Using Mac computers on a corporate network is a contentious issue for many business people and their supporting IT departments. Recently, Larry Bodie, CEO of Claris Networks decided to take a Macbook Pro on a thorough test drive on our corporate network as his primary work device. Sure, Macs are incredible devices and make personal computing a breeze for the average user, but are they as diametrically opposed to a Windows based corporate environment as people make them out to be? Larry’s response, in short, is no…and yes.
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I started using a Macbook Pro as my primary work device a couple months ago, for an extended trial. It is a
very clean machine. It's easy to use and took me about 15 minutes to figure everything out. For people that say you need a lot of experience to support and troubleshoot MACs, I say simply, “Hogwash.” These computers are very similar to Windows machines when you boil it all down. You can use them on corporate networks. However, there are some serious drawbacks to using it for my daily driver at work.
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Drawback #1: multiple monitor difficulty. I like to have at least two big monitors on my desk at the office. With my old Dell laptop this was very easy - dock it into the Latitude E-dock and presto, I have two big displays to work from. Turns out that isn't so easy with the Macbook. While it does have a nice Thunderbolt (TB) interface, you cannot daisy-chain two TB monitors together. What a bummer. I tried the Matrox TripleHead display and the Diamond USB to DVI interfaces. The Matrox treats the connected displays as one single display, which I
hated. The Diamond interface worked okay, but had horrible video performance when running windows in a VM environment on the laptop. Why am I running a VM on the Macbook? That brings me to my next disappointment.
Drawback #2: Windows Environment + Apple Software = Really, not great. As it turns out, our company's primary applications are all Windows based. Therefore, I must use a Windows 7 operating system on the Macbook. I know some of you may be thinking "Why not just use Citrix or terminal server?" The short answer is I like working offline with some of the applications. Microsoft Outlook is the biggest example I can think of. The Apple version of Mail and Calendar are not built for the corporate world –
they stink.
Apple Advantage: What has been interesting about this is how I have grown to
love the personal features of the Mac. Recently when I returned from a trip I plugged in my video camera to the Mac and it instantly imported them and presented them for me to view or edit. In the Windows environment this task is seemingly difficult and requires extra software to make it easier.
In the end, I dug out an old Dell desktop from storage to use while in the office and I am keeping the Macbook Pro for travel and some personal use. I think Apple has a long way to go in order to infiltrate the corporate world. They will eventually do it, even if it means people have two platforms to deal with.
Of course, there are many more pros and cons to incorporating Macs on your Windows-based corporate network. What have you discovered?