If you're planning to buy a new laptop... (Read 1145 times)

(Perhaps Macs don't need as much support as PCs )

That is probably a good thing. Just try finding onsite support for them if you need it.

The hospital IT department's policies and strategies for supporting and managing Mac hardware and nonstandard applications.

In our case, it is largely ignored. The individual or their department/division has to support nonstandard configurations. Many departments/divisions are happy to do this. For the in-hospital clinical machines, these are hospital run and configured. But that is not the whole of what is deployed and used. Most clinicians for example use the hospital computers while providing patient care but their own personally (or departmentally) configured machines in their work offices. Many of the labs run Macs. Many of the developers run Macs to develop and maintain software for the PCs. Also, since a lot of the software is browser-based, folks will sign in to it from home and on the road, where they will use whatever hardware they can access. The standard configs just don't work outside of the controlled hospital setting since each user has very specific use needs depending on their research or business work. But the highest levels (like the CIO types) will tell you that the institution will only support one of the standard configurations.

Agreed. Macs cost more money. But that is a hardware issue, not an OS issue.

So what is the specific issue that you guys are trying to discuss? Seems to me to be a moving target. If you are specifically addressing corporate adoption of Macs, then trying to divide "hardware issue" from "OS issue" is a weird thing to bucket. I'm leaving this discussion now. I can't tell what it is about and I don't feel like getting tweaked in the nose for BLUE when I thought the topic was PENCIL.

So what is the specific issue that you guys are trying to discuss? Seems to me to be a moving target.

TJ mentioned that Macs are not adopted unless all you want to do is Word and internet surfing, especially by the corporate world. One reason we both agree on is that the cost is a limiting factor for adoption. The cost is, as you point out, more due to the fact that OSX is tied to an expensive hardware configuration than due to the cost of the OS itself (a Mac OSX DVD can be had for less than a Windows DVD). Apple forces us to lump the question of OS adoption in with the question of hardware cost. At their own risk. srlopez, I seem to be striking a nerve with you on multiple threads.

Stevie Ray hit the nail on the head with the reason companies won't deploy them. If you are going to support 200 computers with just 1 or 2 IT people, you need to standardize as much as possible.

Totally agree. But this is not the same thing as saying Macs are useless unless all you want to do is word processing and internet browsing.

Agreed

There are still a few compatibility issues with Vista, but you are right that stability has not been an issue.

OMFG, I'm so tired of hearing that garbage.

I probably should have wink-captioned my comment. I've never used Vista, and my comment was merely a tongue-in-cheek reference to what, in all honesty, has been a PR disaster for Microsoft. I follow tech closely, and I realize that compatibility, not stability, has been the primary issue with Vista. You'll notice I was parodying the comment about XP being a stable system. I think Apple makes great hardware, and having used all flavors of Windows up through XP, I genuinely prefer and even enjoy using OS X more. If OS X were available on cheaper hardware, as much as I love my Mac, I can't say I wouldn't go for it. But then again, as much as the closed system has its detriments, the end-to-end experience has been much better for me on my Mac than any PC I've worked with / owned. As far as the laptops Apple announced, I think it's a good refresh of their line, though I'd love to see them offer some kind of netbook. But with their market share (and disproportionately high revenue share) continuing to grow, I can see why they don't go there. They should have dropped the price on the previous white Macbook to $899 instead of $999 (from $1099), though.

That much I will agree with you on. Actually it is. I think the negative PR has been primarily because of fanbois (not accusing anyone here) who get on all the mac forums and blogs and post all the stuff about how horrible Vista is when they've never used it. If you look at more recent blog posts (apparently fanbois tire of commenting after a while) you'll find comment and comment about how the "vista problem" is mostly crap made up by people who have never touched it.

Actually I'm not a "fanboi" (I'm not familiar with that term) and don't read Mac forums or computer forums at all. I was talking about my friends and colleagues, most of whom are non-techie types not compelled to use either OS by their workplace, but just trying to get something done with a computer, and the overwhelming majority of comments that I hear on Vista are negative. Many have "downgraded" to XP. Not a statistically valid sample, I know, but in my experience it's a pretty universal reaction. Anyway, whatever works for you...