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Reprint THE CONNECTED ENTERPRISE FEBRUARY 19, 2013 BYOD boosts Macs vs. PCs New management tools remove last barrier to widespread Mac adoption in the enterprise BY JOHN S. WEBSTER, NETWORK WORLD bers should trend upward as more employ- “We’re seeing a change in the make up of ees take advantage of an employee choice PCs vs. Macs that are not employee owned, he emergence of BYOD policies program, says CTO Gregory Simpson. but company owned. We are seeing a shift and virtual desktop platforms, “When we were having BYOD discus- toward Macs,’’ says Sheila Johnson, a se- plus new integration and man- sions employees said they wanted a choice. nior vice president at the company. agement tools, have removed the At the time, we wanted to be a single-plat- “Employees can choose Macs if that’s final barriers to widespread Mac form shop so we could get scale pricing. But what they want. Forty percent of our Tadoption in the enterprise. with the Mac, we could buy a whole bunch employees, including a large portion of our And while Macs still cost more than or just a few, so that didn’t matter. We had contractors who work here at the head- PCs, IT shops are looking at the bigger ROI two PC vendors and Apple ticked up in quarters are on Macs, and we’ve seen 11% picture and figuring that improvements in part because the form factor was attractive quarter-over-quarter growth of that plat- employee productivity, reduced help desk even to PC users,” he says. form. We also saw more growth globally costs and better inherent security can offset He says another factor in offering Macs than PC growth in November,” she adds. the higher sticker price. as a choice was the growth of iPhones at In terms of support, Cisco IT learned “Over the past 15 years, Apple targeted GE. The company had 10,000 in August that when Macs first came into the com- every argument against them and made of 2011, and that grew to 30,000 in August pany — and it had 2,500 that were not them moot,’’ says Matt Heric, CEO at IAVO 2012. IT-supported — they were self-supported Scientific, an engineering software develop- What’s more, the company’s new em- by employees. ment company in Durham, N.C. ployee choice program and support of both “It should be a last resort to call the help desk when you have a support problem. To avoid this, within the community we pro- vide actions, content and policies, and chat. When we were having BYOD discussions employees said All this is part of our self-support offering, they wanted a choice. We had two PC vendors and Apple which started on the Mac. That’s improved ticked up in part because the form factor was attractive even our employees’ confidence in the Mac plat- form and helped drive adoption. Employees “ to PC users love it. It’s simple and easy to use on PCs, — Gregory Simpson, CTO, GE Macs, iPhones and iPads.” adds Johnson. CBS Interactive has a similar story. The design of Macs, as well as usability and After being a 100% PC shop, IAVO em- iPhones and Macs have become a positive lowering prices, contribute to its growth ployees are now all on Macs. This even in- recruiting tool because it communicates at the company, says CTO Peter Yared. He cludes the company’s engineers, who once that it is a contemporary company, he says. also notes that PCs are seeing a growth thought PCs would remain the primary Forrester released a report in September spurt of late due to Windows 8. tool in software engineering. detailing why more large companies are “When we brought in Macs, we thought Analysts are predicting that 2013 will be turning to the Mac. “One thing we found we’d have to do a lot of training, but none a big year for Macs in the enterprise. In a is it’s clear that there’s more confidence in of the employees who chose Macs needed report released in mid-2012, Gartner fore- the Mac for the perception of security — it’s it. We could even switch key commands to casted that the Mac would see more than more secure than a Windows machine. those in a Windows environment, so people 20% year-over-year growth in the business That’s hard to argue, because historically who are used to PCs were not confused by market, while the PC would see about a 5% there have been relatively few intrusions the Apple key commands,” Yared says. drop. on the Mac,” says analyst Dave Johnson, At the company, 30% to 35% of employ- the report’s primary author. ees use MacBook Airs and iPhones, and as GE brings the Mac to life Cisco was a leader in bringing Macs a result, they’re a more “excited” workforce, General Electric has about 330,000 com- into the enterprise. The company now has according to Yared. puters on employee desktops, of which 28,000 Macs out of an installed base of “Employees are happier and that makes only 2,500 are Macs. But those Mac num- about 80,000 PCs. them more productive. In addition, our fearless leader, Jim Lanzone, is a big sup- lels, Moka Five, Orchard Parc, Centrify and signed a Web site on the PC, we purchased porter of using Macs, and that has given Group Logic. certain fonts that didn’t work on the Mac. the program a fantastic boost. We might • Moka Five provides a standardized To solve this, we use Open Type fonts, see over time that 90% of employees want way to deploy VMware desktop virtu- which work on Macs and PCs. Cost sort of Macs,” he adds. alization on Macs. entered into it because the site is subscrip- At Cambridge, Mass.-based Caregroup, • Orchard Parc provides OPUS, which tion-based, but we did it on case-by-case CIO John Halamka, says that given the lets Macs work with Windows without basis,” he says. demand for OSX and iOS in the user com- the need for a virtual machine and And Macs aren’t totally self-supporting. munity, it is the responsibility of CIOs hardware. “I do agree that you need to find an IT guy to embrace, manage and support these • Centrify Direct Control for Mac OS X or company that specializes in the Mac. PC devices. integrates with Active Directory and guys don’t ‘get’ Macs,” he adds. “At present, we have about 12,000 Win- Windows Group Policy. dows devices, 1,000 iPads, 4,000 iPhones, • Group Logic solves the problem of Costing it out and 2,000 Mac OSX devices,” he says. Macs accessing Windows for file shar- Before it began to bring in more Macs, Ge- ing. nentech thought IT management would be Management: The final frontier • Parallels Desktop allows users to run more expensive. This turned out to not be Dave Johnson at Forrester says to reduce Windows apps on their Macs, and Par- the case, says Cindy Elkins, vice president management challenges when Macs are allels Management Suite for Microsoft of IT. brought into a corporate setting, IT depart- System Center provides for cross-plat- “At first IT management thought the Mac ments should determine which employees form management. would be more expensive, but the truth is, are good candidates for BYOC. Of course, Mac integration into the when we retrained people on the service They should also take into account enterprise still has some minor kinks to be desk, for example, we found that it’s actu- things like access privileges and regulatory worked out. ally cheaper.” In addition, the Mac is more durable, she adds. “But all goes back to IT, and we’re Employees are happier and that makes them more produc- ahead of the curve there. This has to do with being in the medical field, but the Mac tive. We might see over time that 90% of employees want users have proved to be as happy as can be, Macs and the machine is actually very easy to “ — Peter Yared, CTO, CBS Interactive support. It’s our philosophy in IT to take courageous steps. Having lots of Macs has also proven to be a recruitment tool.” issues. At the high end, they need to assess There are still some issues with high-end Her final words of wisdom regard- user sophistication, and identify groups of graphics, says IAVO Scientific’s Heric. ing Mac management reflect those of employees who can take care of themselves. Elsewhere, at Lighthaus Design, which other IT managers. “Don’t think around “There are a couple of ways to do this began to bring in Macs in greater numbers a Windows-centric model. Invest in Mac once you decide on your approach. You can several years ago, other issues arose, says management expertise, and modernize deliver the Windows desktop to the Mac, Glenn Romanelli, president, CEO and your application portfolio. Your software and expand self-support. Software such as creative director at the Web development vendors will have to be more prepared, and Casper Suite does a really good job with company. to support the Mac.” this,” he says. “There were a few problems when we Other management software that has considered a switch to the Mac. Fonts are Webster is freelance writer. He can be reached at been released for the Mac include Paral- critical in my industry. When someone de- [email protected]. © Copyright 2013 by Network World, Inc., Southborough, MA 01772-9108 • Posted from NetworkWorld.com • Trademark is owned by International Data Group, Inc.

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