Apple poppycock

I am on the periphery of the Leopard world having chosen to spend my dollars on one of HP's laptops instead of on Leopard and other Apple toys.  That being the case I don't mean to criticize Leopard but rather the hype from this article, "A Reek of Quality."

Leopard reeks quality. Not without its kinks so far to be sure but it still reeks of it. Leopard wasn't built for the batik shirt Birkenstock fanboy crowd queueing outside an Apple store to buy one measly licence at a time. It was built for huge corporate and government clients who are going to buy hundreds and thousands of licences at a time.

So I wonder what evidence there might be of this operating system being built for huge corporate and government clients?  Could it be that there is some better compatibility with web sites and Microsoft applications?

I must have missed that headline.  I did, however, catch this one, "So Long Apple. The Party's Over."

The lack of a fully working Java for Leopard at this point is bad enough. The fact that Apple apparently backed out on Java 6 shipping with Leopard is also bad. But once again, the part I have really had it with, is the unprecedented arrogance of Steve Jobs and company, and the fact that they seem to feel they have absolutely no obligation to communicate to their customers why they changed their plans, why the yanked software that used to be available, and when or even if they will remedy that. Well, here is my response to that attitude:

Sorry Steve Jobs, but since you've got no time for your customers, and you've got no time to explain to them why plans changed, and when or even if the situation will be remedied, I've got no time for your products anymore.

So long Apple. The party's over.

That is interesting.   Apple is doing an operating system for corporations and government, and they are getting farther and farther behind with Java. 

The idea that Leopard was built for corporate and government clients is something that no sane person would suggest.

I have seen no evidence Apple is moving towards targeting the enterprise.

If you were to build an operating system for government and corporations, you would need to spend some time talking to those customers and taking them seriously.  If you actually think that is the case with Apple, your Kool-Aid meter is way off the Richter scale.

No corporation in their right mind would ever go with an operating system which their users get before their IT people who need to do serious testing before they think about deploying.  Apple barely gets the software to developers who need  it before Apple ships an operating system.  Customers aren't on any list before shipment.

The only folks lower on the totem pole of operating system upgrades than customers would be Apple employees whose expertise one might think would be needed at rollout.

When I was at Apple, I can remember our system engineers having to beg developer customers to get our people the latest versions of operating systems.  Sometimes to speed up getting an operating system in the hands of our employees, we would buy a copy of the operating system from the Apple Store and pass it around inside of Apple.

Let's be bluntly honest here, the design elements in Leopard are no more targeted at corporations and government than at  the man in the moon.

There have been plenty of corporate and government clients who have tried over the years to ask Apple for features. Apple has ignored them.  I am sure most of them are very happy that they can run Windows on their Mac.

There is a simple reason for that, the fact that Windows runs on a Mac means that the company won't be held hostage to Apple which doesn't exactly have a sterling track record with the enterprise.

With an Intel based Mac, the worst thing that can happen is that you end up formatting the hard drive and using Windows.

I have now transitioned to using my Vista laptop at our real estate office.  I still carry my MacBook in case I am missing a file, but today I didn't even open it.

What I have found is that in spite of all the anti-Vista rhetoric, I have had very little trouble with Vista.

I set up our big Konica-Minolta printer copier on the system today.  It was a piece of cake.  I actually think the printing is faster to both that printer and to my HP Photosmart AIO.

What I continue to be impressed with is Vista's successful access to websites that used to give me trouble.  For years I just put up with website problems and preached the line that Apple was working to correct the problems.

The check is in the mail on that one.  I know most of these problem sites don't adhere to web standards, but I can't fix that, and Apple doesn't really care to work on the issue.  So the choice is ignore the sites, find pain in the rear work arounds, or use a Windows box.  Using the Windows box is the least painful and more productive solution.

I have my Vista laptop right beside my MacBook.  I now prefer typing on the HP laptop. The keyboard is better than the one on the MacBook.  The trackpad on the HP is much more responsive.  On top of that having a 15" screen is a dream after living on the 13" MacBook.  For seven months when I took my MacBook to work, I also carried a keyboard, a mouse, and a stand for the MacBook.  I don't need any of those with the HP laptop.

I have found inexpensive or free replacements for every software package I needed on Windows to duplicate my MacBook. Tonight is the first night I have brought home real estate forms on my laptop that I printed for clients in the office.  While it might not seem like a big deal, it is if you live with as many forms as we  real estate agents do.

While Vista might not be as flashy as Leopard, it is a very serviceable operating system.  It will get even better.

I think this assessment of Leopard carries a lot more weight than a company trying to wish Leopard into the enterprise.

Last night, I read an Heise Security report about Leopard's firewall being turned off by default—or turning off a previously active firewall during the upgrade from an earlier Mac OS X version. I can confirm that the upgrade flips off the firewall, and without warning.

There are other troubling changes going on under the hood, too....This morning, when I launched the VPN client, a Leopard popup warned that the new Back to My Mac feature and VPN cannot operate at the same time; a handy link flipped off the service. But who turned it on in the first place?

This morning, my wife had trouble sending e-mail. She had no problems yesterday. But today, for some reason, Apple Mail reverted to using her .Mac SMTP server as default. I had previously set it to a Cox server SMTP, as required by the cable provider.

I'm usually more of a fan of Apple operating systems, but Leopard doesn't feel like a finished product. The security settings are particularly irksome, if nothing else. Apple should know to turn off as many unwanted services as possible and keep on those that beef up security.

This doesn't sound like an enterprise operating system.  It sounds like a company focused on something besides an operating system.

Comments

[Nick]

Well, the column that raised your ire does come from an erratic publication with wildly fluctuating opinions. Compare the one you just read with this one from March:

http://rixstep.com/2/1/20070317,00.shtml

That site has some interesting utilities for the Mac but not the most stable or professional editorial content, as a look at the March column will show you. It should either calm down and tone down the rhetoric of the Op. Ed. pieces or drop the tagline "Serious Software". The two don't go together.

However, I think the article is addressing what Leopard is from a technical point of view not what Apple's sales and support strategy is WRT business customers.

The main point is that Apple is first to market with a usable 64-bit operating system. 64-bit Windows is virtually unusable, because of the dearth of software and driver difficulties. Leopard, unlike Tiger, is 64-bit top-to-bottom (but also, importantly, capable of running 32-bit applications, as well).

Now this is a very big deal. The open-source guru Eric Raymond thinks the question of who's first to market with a 64-bit OS pivotal. See here:

http://catb.org/~esr/writings/world-domination/world-domination-201.html

I think the column at Microsoft Watch, if it's not a hit job on behalf of Microsoft, is so much blather. Yeah, it's a shame that the firewall is off by default but it's not really a big deal, is it? So turn it on. Is this supposed to be a turn-off for corporate customers? Won't they, besides a corporate firewall, have IT departments who will set up machines? Can't Apple change the default? Beside the move to 64-bit, the grumbling is so much noise.

Nothing that Thurrott or Enderle or Microsoft Watch can come up with can take away from the fact that Leopard is a very good release.

Apple's finally deprecating the old Carbon APIs, which won't be available for 64-bit; it's optimized Spotlight, so it's now very fast; it's got FS-Events. Moreover, it looks like Apple's already working on the ZFS filesystem from Sun as a replacement down the road for HFS -- and wouldn't others like to be able to offer something with the benefits of ZFS?

Apple may not have good marketing strategies and infrastructure, but Leopard is very, very good, and an extremely solid platform to build on for the future. As for business customers, I'd think they'd be foolish not to at least consider it.

[Pecos Bill]

The only way Apple can make Safari or other browser 100% compatible is to load a reverse engineered copy of windows and IE. Microsoft Embraced, Extended, and (was trying to) Extinguish open web standards. Ever hear of Active-X? It is essentially a plug-in structure for IE that opens up nearly all of the Windows OS code to any web page that wants it via a simple download. It is the ONLY way to load a plug-in in IE. Your Real Estate™ (try typing that ™ on your winbox/IE) association decided to write their software using Active-X instead of open standards. To be compatible with that, Apple must write all that into their code so you can run, essentially, windows (and anti-virus, and all the inherent risks). What made you think they would do that? FireFox doesn't due to the security headache and they run on windows!

From a business standpoint, your association of REALTORS™ decided what OS you get to run, not you. Of course, your business needs to run irrespective of open standards. Therefore, you face unneeded challenges without winOS. Microsoft's track record for OS updates (if you care) doesn't bode well if you do have (non-security) problems or want enhancements. At least they're good about patching security holes.

Direct-X is the same way with EEE and that has had a very real effect with games. Everyone has written games to use that instead of OpenGL. They're now locked into that M$ technology. The few cross platform games have had to undergo HUGE rewrites for that (and I'm sure other things). Same thing with IE. They did their EEE against Netscape and won. IE didn't see ANY enhancements until FireFox became popular/viable.

As user of both OSes, I feel badly for your coming pain. It's probably less than dealing with the incompatibilities though. There's already been one activation server nightmare (google it).

[John Koetsier]

Interesting points.

I'm not too convinced about the Java one, however. Java is so yesterday's news. No-one is building anything of any consequence in Java anymore.

The direction is to the cloud, to web 2.0, to Ajax, and still to some Flash/Air and maybe Silverlight.

[ocracokewaves]

"Yeah, it's a shame that the firewall is off by default but it's not really a big deal, is it? So turn it on."

Actually having everything shut down by default is a big deal for corporate and enterprise customers.

It was one of big selling points when we were pushing Apple in the enterprise.

When I was director of Apple's federal sales, I can remember being invited down to meet the CIO of NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

This was significant because Johnson was one of the spots where Apple was thrown out as Windows took over the enterprise.

One of the first comments from the NASA CIO's mouth was that Apple was the only vendor at the time (2003) that was shipping an operating system with all ports shut down by default.

So it was a big deal to NASA. At the time we often used the stories that were common about systems in universities being hacked before people even had time to change the settings on them as they hooked them to networks.

I don't doubt that Leopard is a great operating system and that small businesses can save some money by using Macs.

That doesn't make OS X or Apple's products enterprise or government class products.

The CIOs that I talked to over my career were very clear with what that meant.

Mostly they want to know what is coming and when. They want no surprises, they want availability, and they want a direct pipe to higher level support than comes with a consumer product like Apple's.

They do not want to be told to go to the Genius bar for answers to their questions. Nor do they want to be told to haul their systems needing repair to the local Apple Store.

There's a big difference between having a great operating system which might work in the enterprise and actually supporting and making certain it works in the enterprise.

That requires testing and seeding of customers which Apple used to do before they sold their soul to the consumer world.

I have been out of the enterprise world for a while, but I cannot imagine very many enterprise customers being happy about Apple 's lack of support of Java.

There are other things that are important and Apple might be on top of these, but perhaps some of the readers can speak to that better than me.

The first that comes to mind would be enterprise management tools for software.

For years one of the goals of the Apple enterprise team was to get an Apple software update server that could sit inside of corporate and government firewalls. Most enterprises want to control when and what users update so they don't want people updating from Apple's public servers.

I would be curious if that ever happened. It would be a good sign that Apple has listened to enterprise customer requests.

[Pecos Bill]

WRT ports not open, NASA got it backwards. Default installs should have the ports closed. Businesses (med/lg) and govt's should be creating a load that has all their apps and OS pre-configured. Then, erase any machine and slap it on. Apple enables that with Disk Utility and a unix tool. Then, there are tools to keep them up to date (or get FileWave). My employer does that with SMS and another tool to do the loads (not ghost).

Apple is interested in the enterprise, but only so much. They know how entrenched Microsoft is. They're making money targeting the rest of the world (consumers) where they don't have CIOs trained by M$ loving universities. (U of Colo business school was very anti-Apple in the 80s. Other evidence abounded for ages based on what CIOs were saying.) Apple does have a long way to go to fully support a large enterprise.

Oh, and they only finalized the Unix underpinnings with 10.5. They have had tons of work to do.

[Louis wheeler]

I agree with you that I see no evidence that Apple is catering to the Enterprise or the government markets.

Partly, this is because Microsoft has sewn up that market, so well, that it would be playing on their turf.

Mostly, it is that Apple is geared toward the Consumer markets. It would not be easy to engage in both, since the Enterprise or the government markets require special handling, it's own sales organization-- and long lead times.

It would, thus, be difficult for Steve Jobs to maintain the secrecy which garners Apple so much free publicity, because the Enterprise markets require prior notice for purchasing. And companies often want to specify the components rather than letting Apple load in a package. By their nature, the Enterprise sales organizations are quite boring, which isn't Apple's style. So, Apple seems to be ignoring those markets.

Yet even so, Apple is making its way into those markets stealthily. Employees are bringing their personal computers into work and finding that they function well.

What Rixstep was talking about is that Apple is improving its software at a much faster rate than Microsoft. This means that Apple, to provide for its Small to Medium Business customers, is covertly encroaching on what was Microsoft's Enterprise domain. But, It won't compete directly.

Apple, for instance, included CalDAV group calendaring in Leopard. Microsoft and its IT customers will likely dismiss Apple's entry as inadequate, but Apple is planning to issue upgrades every 12 to 18 months while Microsoft is unlikely to deliver anywhere as fast.

Apple's stepping into 64 bit software is illustrative, because Apple's entry is so well thought out and easy to migrate to. Microsoft will have extreme difficulty persuading its customers to migrate, because you must choose to run either 32 or 64 bit OS's, not concurrently. Leopard is 64 bit from top to bottom except for the kernel to maintain the current drivers. I'm betting that Apple will render all 32 bit software and hardware legacy in five years.

This means that the exciting programming will be at Apple, as will be the new possibilities offered by improving hardware. If Apple can maintain a fast development cycle for long enough, while Microsoft lags behind, then Apple will build up huge advantages.

Canny business customers are now taking advantage of the fact that Apple offers much lower Total Cost of Ownership over a longer product life span. This does not matter in the Enterprise markets where acquisition and operating costs are kept strictly separate, but it matters in the SMB markets.

Another area where Apple saves SMB customers money is in servers. Because it has unlimited server clients, an Xserve can cost a third as much as a Dell server to set up and run.

Again, these issues can be ignored in huge, bureaucratic companies, but not in the SMB market. But, SMB companies do not always stay small and they are likely to continue with Apple if it saves them money. Eventually, even the most hidebound and bureaucratic Enterprise companies will notice when their smaller competitors have a much lower computer overhead cost.

[Pete]

Well, the fact that this starts off disparaging Apple's hardware as "toys" sets the tone now doesn't it? On the topic of Java, it would be nice if Apple stepped up its efforts, but on the topic of firewall I just laugh. If someone is relying on a software firewall to protect their system, they are just nuts. Sure, turn it on if it is off, but get real and get a hardware firewall: router. As for is it a bad thing Apple has it off? I don't know, I've seen Window's Firewall and Norton's make a system unusable because they were on by default and closed all in and out on the system in question.

[bugsnw]

Leopard is very attractive for small business. The sharing/iChat features and stability and lack of viruses and malware just make it a natural choice.

Real Estate is a valid exception. Access to the MLS and functioning web sites are far more critical and as mentioned above, much of that caters to proprietary MS code.

We use Parallels and find it works perfectly when we need specific Windows tasks to be done.

Leopard is great, however, for those that aren't interested in the MS way. You can go All Mac and do quite well and reduce your downtime costs substantially.

[Tom]

Enterprise OS? Not until enterprise software will run on OS X

SAP
SAS
Oracle
Java
Novell

the list goes on.

[Jim]

@Nick @Louis -

64Bit leopard will do nothing to increase the adoption rate in the enterprise. A 64bit OS is nothing without applications. Vista 64bit works wonderfully with both 32 bit and 64 software and most of the hardware issues have been long since worked out by this point. Please stop spreading FUD. I work with Apple in an enterprise enviroment and let me tell you they have zero clue about how to communicate with customers. We just had a meeting with them this week, it was a joke. We are still waiting for our copy of Leopord that was promised part of our 5 figure support contract with them.

[ocracokewaves]

"Well, the fact that this starts off disparaging Apple's hardware as 'toys'"

I consider my Windows computers and my Apple computers both toys.

My boat is also considered a toy, and I really like it.

I use Macs and I use Windows. You play games on Windows machines, and you can do serious work on Macs.

I have done more work on my Mac than I will ever do on a Windows machine, but that isn't the point of the article

The point of the article is that Apple isn't in the enterprise business.

Anyone seeing lots of signs of Apple going after the enterprise from the fact that they have released Leopard is wrong.

I can assure you that no government organization and very few large business organizations allow employees to just stick their computers on the network even if it is a Mac.

"Employees are bringing their personal computers into work and finding that they function well."

You don't just allow any computer on your network not if you have a serious network.