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Re: OT The platform wars are over... [message #99729 is a reply to message #99722] Mon, 28 July 2008 15:01 Go to previous messageGo to previous message
TCB is currently offline  TCB
Messages: 1261
Registered: July 2007
Senior Member
For the time being I'll pretend this response is meant in earnest, and with
an open mind.

"James McCloskey" <excelsm@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>"TCB" <nobody@ishere.com> wrote:
>>
>>"DC" <dc@spammersinhell.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>"TCB" <nobody@ishere.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>Ah, the plight of the brutally oppressed Mac user.
>>>
>>>Well, in the case of the PC nazi dept. head, my wife got a termination
>>>letter hand delivered to her on New Years Eve. Rather than punching
>>>him in the nose, we filed a grievance. Both the dept. head
>>>and the provost who backed him were gone in 6 months when all the
>>>facts came out. It wasn't about platforms, it was about a very bad
>>>dept. head and the platform issue was a symptom, not a cause.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>I was working at a university
>>>>in the mid-90's when we gently suggested that, since there were very
serious
>>>>questions as to whether Apple could continue as a going concern, it might
>>>>be a good idea for Mac-centric departments at least diversify their platform
>>>>choices.
>>>
>>>Reasonable advice. Zero chance of enforcing it on faculty as you
>>>discovered.
>>
>>And had our concerns actually come to pass, i.e. Apple going out of business
>>which was a very real possibility back then, guess who the faculty would
>>have come whining to to bail them out? We were giving prudent advice that
>>SOME people ignored and the rest got a little lucky.
>
>The people that ran around saying apple would be going out of business were
>the ones that would have benefited the most by Apple going out of business,
>MS zealots. Mac users about 25 to 35 million back in those days knew Apple
>wouldn't be going out of business, regardless to the all the vicious lies
>and false rumors. Some people believe that if you repeat a lie enough everybody
>will believe it. You can fool some of the people some of the time but you
>can't fool all of the people all of the time.

Actually MSFT sunk a couple hundred million into Apple and promised continuing
Office support, so the 'MSFT zealots' (which of course I'm not) if anything
were helping to keep power going to the life support system Apple was on.


>It wasn't good advice then and it still isn't now!
>>
>>>
>>>>IT departments are charged with a different mission that home users.
To
>>>this
>>>>day where I work I don't tell people what computers, operating systems,
>>>and
>>>>applications they can or can't use. It's not my job, or my place to tell
>>>>them that, what I CAN tell them is what I can promise them I will support.
>>>>I tell them that if they're running a laptop I set up with an operating
>>>system
>>>>I know if it breaks I'll fix it. If they want to use Mail on a OS X or
>>check
>>>>IRC using emacs on a minix machine, more power to them, but I can't say
>>>for
>>>>sure that I can fix things if they break.
>>>
>>>Fair enough. They have budgets and can pay for their own support.
>>>You do realize the implications, right?
>>
>>As far as I can tell the implication is that I'm charged with giving world
>>class support to my users, which I do. In return they trust that I will
>make
>>good decisions for this organization about what can and can't be supported,
>>within reason. That means that on the OS level I advise people not to have
>>WORK machines that are Vista or OS X. Right now I have to be reasonably
>conversant
>>in Solaris 8/9/10, two flavors of linux (SuSE and Red Hat), and CISCO OS.
>>I also have to be fluent in Debian, Server 2k3, and Server 2000 and have
>>projects on hand that are forcing me to learn SQL Server 2005 (in addition
>>to the Oracle 9i db stuff we already have) plus at least basic C# and ASP.NET.
>>Since there only 24 hours in the day and I still like to sleep, eat, make
>>music, and get laid, I think I'd be doing a disservice to my users if I
>suddenly
>>decided to learn a new desktop platform.
>
>That is a lot of stuff to know, so what's another OS? As time goes on,
more
>and more people are going to start using Mac OSX, it wouldn't hurt to learn
>it.

While it certainly wouldn't 'hurt,' is learning another desktop OS really
the best use of my time? I'd say learning more about how OLAP cubes could
be used to calculate performance data for my users would do them more good.
If the people who sign my paychecks and award my bonus want Macs supported,
we can talk about that, but we run a very safe, secure, high performance,
low maintenance AD/XP network here. So far, my people seem to want me to
leverage that and work on custom db/dev work instead of troubleshooting Don's
NIC that couldn't autonegotiate a 100 mb/s connection.

>>
>>Again, what are these implications you speak of?
>>
>
>I think you are anti Mac because it fits in to the IT mentality, and I think
>you think it threatens your livelihood. More Mac, less IT guys needed.

Just because _you_ can't run an efficient, reliable Windows network doesn't
mean that _I_ can't. Precisely because desktop support and OS stuff is a
moving target, and prone to fashion, and a young man's game, over the past
few years I've been staking my livelihood ever more on networking (can't
outsource that to Bangalore), database programming, and recently other dev
work.

TCB

>>TCB
>>
>>>
>>>>But anyway, you're right, we're all out to 'ban' your Macs.
>>>
>>>Hmmm.
>>>
>>>DC
>>>
>>
>

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