Mac in a PC World (asking about business use)

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I am in sales for a company that is generally PC based (Dell laptops, exchange server for email and calendars...).

I am considering buying a MBP as a personal and sometimes business machine (hate the Dell laptop) -

I'm guessing I'll have to use Entourage to access the exchange calendar (or use ie4mac and Outlook OWA).

Really I just have an open question about how have others found the fit of Mac into a traditional Windows environment?
 
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I am the only mac user in my past two offices. I have made it work by knowing how to connect to all the servers and printers at my offices. I do also use windows to access a national database that has a windows only program you have to load on to your computer. Running boot camp isn't all that hard to do and can help if you have to be compliant with the rest of the office.
 
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Thanks for taking the time to reply -

Were there generally any issues that you had to overcome (Exchange connectivity, VPN, whatever)?
 
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VPN can cause problems, just because there's so many implementations. Entourage will connect with exchange servers, though. For Windows only stuff, you can run Xp in a virtual envirnment
 
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I would invest in Parallels. Because it runs Windows directly in OSX, it will save you a lot of time switching between the two via Bootcamp.

If you do go that route, I would recommend at least 2GBs of RAM.
 
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I have the only Mac in my department, although lots of people where I work have Macs at home. We're a top-to-bottom Microsoft shop in the office, except for me and the things I'm responsible for.

Entourage is "good enough." It doesn't have the same level of Exchange support that Outlook does, but it'll bring you your mail and show you your calendar. Just pray nobody ever tries to share a Task with you.

I have no VPN issues with either F5 or PPTP, the two protocols my company uses. Your actual mileage may vary.

Office on the Mac is usually pretty good...but VBA support is questionable in 2004 and gone completely in 2008, which may or may not be an issue for you. (Office 2008, like Office 2007 for Windows, made some questionable adjustments to the feature set.)
 
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Thanks so much for contributing to this thread - exactly the type of observations I was hoping people would post.

No only if I could get my company to pony up some $$ for that MBP so I don't have to buy it myself.
 
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I bought a MacBook about a year ago and I am loving it. Like you my company issues a crappy dell with a lot of software the slows it down tremendously. I am using parallels to do most of my work stuff.

When it comes to VPN though its a problem. First off you have to make sure that you have all the VPN Client info, with my company its pre-installed and configured on the laptops before they hand them to us so I can get the info to use through my Mac.

The only way I get around it is using a website through my company that will allow me to log in to the VPN network from any browser, which also allows me to check email that way as well.

Hope that helps.

Cheers
 

AJB


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For some years I was the CEO of a services business that did most of its day to day trade through the web via a customer portal. having previously been a Mac user I used my Mac powerbook in the windows environment and converted the sales director to Mac's as well.

My IT people were resistant. One issue they repeatedly raised was that they could not run their antivirus software on the Mac's and that security may be compromised. Bearing in mind that this was at director level, it was a reasonable concern. I was never sure how much of an issue it really was.

The Mac's functioned well in the Windows environment and sharing of Word. Excel and Powerpoint files was never an issue.

Both the sales director and I used Entourage for email. It is not as good as fully functioned Outlook, but probably better that outlook express. Certainly our use of Entourage caused issues with on line diary management for our secretaries. I rarely use Entourage now, as I use Mac Mail. That is not brilliant either from a business perspective.

We also had problems connecting to the VPN, especially from home.

Some of our business software, particularly the sales and inventory management tools (that were partially accessible to customers as well as staff) were not Mac compatible and this was a nuisance for the sales director.

We also had an issue with back-ups. All of the networked windows machines were backed up on a scheduled basis automatically. This was not possible with the Mac's within the same framework and we had to take additional steps.

In truth, if I were a CEO of a business and had one of my staff wishing to use a mac when the rest of the business was windows, I would probably say no. I think that for the business, it tends to cause costly hassle (because of wasted time) if one's IT guys are not Mac familiar.
 
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In truth, if I were a CEO of a business and had one of my staff wishing to use a mac when the rest of the business was windows, I would probably say no. I think that for the business, it tends to cause costly hassle (because of wasted time) if one's IT guys are not Mac familiar.

It depends on the size of your company and the complexity of the network. Ask you're IT guys and see what they think. Heck, they may hate Windows and use Mac's at home. If you frequently require their assistance and they are resistant, then you may have a problem.

However, if it is a relatively simple network--basic file sharing, etc. you'll have no problem. My company has 25 employees. We actually don't even have full time IT staff. The network is basic. Harddrives and printers are shared, and that's about it. I never have any problem and everyone else around me uses PCs.
 
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I am the only Mac at work.

Mail.app is all I needed, even connecting to an exchange server for mail.

VPN is an issue because the Mac Cisco client does not support statefull firewall.

To connect to MSSQL Databases (and VPNs) I use Windows XP in a virtual machine with VMware.
 

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