Apple vs. IBM

[Moses]

Originally posted by motion

...I have an Apple 23" Cinema Display...

My neighbor runs a small Ad agency. He has the 23" display as well. Magnificent.

[MichiganMat]

Apple has entered the enterprise market with a vengence, their servers are probably the most competitive in the market. Not only are they less than the cost of Dell and HP, but OSX Server comes with an unlimited user license. The licensing is a huge deal, one copy of the OS for everyone, no tiered pricing. The licensing alone is worth the cost of the change-over. 250 seat network? One license.

Wayne-
All the applications, including IE, are in a folder called "Applications". It should be easy to find, its one of the first main folders on the harddrive. As for the Dock (the bottom bar that you hate), its a little bit confusing at first but it quickly becomes the most useful thing you've ever seen when you get the gist of it.

[mikester]

Originally posted by Shuie
A computer is a tool for me. I don’t have an attachment to any specific brand or OS. Honestly, I don’t have any experience with the Mac stuff. All I know is that they look neat and are expensive. I’ve heard they are the cat’s ass for music, video, and graphics. I’ve never heard anyone endorse them outside of these 3 things.

We are looking at the possibility if ditching most of our Microsoft products in the future at my work. It’s more of an effort to cut costs (software licenses) than anything else. The current thinking is that Linux and Open Office and Mozilla can do 90% of what we need to do.

We run our distributed web based HR/Payroll system on NT servers using a Microsoft SQL server back end. This is something that we do not think we can change. UNIX/Oracle is the closest thing to a reasonable alternative for the app we are running this system on and we don’t have the resources to go this route.

I’m asking this because I honestly don’t know. How practical is a Mac based system for distributing a web based application that runs on a large database? Is the server technology available on a Mac to run a 250 seat network where the client machines are distributed between RAS connections, VPNs, and other remote sites throughout the country?

I don't know the complete answer to your question but I can give this advice. Go with the operating system that is most productive for you and your company. The cost of the actual software shouldn't be the biggest deal. Linux can cost just as much or more to support as a microsoft product be it in hardware or support and labor. I'm not knocking either one; I use both in my work and they both have a place (though my opinion is that I COULD replace all the windows servers and be very happy. Mac's new OS X has a lot of server side support for web based apps and databases so it is a possibility but if you don't have the know-how already on hand you'll need to get it by doing (trial and error) or by hiring someone who knows. If you already have a welll running MS shop with the know how on hand maybe reevaluating your current network strategy is more appropriate than a forklift upgrade.

[RickC]

Thanks for all the comments. The local Apple store about two blocks from where I work has a demo/class for those thinking of switching. Guess I'll be attending.....

[id10t]

Shuie - depending on your needs, you probably aren't that tied to the microsoft sql server. There are lots of Free/free (or low cost) SQL servers, like MySQL and Postgres. LAMP (Linux+Apache+Mysql+PHP/perl) runs quite a few large websites, like finance.yahoo.com .

[dd74]

If only I could get the Mac OS to run on the IBM box, I'd be in heaven, but it's unrealistic this could happen, right?

As far as Linux goes, I would use it but...

1) I would really need someone to install it for me so it would be capatible with my printers, wireless network and the network at work, which is an archaic version of Oracle, I think.

2) I would have to know that any document I create in Microsoft Word for Linux could be translated to Word for PC and Mac. I'm really not concerned with any other software but Microsoft Word.

Or, I may just go and buy a Powerbook when the time comes...

Any suggestions?