A Computer Dealer News article posted at MacNewsWorld indicates that attitudes are changing in the IT (information technology) sector, where "itis different than 10 years ago," Simply Computing corporate sales manager Regan Hayes is quoted as saying. "If you mentioned Apple to anybody on the PC side, any IT guys would kind of laugh at you. Now weive got credibility from a company thatis doing well, weive got credibility from a consumer marketplace thatis doing well and now we have companies like Oracle supporting us. Itis like a 180 [degree turn]."
Part of that success is attributable to the release of the Tiger version of Mac OS X Server, which supports 64-bit applications, Weblog Server for publishing blogs, iChat Server secure instant messaging and more. The article quotes Apple Canadais strategic development manager, Willi Powell, who says that the company is finding channel partners who "really never thought of selling or servicing Apple in a data center space."
Mr. Powell continues: "What weire finding is any company with a firm IT infrastructure setup really seems to be opening their doors to Apple servers, and thatis been a bit of a change over the last 12 months ... Itis taken Oracle to say, iWe can put in these servers and theyire identical to Sun servers but theyire less money.i"
In addition, companies like the Montreal-based Mac 911 Inc. and humanIT have integrated Mac clients in Microsoftis Active Directory environment. Stephan Pinheiro, who is president of both firms, says in the article: "The argument of enterprise IT managers is, iWell, we like Mac, weid like to support Mac, but unfortunately they do not fit into our corporate policy management, which is based on Active Directory. Itis no longer an excuse, period."
Mr. Pinheiro adds that opportunities in the storage area networks (SAN) realm "suddenly just exploded." Writer Vawn Himmelsbach notes: "Apple storage solutions are on average 35 to 50 percent cheaper than comparative technology, which allows [Mr. Pinheiro] to go back to customers that previously couldnit afford a SAN."
Finally, Forrester Research analyst Frank Gillett is quoted as saying that what Apple offers can be a viable alternative to Microsoftis Small Business Server (SBS). "When I look at Mac OS Server and the associated hardware, what I see is competition for SBS, integration with Mac OS clients and for people who [donit want] Linux on Intel but still want open source."