thin devices will prevail especially in those organisations that have refresh strategy and treat PCs as revenue rather than capital items."
For public sector organisations national procurement frameworks and contracts can also be a barrier to moving away from the standard Windows desktop environment.
Alan Shrimpton, head of IS at Avon and Somerset Constabulary, said: "Many of our applications are mandated on us by existing national contracts and they are all based on a Windows desktop. However, from a personal perspective, if I didn't have that constraint then I would certainly want to look at all of my desktop options including Apple Macs."
Today's CIO Jury wasÂ…
Florentin Albu, ICT manager, EUMETSAT
Alastair Behenna, CIO, Harvey Nash
Nicholas Bellenberg, IT director, Hachette Filipacchi UK
Mark Devine, IT director, ACCA
Michael Elliot, IT director, Hasbro
Steve Gediking, head of IT & facilities, Independent Police Complaints Commission
Christopher Linfoot, IT director, LDV Group
Jacques Rene, CTO, Ascend Aerospace
Alan Shrimpton, Avon and Somerset Constabulary
Robert Wharton, CIO, Colt Telecom
Gavin Whatrup, group IT director, Creston
Graham Yellowley, director of technology services, Mitsubishi UFJ Securities International
Want to be part of silicon.com's CIO Jury and have your say on the hot issues for IT departments? If you are a CIO, CTO, IT director or equivalent at a large or small company in the private or public sector and you want to be part of silicon.com's CIO Jury pool, or you know an IT chief who should be, then drop us a line at editorial@silicon.com
Comments
There are 14 comments. Join the discussion
1. OS X User
OS X.... has a long way to go be as heterogeneously robust.......!
What an idiot
2. Denis Exall
Buy a mac, you'll never go back!
3. Richard Davies
The cost of moving your hardware and software to MACS or Open Source from PC / Windows and then providing re-training to the necessary staff in my opinion will have a higher cost than upgrading to Vista!
My advice is stay with XP for now and simply upgrade when Vista is more business ready!
As for open source...it just doesn't cut it with me...its not reliable / stable enough or with enough support for all the hardware / software thats out there and windows compatible. Also, support on open source would worry me...who do you e-mail when something is wrong etc.?
This argument is older than time itself and it seems will never go away! I wish it would because its the same old people that don't want to accept the quality / reliability / support and interoperability etc. that using windows brings.
4. Marti H Dunn
Have been using Vista for a month and love it. If I had known what a pain it would be I might not have bothered.
Why do I have to tell a computer what my name is and who I work for? Much more complex machines work straigh form the box, whu not a computer?
5. anonymous
Agreed OSX User,
I have OSX and XP Pro on my desk. Side by side comparisons are just that !
6. Richard Marshall
WTF: "heterogeneously robust"?
Am I dim or is this utter gobbledygook!
"OS X may be improving but it still has a long way to go to be as heterogeneously robust as Windows XP" - eh?
Putting two random words together does not qualify as intelligence. So what is he trying to say?
...That OS X is not robust in heterogeneous environments? Based on what? OS X is as robust as they come, networks brilliantly and plays very nicely with other OSs.
...That OS X is somehow less robust due to its inherent homogeneity? Yeah, right! Dontcha just hate it when everything just works because drivers are built in and the OS and hardware were absolutely made for each other. Man, I miss those PC driver conflicts that caused such robust crashes.
...or does he mean that, in a world of viruses and malware, OS X is less robust because it is not the same as Windows and therefore not susceptible to a single one of the 120,000+ Windows viruses out in the wild?
Answers on heterogeneously postmarked postcards, please.
7. Henry
In response to Richard Davies as he is right about the dependence on Microsoft apps and Windows. However, a new day is dawning and once the plethora of free Linux apps are ported to OSX, the value will be difficult to ignore. I use Microsoft at work but at home I run Linux and OSX as the value is unbeatable. Check the post below from the Apple website.
Prior to the introduction of Mac OS X, virtually the only way developers could create a graphical application in a UNIX-based operating system was with the X Window System, more commonly called X11. X11 for Mac OS X offers UNIX users the ability to run thousands of X11 applications concurrently with other Mac OS X applications...
Easy to Port X11 Applications
With the complete suite of the standard X11 display server software, client libraries and developer toolkits, X11 for Mac OS X makes it even simpler to port Linux and Unix applications to the Mac. X11 for Mac OS X gives you a complete, rootless X11R6.6 implementation, as well as display server and client libraries — plus headers in the SDK. X11 for Mac OS X supports ssh tunnelling for secure display sharing. You can download all the common toolkits from OpenDarwin.org. Plus, Tiger inludes native support for popular toolkits such as Tcl/TK and W+widgets.
8. Roy Judd
Quote: OS X may be improving but it still has a long way to go to be as heterogeneously robust as Windows XP. Unquote.
Well, I've read some utter nonsense in these columns before, but this comment really takes the biscuit. XP-ert? Nah! I don't think so.
9. Sam Mendez
Wow, I see some more Apple Cult Fanboys are released from the asylum again....
Linux is improving all the time, though still some way to go to really make the big impact I have been hoping it will make! There is a lot of momentum though now with Linux and personally think in the next 2 years or so there will be a much bigger uptake of it as a Desktop OS.
Windows will still be the most popular OS for some years to come, whatever you might say, it simply WILL be. Most people have no reason at all to move over to Vista for a whole host of reasons. It reminds me of when Windows 2000 first came out and people complained of the compatibility issues just like now. Over time it creeped onto the Desktops and a lot of people swear by it now when at first, they were swearing at it. Over time businesses will have no choice but Vista, the general public don't give a damn about OS's, they buy a laptop or a desktop, power it on, usually followed by several weeks hassling their son or daughter to tell them how to connect to the internet or send pictures.
Mac's? Sorry but niche market, always has been and unless the OS can be distributed on the Dell's and HP's of this world, with a decent set of drivers (not just for the limited Apple choices) that is how it will always be. But then, i think the Cult Of Apple enjoy being the underdog, and are happy to pay over the odds for a PC in a shiny box *shrugs*.
What do I personally use right now? Ubuntu on two laptops, and an XP/Linux dual boot on main desktop.
10. anonymous
You know, I always find it interesting when I read comments like this:
"For public sector organisations national procurement frameworks and contracts can also be a barrier to moving away from the standard Windows desktop environment."
The reason being that the Windows environment is proprietary, yet the Sole-Source Justification that is required by Public Law (Federal Acquisition Regulation [FAR], etc) invariably seems to not ever be available for the public to review.
As such, there's this "hand waving" that the laws that require competition are being satisfied by competing Dell vs HP.
Nevertheless, Apple is locked out by the Solicitation's requirement that the Windows be the OS...and the law that requires that each sole-source identification be justified gets overlooked.
To illustrate this, consider an Air Force Soliciatation for a new "KC" Tanker aircraft that claimed to be "Full & Open", but one of the requirements within specified that the airframe had to be 100% Boeing-Compatible.
Apple could upset a lot of "Apple Carts" if they were to submit a FOIA request for copies of the Sole-Source justifications that are required to have been written & approved by Public Law.
From there, they can write White Papers that go into the details of the econcomics claimed in those J&A's to debunk them, which will make the Public Agencies have to rewrite the J&A's before they can use them again.
11. duke
the cost comparison of a mid-range Mac vs. a Dell is about the same. Do your own research and compare for yourself. By the way, Macs are capable of running Windows as well.
Furthermore, the article does not take into account productivity gains that result from Macs. They're very stable. Not to mention easy and a pleasure to use.
And anyone who thinks XP is "robust" obviously has never touched Mac OSX and has no clue about upcoming Leopard release.
12. Mattjumbo
"With a mid-range Mac still being approximately 33 per cent more expensive than its Dell equivalent, don't expect a mass migration to the Mac any time soon. OS X may be improving but it still has a long way to go to be as heterogeneously robust as Windows XP."
It would have been easier to simply say: "I hate Macs."
They *are not* 33 percent more for their Dell equivalents. Patently false. Go check it out. If you are an honest person you will see very little difference in pricing for the same equipment/software packages.
If you are a Mac fanboy you can make the Mac end up cheaper and if you hate Macs you can use those Dell-on-sale-for-the-next-25-minutes coupons to make the Dell look cheaper.
Honest people will end up with similar prices with the Mac ending up a touch more expensive (nowhere near 33 %) most of the time, and the Dell ending up more expensive once in a great while (especially at the very high end).
And, fine, maybe I'm stupid but what the hell does "heterogeneously robust" even mean?
Because in every way *i* understand the the definition of "robust", heterogeneously or otherwise, OS X wipes the floor with XP.
13. anonymous
Anyone who said Win XP is unstable has not used it, use it every day and so far have never had to force a reboot in over 3 years - stick that in your applewood pipe and smoke it!!!
14. Rory Choudhuri
Clearly Gavin Whatrup's comment has a lot of people confused. Perhaps the editorial folks at silicom.com could ask him to clarify what he means by his 'heterogeneously robust' comment?
Personally, after 21 years as a Mac user, I've been forced onto a Windows (XP) machine at a new job. While I dislike its frequently overcomplicated way of doing things, it's reasonably stable - I've only had around one crash/freeze per month over the 6 months I've been using it.