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... security issues have bitten this company."

Ever thought about getting yourself an admin?! The Anti-Sasser-patches had been out for weeks before Sasser stuck you. An this is true for those other "widely publicized" worms as well. So if you are mourning about this, you are in fact mourning about your incompetent admin. Personally, I don't know anybody who ever ran into one of those cute little worms whilst we are all hooked to broad-band -- now, why would that be..?!

Even though your article has some interesting points, your company sounds highly amateuristic. A firewall stops any worm, even without the security updates (which they also should have used).

I prefer Apple stays the way it is, selling niche products and never exceed it's market share of 5% for it's computer products. Because if it ever will be as wildly used as M$ is today, Mac OS X will suffer from viruses too if it will become mainstream. I like my Mac and l like it virusfree, I don't mind paying the extra bucks for a Mac because that way i don't have to worry about a virusscanner like my collegues and friends do!
Gladly Steve thinks the same way and is not interested in selling affordable Macs to compete against the low-level pc's, thankgoodness, same thing for servers.

Even better (for the consumers) would be if 20 OSs each had around 5% of the market. As long as they all would use open standards. It would mean more innovation, less viruses. And a market that fits in to the rest of the world. You could make a good niche product and people would actually care.

Hopefully linux will make that happend, that's why I'm betting on linux. Not because I like it a lot, but it will hopefully help to soften microsofts grip allowing other products to enter the market.

Apple's laptops are things of beauty - the deep integration between hardware and software makes for a very complete package.

I say this as a recent convert, my Graphite iBook (eBay :-)) makes me wonder why i ever used Windows laptops, especially in terms of stability and battery life (6 hours regularly)

Those are the sort of attributes which a sales force looks for in laptops. In my office the sales force use Toshiba Portegé and Dell inspiron laptops running Windows 2000 and XP.. which are troublesome and struggle to get 4 hours on a charge... and an infected laptop carried Sasser into our head office :-(

I'd love to equip them all with Powerbooks. That's where I see sales opportunities for Apple.

For all OS X user, read this thread:
http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=213043

Summary: it is possible to craft a website with an URL such that Safari (and likely any other browser) will execute arbitrary code with a single click. The code will run under the current users priviledge, without any conformation dialogs. The workaround at the moment is to redirect the help: protocol to a different application than the help-viewer. The issue has been raised with Apple in Februari, but there has not been any official reactions yet.

If you want to get away from MS (something I can really understand), there are allready a lot of alternatives. So, what does Apple add to make it worth choosing Apple instead of the other alternatives?

Well, it's the sort of the only other OS available for consumer machines running commercial applications like Photoshop and Microsoft Office. I'm sure your next argument will be 'why would anybody want those'; but for those that do, what other OS choice did you have in mind?

No, that is a perfectly good argument. But this only applies to desktop machines and the article didn't focus on those. Being able to run photoshop on a mac simply is not a very good argument for employing an xserve.

OK, then I'll use the fact that Mac licenses are cheaper than other commercial operating systems, including enterprise Linux.

What I really wanted to react to was the knee-jerk reaction that the admin is at fault for viruses and worms that affect enterprise machines.

He might be held responsible, but the truth is he would be even more to blame for installing system patches wholesale without testing it first to ensure it was fully compatible with critical applications. Patches can contain flaws also, and sometimes introduce new bugs and other vulnerabilities. Check the Microsoft website and see how many patches there are.

It's one thing to install all the latest on your home machine, but that's not the same as verifying all of a companies apps on different hardware.

Are they? I really don't know, but that would be a valid argument, though, to be honest, I doubt it.
But hey, choose Apple because it's cheaper would be really cool.

What about support? Do you have any experience with the price and the scope of Apple support for enterprise settings?

how about instead of paying extra for a mac pay extra for a decent virus scanner and a nat box and run firefox (or xp sp2 rc1). i've had as many viruses on that configuration as on my emac AND a shite load of commercial programs at my disposal.

not a bagging of the macs just pointing out there are other options


(dont bother replying with "macz roolz" or "on macs we dont need virus checkers" please. im just saying that sasser and the like dont NEED to be a problem and you can still have all the windows programs available to you)

Absolutely the Sasser patch was out weeks ahead of time unfortunately it broke so many apps no one could install it on their systems.

With MS patches you generally have a two choices

Patch and Pray --- that your systems still work
Don't Patch and Pray -- that your systems won't get infected.

Also the "Patch" broke Samaba for Unix administrators. MS changed password management and though it is not MS's responsiblity to update Samaba many people can't patch their systems until it is fixed. So the price to keep your servers clean comes at the cost of keeping the desktops in a risky point.

I keep asking myself if you people even bother to read the article. He is talking about a company with hundreds of thousands of employees. Stating, man, my windows box at home is so secure with a virus scanner and running firefox doesn't really say anything about the problems such an organization does face, but it says a lot about the people who still state such a nonsense.

Perhaps Apple really isn't all that interested in enterprise computing and the huge set of problems that come with it. Most problems involve dealing with the beast once you create it.
Apple's pockets are far from as deep as those of MS, IBM, and others. They can't simply decide they are going to jump into enterprise computing and run with it. They likely just can't afford to do so.
Apple has spent a ton of money over the past few years, and part of it wasn't invested wisely. They can only take risks they can afford to take.
Personally, I greatly question the wisdom of some of their decisons. Their music service "thing" might appear to many to be a real money maker; but it would take a lot to convince me they have actually made a cent at it, or ever really will.
If you believe some of the published numbers for their development costs of OS X, you could be lead to wonder just how much "net" profit they have made on this as well.
They in many ways seem to be heading exactly in the opposite direction from BIG computing. Their interests appear to be more into laptops, ipods, and gadgets to compliment BIG computing; without actually being in too deep.
Apple absolutely does have a line of server hardware and an OS; but a collection of hardware and a few pieces of software doesn't by itself put you into the enterprise computing market.
Far from it.

>If you know how to use a computer then viruses isn't really a problem, not even in Windows.

the problem is that the vast majority of people don't know how to "use computers" the way you mean it. they think that the OS they are running is called MS Office. they have no idea what a firewall is. they are only beginning to understand that clicking on executable attachments is somehow connected to viruses. but if its sent from a friend, its must be safe. they think that bonzi buddy is 'cute' (which is fine but then they complain about the side effects).

granted, that last one wont be fixed by switching to any OS, but the point is that the vast majority of people arent equipped to maintain their computers. thats why, a system that does as much as possible to "maintain itself" by automatically updating and patching itself is great. (and i'm glad MS is moving in that direction)

how does this apply to servers (the original topic was xserves)? there are legions of organizations that need server machines but dont have a big budget. law offices and pet stores (etc) with 15 people with a need for a network/print/mail server and web proxy. these people cant be relied on to set up and maintain a machine. they have neither the ability, interest, or time. and, as long as they get their services, they arent going to hire someone to 'fix it'. that machine could be a DDOS zombie for all they care (not that they know what one is) and their only complaint is that printing is taking a long time. they wont even know that patches have come out for tftp or bind. it amazes me how many people dont know that there is a windows update feature. ah enough ranting, but i'm sure you all have had similar experiences.

apple's share of the enterprise market is tiny. they have a solid product line, strong OS, a long history and unique benefits.

That suggests opportunity. But its never going to happen if apple prices their machines as they do now. business pays for the cheapest thing to do the job . right now that is a pc.

Apple should partner with someone who already has a strong presence in the enterprise and continue to work on improving its ability to run existing PC programs and expanding any software that might be needed. They should also offer a white box apple with a low price tag specifically for enterprise.

I don't know that building up their own sales and reseller effort from scratch is the thing here. partners are good. The acquistion of a smaller but well respected system integrator is also attractive.

A lot of people consider the 5% market share a problem. It is if it does not change. But it is also an opportunity. Apple is probably the only computer maker that can realistically double, triple or even quadruple their market share.

I've been playing around with OS X Server on a G5 Xserve for a few days, and I'm thoroughly impressed by the whole package, to the point that I will suggest to Mngmt. that we get a few for our own use. And OS X is not that expensive compared to other enterprice offerings, including Red Hat.

Apple has a chance here to make a killing, they just need to put more resources into sales and marketing of these things.

how about instead of paying extra for a mac pay extra for a decent virus scanner and a nat box and run firefox (or xp sp2 rc1)

rc1? Does that not designate a release candidate, or pre-release software? I may be wrong, but in the enterprise you do NOT rely on pre-release software. Firefox is only at version 0.8, and states this on their website:

Firefox is a Technology Preview.

While this software may work well enough to be relied upon as your primary browser, we make no guarantees of its performance or stability in its pre-1.0 state and it should not be relied upon for mission- critical tasks. See the License Agreement for more information.

For home, this may be an option, but in the workplace this would be considered a risk.

And for the individual that states that Sasser could be stopped by a firewall, what about those workers with laptops that have been in the field for weeks, come home and dock their laptops back at HQ? That's what happened at my company. Luckily I have both an XP and OS X machine in my office. While they worked on my XP box, I continued to work on my Mac. But I am one of four who is lucky enough to have 2 different platforms at their disposal in the office, and only because I am a graphic artist.

Unfortunately, I don't think you have to wish too much because it is the way it is going to stay in the forseeable future.

The only problem of a small market share will increasingly become the lack of consumer oriented specialist software titles.

If the market share is perceived to go below a certain threshold, then hardware support will start becoming an issue too.

"Their music service "thing" might appear to many to be a real money maker; but it would take a lot to convince me they have actually made a cent at it, or ever really will."

Actually the iTunes music store is there to sell iPods and that is it. It does not turn a profit...it only sells iPods and for that, it has worked well.

"If you believe some of the published numbers for their development costs of OS X, you could be lead to wonder just how much "net" profit they have made on this as well."

Well, they must be doing something right...they were carrying a massive debt then worked towards paying it off when Jobs came back. They are now debt free with 5 billion in the bank. I don't think OS X is a money maker. It is just an investment to help sell what does make money...their hardware.

"They in many ways seem to be heading exactly in the opposite direction from BIG computing. Their interests appear to be more into laptops, ipods, and gadgets to compliment BIG computing; without actually being in too deep.
Apple absolutely does have a line of server hardware and an OS; but a collection of hardware and a few pieces of software doesn't by itself put you into the enterprise computing market.
Far from it."

I agree completely here. I think Apple might be feeling the water a little, but they are far from ready to take the plunge. They may in time decide to change their minds, but I think they want more cash in the bank first.

"I prefer Apple stays the way it is, selling niche products and never exceed it's market share of 5% for it's computer products."

I agree, Apple's main effort is toward thier customers and not making cheapo desktops to fill the masses and at the sametime they(Apple)are successful. Market share is third on Apple's agenda and that free's the company up to meet the needs of customers and to be innovative at the same time.

I love how people always make fun of Microsoft for their security record and then go on to say that if we all used Macs these security problems would all go away.

Apple isn't exactly a security conscious company either. Just because the core of their OS is UNIX-based doesn't mean it is automatically secure. I'm a Linux user, and I wouldn't say that Linux is necessarily much more secure than Windows by design. However, it does promote security by requiring a reasonable amount of knowledge to use it. Additionally, Linux users tend to be of the more paranoid sort and typically patch their systems as soon as they can.

In the end, the problem still lies with the user and not with the software vendor.

"it amazes me how many people dont know that there is a windows update feature. ah enough ranting, but i'm sure you all have had similar experiences."

Digger, I think you hit the nail on the head...and not just what I have qouted above...that entire post is right. What I wanted to draw attention to was your comment about people not knowing windows update. There are droves of people who do not know anything about windows update. Most people don't seem to think it is important (mostly because the few that do get to windows update don't seem to understand what each patch does). Worse yet, there are some that assume that it is a paid service.

You can't say that the answer to all the Windows woes is just to "patch it" because that ignores that people are involved. If you are reading that and think "well just educate people"...fine...have fun trying. That has been brought up for years and guess what....most people could give a shit about computers and don't want to learn a damned thing.

I love how people always ignore the articles they are commenting just to present the reader with a lot of nonsense about nothing bad being Microsoft's fault.

Get a life people, you are making fools of yourselves.

I personally agree with Lars's early comment that, at the consumer level, I hope Apple stays its current course. People are always ranting about market share, but market share is meaningless. As long as Apple can remain profitable (which they have done consistently), I don't care if they only sell a handful of machines.

I don't hold this belief for elitist reasons, but rather, as has been suggested, because the strength of the Mac for the consumer is derived from the fact that is flies under the radar. There are fewer Mac viruses because there are fewer users. The ratio of quality software to poor software is high on the Mac side because there are fewer users (and existing users are accustomed to paying higher premiums for quality) and the developers that remain have to produce quality software to remain relevant with such a comparatively small consumer pool. Moreover, given US law, it is very possible that if Apple had a large market share, there would start to be questions about its rather blatant anti-competitive practices, such as binding the hardware and software and including its own software with the OS (isn't this exactly what got MS in trouble?).


I agree with much of the article, but I also see the point of other posters who point out that Apple may not have the financial strength to compete in this already heavily-entrenched market. Not to mention that doing so would put them toe-to-toe against IBM, who now supplies their chips.

This is just my opinion, but it seems that Apple almost has written off the general market—both at the consumer and enterprise level. Many times Apple has alluded to the fact that the desktop war is over and MS won (no surprise there). As a consequence, Apple seems to have turned more and more to niche markets, and has had real, profitable success. This seems to be the fact that escapes people who rant about Apple's market share (on both sides). Almost by their own admission, Apple does not want to be in direct competition with the likes of MS. This also may be true at the enterprise level. Although it is the case that Apple has recently made greater forays into enterprise probably since the days of the Apple III (and BOY did that not work), it seems like they are, akin to their desktop strategy, targeting specific elements in industry, and not industry in general.

It seems Apple is going after, for lack of a more precise term, the entertainment business and education (standard and higher). This would make sense, given that Macs are generally deployed to creative departments (film and video, graphics, publishing, etc.) and schools. Remember that Jobs was recently named the most powerful man in Hollywood. This, for better or worse, is a lucrative and disproportionally important niche.

Apple also appears to making forays into education (insert often-referenced VT cluster here), which again is a niche of the greater market that Apple has historically (but not recently) attempted to capture.

I think that Apple, both on the consumer and enterprise levels, is targeting specific niches. This may be a wise strategy, given that they may not be able to really compete in a wide area. They can either spread themselves attempting to offer a general enterprise solution, or they can focus on specific enterprises; they seem to have chosen the latter. Just to make an asinine, elitist analogy, the History Channel was showing a documentary about the Peloponnesian War yesterday. The Spartans, after 20-odd years, were finally able to defeat the then dominant Athenians, but the war weakened them so much that their own civilization collapsed not long afterward. Maybe this is figuratively the kind of battle Apple wants to avoid. Maybe they even want Linux to do the heavy lifting, while they quietly try to pick up the pieces. Again, this is all speculation.

the company for the ipod, the rest of them.
the boxes and gadgets for the creatives, for the artists, for the graphics, for the misfits.
if you like to have the POWER for business, use IBM.
do ya think IBM makes the cpu and let apple intrude in masses their own market ? dream on...
cheers frank

think of the huge cost of changing all of the hardware! all the existing hardware would have to be dumped. if linux was brought in, the company would be able to keep most, if not all, of their hardware. also, with a company so big, they could afford to have their own support dept.

i think the only reason why apple aren't making a big go at enterprise computing is because they don't want to. they're happy enough with where they are.

It gets brought up every time someone mentions expanding Apple's market share, and then gets frowned up fairly quickly by Mac users and other people looking for an alternative opinion, but in this case, cost is a critical factor.

Large corporations thrive on having uniform systems. You can't just replace a few machines here and there. You need to replace in large chunks, so that the tech support knows what problems are where and can uniformly manage things. You also need drop-in connectivity replacement, able to use shares and network resources without problems, and easy to administer.

Most of all, you're dealing with tens of thousands of machines. With all due respect, it was estimated last year that $150 on every sale of a Mac went directly to Steve Jobs as pay, based on his salary. Now, no company is willing, on 10,000 machines to drop $1.5m like that. Apples are in general, more expensive than other systems, and it is still a little hard to integrate them easily with networked services and remotely administer in a fast manner. This will improve, but until then, they are expensive and require more support.

When you deal with large numbers of machines, even slight increases in cost, unless outweighed by reduced support needs, escalate into large costs at the end of the day.

the problem is that the vast majority of people don't know how to "use computers" the way you mean it.

I am painfully aware of that. But I wasn't talking about people in general this time but rather about the person I replied to, lars, and I think he knows a whole lot about using computers. But he'd rather pay the extra $$$ for not having to use a virusscanner. An argument which I really didn't get, since virus isn't such a problem for people in the know. I just don't buy his argument.

It would be interesting if Apple would partner with Novell. Having their XServer hardware get Novell/SuSE Certified. Apple could focus entirely on the Desktop, Printing (CUPS) and Directory Intergration, while Novell focused on pushing forward enterprise server software, directory services, desktop management, printing services, etc.


I would've said Sun, but they have already made their corprate desktop choice, and its Linux + Java + OpenOffice. Novell has not made such a commitment (you could say that ximian was their choice, but its not very solid), but they will need a corprate desktop stradegy that compliments their server stradegy to compete in the current market.

Major corportations are simply not going to change to Apple hardware. They might, however, change operating systems. Apple is unwilling to release "Marklar" or whatever it is being called these days. That pretty much covers the story of Apple and the major corporated environment. Nothing of consequence will happen.

bendertheoffender.............great post! I liked your post much more than the given article and topic.

If Apple wants to enter the Enterprise market, they simply must make the GUI for Novell's Linux. They could also license eDirectory from Novell. They simply need to create buisness partnerships. That is a very strong marketing force. Most people don't even know that OS X has most of the Enterprise Linux software running and/or integrated on it already.

How can Apple move into the enterprise when they can't even get their desktops in order? What's to stop them cooling down the enthusiasm for enterprise products the way they have for the desktop? Intel and AMD for example push into the desktop til they start doing well, then they expand to a new market. Excuse my pessimism but Apple hasn't given me a reason lately to say otherwise.

I love how people always make fun of Microsoft for their security record and then go on to say that if we all used Macs these security problems would all go away...

In the end, the problem still lies with the user and not with the software vendor.

no, no, no!!! well, at least partially. while not all, there have been several problems that have occured on the mac in the last 18 months that have been attributed to MS software

and no i am not talking about the software that disguises itself as MS software but official MS products such as Office.

the funny thing is some of these problems have been an issue on windows as well, even before these products were released for the macintosh.

so while this does not account for the majority of problems, i still find it offensive when people throw out the "its the user" excuse.

if MS were truly concerned they would things similar - not exclusively - to the following...
1.) set secure defaults in the OS
2.) turn off autorun and makE it optional to transfer macros with office docs or even build a new technology that does something similar or achieves similar goals.

BTW: the points above have been suggested for many years but MS has not really done anything about them - so much for "the users" being at fault.

3.) ON THE MAC, use apple provided and recommemded libraries MS has never said why it duplicates certain abilities already in the OS. this would not be necessary if they had software superior to apples on the mac (product for product - no Applle works is not an office competitor so dont use that one) but so far they dont... so why

lastly, i would like to say one thing. many of us geeks here usually say that a good adminwould be able to take care of most issues by locking down certain programs and abilities.

while this is true we should also reallise that the world is changing. the days of using a browser, an office productivity and the coporate thin client only are on their way out.

people are increasingly using multimedia apps/abilities in the home and in some progressive (i.e. vs. slideshows) schools (from junior schools to university) as well.

very soon it wont be odd for - say a secretary or receptionist - to quickly put together a video presentation using things like iDVD, iTunes and iMovie.

so arguments like "hey, why was multimedia app [insert choice] not disabled by the admin" are kinda weak in this regard and are more of a an excuse. with companies doing alot of research into adding p2p, IM, social networks, etc. into enterprise software "its the user stupid" begins to sound more like whining - no offense to anyone. :->

hardware is a relatively cheap cost for a company compared to software and uptime. if your hardware costs you 2-3 times more, but gives you 2-3 times the uptime you can make that money back easily.

How can Apple move into the enterprise when they can't even get their desktops in order?

Are you trolling? How have they cooled down enthusiasm for their desktops? They offer affordable desktops with their emacs, right up to 64 bit processing power with their G5 processors. They also offer a stable and secure OS that's both pleasing to the eye and very easy to use and maintain. No other desktop manufacturer has the same kind of customer loyalty. Have you ever heard of a Toshiba or Dell Zealot?

Maybe I've misread your post and you're not trolling at all. You should explain yourself a bit more.

is this a weekly news topic....now going on ten year old tired and worn out news?

apple has made servers and had server oses for a decade...short of minimal sales to design shops, educational institutions of a small scale, and limited small business inroads, they have failed miserably in business and the enterprise.

but then, they are also failing miserably in all computer sales. their desktop market is now inconsequential, so why would we think a few pretty 1u server offerings will somehow carry the day in the enterprise?

a catchall server os that can't even compete against other catch all oses (think ms small business server and novell and a rapidly approaching linux), won't make any inroads in the enterprise with its highly specialized needs and solutions.

does apple have strong database support? no
do they have a robust app server? no
do they have robust crm and erp solutions? no
do they have a tightly knit intranet solution? no
multi cpu support? 2 cpu only, no 4 or 8 or 16 or 32 way solutions...
does apple release a clear road map for future release to the best of its ability and planning? no
do they have huge network of solution providers out in the field promoting their product, selling it, training biz on it, and supporting it? no

how many backup solutions are available on the os x platform?
how many technical certifications are available?
how many system admins graduate college with degrees and certifications on os x?
how many third party trainers and support centers work with os x?
how many companies make interchangable parts for servers in need of repair?
how many vendors sell the solutions and are they free to negotiate price or is price rigidly controlled by a central authority?

ahhh, so they can run apache web server...but doh, last time i checked the world seems to really enjoy that solution on linux.

apple doesn't stand a chance in this space. a more interesting article and feedback would focus on how apple is bleeding its last two core marktets: edu and graphic designers of all varieties.

sorry folks, making a shiny and sleek 1u server and having a server os with jelly bean icons doesn't make you ready for prime time.

"while this is true we should also reallise that the world is changing. the days of using a browser, an office productivity and the coporate thin client only are on their way out."

I couldn't possibly disagree with you more about the use of thin clients. In many ways this is going to make a huge return. Thin clients can be very secure, inexpensive, and generally very good at controlling what the user gets on their end. It's also a fantastic way of running some rather high performance software on a really inexpensive workstation, and keeping files where files should be. (on the server)
Consider for a second many companies are greatly tightning access to the internet and non-required applications. Having employees surfing the web and playing games online has never been great for productivity. Thin clients instantly kill all of that nonsense with a one time configuration change at the server end. Less admin costs involved all the way around. IT expendatures are to be avoided like the plague; thin clients on larger networks often save a good deal of time. Time equals money.

last time i checked, apple doesn't make a 64 bit os for its 64 bit g5 cpu towers or servers.

many other linux, unix, and windows solutions have been using 64 bit solutions for quite some time...for the enterprise that needs that power.

don't toss out the 64 bit stuff just because the cpu is ready.

Even though your article has some interesting points, your company sounds highly amateuristic. A firewall stops any worm, even without the security updates (which they also should have used).>>>

Where I work (university library) we got hammered by sasser.

Oh, the servers were fine, but a lot of the public use work stations and several staff workstations (including mine) got hit.

This is what our Systems staff discovered:

1) Despite the fact that all machines are configured to go and hunt for new XP updates upon boot, for some reason about 30% of machines don't. They have no idea why.

2) Clicking on the "windows update" icon in the sys-tray works about 50% of the time. (As instructed by systems staff, I clicked on the icon, downloaded, rebooted, and STILL got infected 30 minutes later.) Systems has no idea why the sys-tray icon doesn't work 100% of the time.

So, that said, you can have a very good IT staff, telling people to patch their machines, working very hard to be pro-active, and the shoddy POS code that is XP will still find a way to get more viruses than a 2 dollar crack whore.

---

And were I heading up the Apple Enterprise Team right now, I'd be having some nice brochures printed up with the names of several worms and extra evil malware on the front cover, plus a few quotes from various news sources about how much damage these have causes, and page 2 would be a picture of an X Serve, a screenshot of OS X server, the metalic apple logo and the line "There's no worm in the apple."

Inside would be a business card and offer for a 60 day evaluation (full technical support) trial of any X-Serve.

Anybody who called would be told up front that any business/university choosing to impliment an X-Serve based solution as a result of the trial would receive a 10% discount on purchase price.

---

ahhh, because we have a technical staff means that they must be good just because they are there and they work hard?

each of the workstations on your network should be running a software firewall in addition to the hardware and software firewalls that protect the outer edge of the network.

for a network as big as a universities, you should have ms sus or sms in place pushing the needed updates out to clients.

but why should you know that if you work in a library on a workstation? are you a part of the tech staff for the univ? if you arent on the tech staff, how on earth would you know if they do a good job?

evidence of what you wrote points to a poorly run network.

"Anybody who called would be told up front that any business/university choosing to impliment an X-Serve based solution as a result of the trial would receive a 10% discount on purchase price."

if apple did that they wouldn't make any money considering they are now at the break even point on their high priced computer offerings....they need the ipod to bring them profit. computers are now a losing proposition for them.

Dude, you need to pull your head out of your arse.

TheSeeke: "if apple did that they wouldn't make any money considering they are now at the break even point on their high priced computer offerings....they need the ipod to bring them profit. computers are now a losing proposition for them."

Hello! Where do you get erroneous unsupported statements like this? God, just look up Apple's quarterly SEC reports and they state margins of about 29% for their PowerMac lines. Hardly a "losing proposition." You don't strengthen your argument when you pull "facts" that are easily disproved out of thin air to "support" whatever it is you're trying to say. How can anyone take your argument seriously when such misconceptions are so clearly on display?

Accuracy in facts, people!

Remote server deployment, remote system deployment, better account management, more granular configurations and permission settings on workstations, deployment of 3rd party software, 3rd party software updates and licensing. High-end HBA(fiber or otherwise hardly anyone touches OSX) drivers, EMC, IBM, Hitachi, Fujitsu SAN support. iSCSI intitiator/gateway drivers, iFCP support, iSCSI support. Server virtualization + clustering for high availability. yadda yadda yadda

I have played with xserver its great for a small office but even the really large publishing companies that use Macs the most still run Helios on *nix, mcserverip in an NT cluster or the best of all the options for a Mac file/print/directoryservices solution, Novell.

apple has had about 4 billion in cash on hand over the last few years (cash and other readily available securities)

in 2003 they made a profit of $69 million
in 2002 they made a profit of $65 million
in 2001 they had a loss of $25 million

well, Apple, if it invested its $4,000,000,000 cash hoard in very safe investments it could easily have gotten an annual return of 4.5%.

interest of 4.5% on $4 billion is $180,000,000 annually.

$180 million

Yet Apple only has made a third of that the last two years?

Guess what, they are losing money on their operations and are covering it from interest on investments.

You can safely assume that Apple, if not for its cash reserves, would have had losses of at least $120 million each of the last two years.

So, as I wrote, even with their inflated prices, they can no longer be expected to make money selling computers. 2003 profit would have been much worse if not for the fabulous success of the iPod (over 800,000 units sold at least $299 each).

unless something pretty radical happens, their days in the computer market are numbered.

Actually if you looked a but deeper, they spend that interest money on acquisitions, such as eMagic.

40gb iPod at apple store is $499

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/713...

nearly identical product made by creative

creative zen xtra 40gb (same hard drive by hitachi---the most expensive component in the device) for just $243

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wc...

so nearly identical models and creative's costs less than half as much.

apple is making its margins and profit off the ipod to cover losses in their computer division.

buying eMagic is part of its cost of operations. when they turn around and gain the sales from its products and modify them into free apps to promote sales of macs.....

we dont have a detailed breakdown on how apple spends every one of their dollars.

the bottom line is if they shut down all operations and just banked the interest on their cash pile they would do much better than what they do via all of their other efforts.

interest and investments cover losing operations....doesnt matter if buying emagic is just a continuation of those losing operations.

Hopefully someone will take notice.

speculation about apple's financial practices.


do you work for apple?

:/

his is just my opinion, but it seems that Apple almost has written off the general market—both at the consumer and enterprise level. Many times Apple has alluded to the fact that the desktop war is over and MS won (no surprise there). As a consequence, Apple seems to have turned more and more to niche markets, and has had real, profitable success. This seems to be the fact that escapes people who rant about Apple's market share (on both sides). Almost by their own admission, Apple does not want to be in direct competition with the likes of MS. This also may be true at the enterprise level. Although it is the case that Apple has recently made greater forays into enterprise probably since the days of the Apple III (and BOY did that not work), it seems like they are, akin to their desktop strategy, targeting specific elements in industry, and not industry in general.


its unfortunate that we have to disagree coz you are well expressed an do not have any of the "ZEAL" for either side that has been expressed on this site in recent weeks.

i am currently trying to put together a whole bunch of ideas and write a full article expressing my opinions but i'll try summarize one of them here...
1.) many think that MS fears OSS, IBM, Redhat, Novell, etc. apple is often dismissed. my perpspective is counter to the maintream then coz...
1.1 what do those companies have that MS cannot have/get if they truly wanted to? free software? FOSS software? eopn standards? web servers? app servers? directory services? etc.

MS can (and probably will) do all these things if cornered. as long as they maintain a certain ammount of revenue that is acceptable to them or a market share that is acceptable to them, they will not feel or see the need to fully change.

the only thing they do not have is a security track record and individual (i.e. non-corporate) support as OSS does. however, coporate america has purchased their software despite point 1 and point 2 is made somewhat worthless (not totally) by the fact that these people are not the ones ordering 2,000 windows or office licenses.

for the skeptic that say MS cannot give away free software or do other things coz its a monopoly here is what i suggest.
1.1.1 create complete specs. for several standards (office, various servers + federated security + directory services + workflow + synchronization + orchestation + life cycle management, etc., etc., etc...)
1.1.2internally (within MS) create COMPLETE suite of products and services
1.1.3submit them to standards body along with testing compliance needed (just like java). show your prodcuts are available NOW, and are TEST-COMPLIANT
1.1.4hit market with blitzkreig PR + deployment + tempting licenses + incentives, etc., etc. make alot of noise about OSS, freedom, choice, compliance, democracy, social friendly capitalism, etc.
1.1.5 watch as it takes competition 12 - 18 months to achieve equal test-compliance. only recently are many of the Java vendors becoming J2EE 1.4 compliant yet 1.5 is at the door step.

some specs are several hundreds of pages long and this would probably be done deliberateltly to insure it takes other companies a decent time (minimum 9 months for the likes of IBM, Sun, HP) to create an equivalent

;-> this was a summary so i'll stop :->

BTW: APPLE has a mindset, loyalty, innovation + creativity, guts(just like what google did with their ipo - they shunned the mainstream i.e. wallstreet) and the technical ability to disrupt the market + working (vs. in reseach) technology portfolio equalled by noone in
OSX
OSXServer
XGrid
XSan
XRaid
iLife
ProApps
Motion,Final Cut Pro, DVD, Shake, Shark, Logic, WebObjects, Filemaker Suite, Renderman Family of products, Multimedia Publishing/Broabcasting/Streaming products, etc.

However, the technology that MS fears the most is quicktime.
I won't spoil the fun and will leave you brainstorm. I will leave you with a couple of clues though;
==>qt is a platform
==>qt does text, audio, video, v-reality, scripts/code
==>qt supports plugins (think netbeans, eclipse, photoshop)
==>qt supports desktop apps + web apps (think flash+flex, xul, xaml)
==>qt supports publishing/streaming/broadcasting

yes, for some of what is listed above e.g. application support + plugin support qt would not be very practical as is coz it was not originally designed with this flexibility in mind (e.g. it was not designed for application plugins, rather plugins such as codecs) but rearchitecting and refining it would not take as long as java took to go from set-top-box software to enterprise software especially since they can borrow ideas, for example, from eclipse/netbeans/PS on how to develop a good plugin environment - after adding their own "magic sauce" of creativity and innovation of course.

what apple has MS cannot simply just get for various reasons. what the others have they can - in most cases - circumvent in any one of multiple options (OSS, embrace+extend, price incentives, purchase+put+to+sleep, standardization, etc.) they are already doing some of that right now as we speak under the guise of OSS.

therefore to come back to where we disagree, apple has an extremely high momentum going forward. this is why steve jobs says "we are way ahead of our competitors". people take that and then do something like compare ichat to the other IM's out there and claim it is RDF/FUD.

to me this says - just to give one example - "just like OSX has alot of OS9 and/or NaxtStep, just like BeOS did and MS will do in Longhorn and beyond in adding a database or db-like abilities to the OS, we in our technology portfolio that spans apple/pixar/filemaker have working components (vs. research projects) of the foundations of the next generation computing platform".

what i am saying is, what you consider to be settling for a niche market is actually self-restraint as apple tries to act more like a company rather than the artists' utopia it was back in the days. it is "biting what it can chew". however as the next generation desktop arrives (10.8, 10.9, ?), other platforms will find it difficult to create from scratch or move from research the technologies that apple has had the opportunity to try and test and develop "best use" cases in the applications that today seem like the "high end market".

Remember, yesterday's advanced workstation is what your receptionist will/is using to do your powerpoint presenation ;->

"buying eMagic is part of its cost of operations. when they turn around and gain the sales from its products and modify them into free apps to promote sales of macs....."

Cost of operations would only cover the development.

we dont have a detailed breakdown on how apple spends every one of their dollars."

They talk about it all the time in press releases and conference calls. I've heard it at least a dozen times.

"the bottom line is if they shut down all operations and just banked the interest on their cash pile they would do much better than what they do via all of their other efforts."

Have you looked at how the cash pile grows and how the profit grows? They really don't seem to be related. The thing they could do to make the most money is to cut Jobs salary a bit. He's the highest paid CEO in the world.

"interest and investments cover losing operations....doesnt matter if buying emagic is just a continuation of those losing operations."

Yet those operations aren't losing. Think about it. If you profit that much on each sale, you don't lose money. The money is going elsewhere.

My perception: cost of MS-environment goes up linearly with time; cost of MacOS environment goes down. I am talking downtime, virus time, license costs, CPU costs (the gap between mac and PC here is always shrinking). At some point, people are going to start to notice. I mean, at some point people started phasing out DOS and going Windows 3.X, right?

Now seriously Seeker, what is it that you have against Apple that is so bad it makes you pick out Mac threads to troll around in? I'm not a big MS fan, but you don't see me trolling around in every thread about some new virus.

Apple should come out with a line of iPods for managers. They would cost even more than the current line of iPods which would drive profits up like crazy.

These new iManage iPods could connect to their own iManagerTunes store which would stock music for firing people, music for offshoring, music that hides lies, and other manager-friendly music selections.

The new iManage iPods would also have super sensitive microphones for recording what employees are saying and extensive other spyware functionality.

Apple will have great success making a product that gives the American manager that special edge over the employee.

"Cost of operations would only cover the development"

that is not true. cost of operations is money spent on anything and everything. you are quite wrong.

"They talk about it all the time in press releases and conference calls. I've heard it at least a dozen times"

no, you cannot show us anywhere that apple states with detail how much they spent developing the ipod, how much they make just from apple ipod sales, likewise with itms. no where does apple say that they makde x dollars from investments and that x perecentage was used to do x.

"Have you looked at how the cash pile grows and how the profit grows?"

yes i have watched the cash pile grow and profits remain static or shrink. which means they make more and more off interest and investments and less and less from operations. again they lose more each year from operations and it is only covered by the gains from the cash pile.

"Yet those operations aren't losing. Think about it. If you profit that much on each sale, you don't lose money. The money is going elsewhere"

profit that much on each of what sale? apple made $69 million last year on $6.2 billion in sales. they had how many million individual sales? i dont follow what you are trying to say.

"that is not true. cost of operations is money spent on anything and everything. you are quite wrong."

The cost of operations covers what it costs to operate a company, ie- salarys, rent, and so on.

"no, you cannot show us anywhere that apple states with detail how much they spent developing the ipod, how much they make just from apple ipod sales, likewise with itms. no where does apple say that they makde x dollars from investments and that x perecentage was used to do x."

They keep the iPod/iTMS specifics secret for the time being, suffice to say iTMS has been turning a profit for the last quarter, but they often talk about the rest in calls. Listen to a few in QuickTime.

"yes i have watched the cash pile grow and profits remain static or shrink. which means they make more and more off interest and investments and less and less from operations. again they lose more each year from operations and it is only covered by the gains from the cash pile."

Sorry if that came out wrong, but I wasn't talking about over time. I meant the direct relation to one quarters earnings and profit to the cash pile.

"profit that much on each of what sale? apple made $69 million last year on $6.2 billion in sales. they had how many million individual sales? i dont follow what you are trying to say."

Profit of each sale of any/all hardware. I am saying that the cost of operation is high due to how much they pay the execs (Jobs gets many times what the entire companies profit is). If you sell a 20 $100 computers your sales revenue is $20,000. Now say 20% of that is profit. That's $4,000. But the companies profits aren't $4,000 if the cost of operations (salaries) is $3,500. Then the company profit is only $500.

Oops, left out a zero at the end of that computer price.

And yet you don't meantion 'acquisitions'.

Anyway, I'm taking off from work early today, so if you respond to that last one I won't get back until late tonight.

<<each of the workstations on your network should be running a software firewall in addition to the hardware and software firewalls that protect the outer edge of the network. >>>

Depending on the nature of the workstation and the dutities assigned to that person this would mean 40 to 50 diffferent firewall profiles for staff alone.

Then there are the public use computers, some banks of which have software for the comp-sci students to use. And that would add a whole 'nuther set of fire wall profiles.


<<for a network as big as a universities, you should have ms sus or sms in place pushing the needed updates out to clients.>>>

There are 3 different IT "fiefdoms" that I know of on campus. All serving different user bases. There are also multiple OSes in use across campus. (Oh, and library Systems runs 4 different OSes in the server room.)


<<but why should you know that if you work in a library on a workstation? are you a part of the tech staff for the univ?>>>

I am my department's liason to Systems.

<<if you arent on the tech staff, how on earth would you know if they do a good job?>>

I'll take "my" IT department's Server uptime vs. any other department's on campus. The last time our main server (domain + catalog) went down was because it was turned off when the AC failed.

The main university domain server crashes about once a month -- two or three times a week during registration. The campus email system goes down in flames 3-4 times a year. I'll take "my" IT crew any day.

So "my" IT staff is incompetent when MS's software doesn't work the way it's supposed to? It's their fault that clicking on the "sofware update" icon does produce a working patch of XP 50% of the time? It's their fault that Campus Systems can't properly firewall T-1 in and out of the campus? I don't freaking think so.

how is debating PantherPC like debating a 7 year old?

does he intentionally troll for comments like you? does he distort facts like you?

"buying other companies"

equals

And yet you don't meantion 'acquisitions'

sorry to confuse you so with that cryptic language

you have a large IT staff and managing firewall policies is a normal part of that job function. it should be in place. it is recommended best practice....even behind an outer edge firewall. it isnt hard to do, it is just a part of the job. all machines regardless of the os should have a software firewall running on them.

i did not say "incompetent".

i said your own words point to a poorly run network...at least as it regards ms oses.

again the number of servers or server oses doesnt prevent your univ from using ms sms or sus update and management servers.

the idea that you have a library at a major edu facility and you are going to each pc and clicking on update icons in the system tray says it all about your admin staff and procedures.

and finally, pointing out that you have fiefdoms and disjointed tech management again says "poorly managed" network and security. so if you have "fiefdoms", why not blame that for your troubles?

ms software is not working the way its supposed to because you are not using it the way its supposed to....at least to some degree. manually updating each client on a large network seems very odd indeed to me. do you all have make work programs there or what?

"well, Apple, if it invested its $4,000,000,000 cash hoard in very safe investments it could easily have gotten an annual return of 4.5%."

Interest rates have been at historical lows since 2001. I don't know that your statement is true. I personally would listen to apple's share holder reports to find out what they actually made from interest. They've been using that cash for acquistions so they might be keeping some or a lot of it in very liquid and correspondingly low interest accounts. They generally seperate profit from operations from interest earnings as well so you should be able to find out the true earnings from operations easily.

Because of that i also don't know that you can make the assumption that apple is losing money on its operations. Again these two must be seperated.

you find that 256mb Ati 9800 Pro Mac Special Edition yet?

you should be Distortman not Debman.

yes you are quite right. all of that information is clearly revealed in apples SEC filings.

look it up and you will see they make more money from non operating income than they do from selling computers, ,music, accessories, and services.

its all freely available on apples site and at many financial sites as well.

it is broken out as operating income and non-operating income but the end result is they get merged to make the final figures.

I became a little lost reading your response, so I apologize if I am putting words in your mouth, but I think what you have said is in keeping with what I think about Apple's goals. Apple's business strategy is confusing to everyone except Apple, but I agree that what they are doing is preparing for the future rather than fighting the battle of today.

One could make the argument that Apple is preparing for a future where there isn't a division between "computers" and other digital tools. I would say that MS sees this coming as well, in that they keep trying to leverage themselves outward from the desktop (the Xbox, the Windows Media Center, the Tablet PC, etc.).

I think the difference is that Apple seems to be coming at it from the other direction, almost. Whereas MS is trying to move its desktop stronghold into other places, Apple seems to be trying to get the appliances out there first (the iPod being the best example). I wonder if that is why Apple seems to be so invested in the entertainment/media market, in their applications (Final Cut, Shake, etc.), their hardware (cinema displays, firewire), and Quicktime. That's also why it is so confusing that Apple hasn't embraced gaming on a significant level (except Pippen ; ) ). It seems such a natural fit. People have often said that Apple is trying to become the next Sony instead of the next MS (interesting that Sony is now in some ways trying to become Apple).

The other day I was looking a thread and I started to wonder when the day will come that we don't have the desktop computer as we know it—when there won't be a system that sits on a table that does "computing" work. The tasks will be handled by multiple other devices (a media center that can tune in broadcasts, play games, browse the web, download video and audio; a handheld that produces documents, keeps track of appointments, manages IM, email, and voice communications; etc). That is why your comment about Quicktime is interesting. Apple may be preparing for the figurative death of the desktop computer—preparing for the shift from one computing tool to multiple tools (of course, this would be decades in the future). One thing Apple has always gotten credit for, even from Apple haters, is that they make quality laptops. I wondered if some day in the distant future Apple might lead the way in ditching the desktop tower totally in favor of workhorse servers (xserve, xsan, xgrid, xcetera) and portables. Call me nuts, but I would not be surprised if it happened.

This post got off topic from the original article (it doesn't have much to do with enterprise). I apologize. I just wanted to respond because it is rare that these forums are something other than people shouting their personal opinions without reading and digesting what others have already said.

Seeker has managed to kill any interesting discussion about macs.

Look folks, they are all the same talking points no matter what the subject (except it's about mac).

C -ya, OS News.

"buying eMagic is part of its cost of operations. when they turn around and gain the sales from its products and modify them into free apps to promote sales of macs...."

emagic is still selling Logic and Logic pro,,,,,,,doesn't sound like a free app to me seeker!

The samething with the purchase of NothingReal,,,,,,,,shake is still being improved and upgraded. It's not free, and hasn't been changed to a free app.

I have not looked but again there is a difference between making more off of interest than operations than making no money from operations.

Keep in mind that you are comparing apples to oranges. Return from interest investments is by definition pure profit (or loss). Return from operations also includes the cost of investment in R&D and other long term functions which are designed to pay back the company over a longer period of time. In other words, Apples lower return on overall operations may be a result of development of things like the iPod, apple stores, OS X and G5-based devices which will provide apple significant benefits over the next 3-5 years.

I used to work in that space, and I know from experience that the ramp-up time for selling into the enterprise arena is ridiculous. The first and most important thing you need is metrics. Then you need a sales force, credibility, solutions, support, etc.

It'll take years. What Apple's doing might be what Linux did - get in through the back door. If more employees (developers especially) move to osx, they'll recompile their stuff "just for fun, so they can do work @home." Then in a few years migration will be simpler.

To all of you saying "hey, they suck, they should have stopped sasser" I say "you've disqualified yourself from even talking about the space." Updating 85,000 workstations is not an easy process, because it actually matters if the machine works after the patch...unlike your machine at home.