November 28, 2003
MacOS doesn't cut it in the Enterprise
I'm sure all the Mac fanatics will rail against me on this but this article from ADmitMac sums it up.
It's things like this that really show how poorly Apple is paying attention to the needs of serious consumers:
With all of the emphasis on security within leading corporations and educational institutions, it is interesting to note that Panther actually requires you to downgrade the security levels of Windows Server 2003 in order to use a Macintosh with it.and
This is a clear indication of Apple's lack of sufficient development labs and customer beta test environments.
I started saying this 10 years ago and it's still true today. If you're a lone user or one of group of only two or three then the Mac OS networking might be sufficient for you. But, if like the rest of us, you work among groups of many different users across many different levels of business management then you'll find the Mac OS to be entirely deficient.
It's really a shame as there were always so many nice things in the Mac OS. They just never put the time into making them capable of being scaled up.
Apple's own corporate culture is devoid of anything resembling what exists in most companies. Thus it's no surprise to see them unable to create a solution that actually works in those environments. This goes back to my old saying, if you ask a deaf man to make you a violin don't be surprised if it sounds bad. Asking programmers that don't currently or have never worked in corporate environment to write enterprise software is very nearly just as ridiculous.
At the same time those that complain so bitterly about Microsoft have usually never even tried the full range of what's possible. Stuff like Active Directory, DFS, roaming profiles and the like are amazing tools. Granted, they're not without their complexities and implementation issues. But those of us that know how to use them just sit back and laugh while the naysayers keep trying to reinvent what we already use today.
