IT departments and Macs

Personally, I'm sick and tired of the constant security problems that computer worms and viruses cause. Well, yeah, who isn't? What I mean is I'm sick and tired of the fact that MS seems to leave so many security holes open for hackers to exploit. Because of this, I'm inclined to write the following.

It's obvious from the things i've written or links on this page that I use Macintosh computers, at work and at home. I'm a molecular biologist/microbiologist, and besides regular use of common software of science and business (MS Office, web browsers), much of the specialized software I use for molecular biology is either available only for the Mac or runs better on the Mac. (OK, this has change some over the past few years, but it's my argument and I'm sticking to it.) Seriously, it's been easier to run my lab with the Mac platform...I and members of my group can more easily troubleshoot problems, there are fewer problems to troubleshoot, and the actual computers have a much longer time of life (making them much easier to afford in a lab environment where every dollar counts). I think Mac OS X (and in particular the latest Jaguar 10.2.x) is an absolutely stellar OS, and for me has been a rock solid and extensible OS. I can run software written for Mac OS X, I can still run older Mac software under OS 9 (Classic), I can run programs written for UNIX with GUIs under X-Windows, and I can compile and run programs with command line interfaces. More importantly, it's secure!! Besides the several computers I use daily (PowerMac G4 dual 450 Mhz, a 1 Ghz Powerbook, and a 1 Ghz flat screen iMac (the latter two both recently upgraded from their G3 400 Mhz counterparts), I also administer a 1 Ghz G4 XServe server (running naturally Mac OS X Server) at work. This computer runs a forums web site, as well as serves many Filemaker Pro databases for two groups, and is a file server for about 20 users.

So why am I writing this?

Mostly because of an interesting take on corporate IT groups recently published by Robert X. Cringely under the title "May the Source Be With You: IT Productivity Doesn't Have to Be an Oxymoron, but Outsourcing Isn't the Way to Achieve It". The topic was also touched on by John Gruber on his Daring Fireball blog. The part from Cringley's column that strikes a chord is where he discusses the Mac and wonders why IT doesn't employ it more instead of Linux if an alternative to MS products is desired. First he uses the argument that many IT departments deploy MS servers and clients because that's what they know, yet still fail at keeping those servers and clients secure. The true "geek" IT members migrate to Linux--it's cheaper, fast, and extensible. Yet it takes the same number of IT staff to keep them deployed (the geek factor?). Why not instead set up Mac XServes. They're relatively cheap, powerful, fast, and reliable. All important services (web, file sharing for all platforms, print serving, DNS, DHCP server, etc) can be set up through easy to configure GUI interfaces (the geeks can still use the command line). They are easy to configure and once set up just run. So why doesn't the generic IT use them more? Simple--it can threaten people's jobs. An entire network, support for hundreds to to thousands of users, will literally take fewer support staff than similarly configured network/servers running other OSs.

I've become convinced that this is the "culture" that is pervasive at my own institute. I've been staying out of it lately but we've had some major IT decisions made recently that to me don't make much sense from a financial or intellectual sense. Instead it's "standards" and "requirements" and what headquarters "wants". "We're going to run MS products and why would you want to use a Mac?" What I don't see is someone taking a stand and saying, "you know there is a better, cheaper, and more productive way." I'm fed up enough with this last worm dustup (and watching our IT scramble to install the patches on all the windows machines--a patch availabe for over a month), that I'm going to start making some noise. I've just got to figure a way to not make it sound like the old Mac evangelism. That doesn't seem to work with them.