Mac on the Horizon

Hello All,

I have recently joined a new company and am on the brink of setting up a whole new IT setup, everything from a mail server to new desktops etc. The whole kaboodle. My new CEO is a real Apple fan and has asked (in the usual CEO kind of way) if it's possible to use Apple as the standard desktop and laptop. I have to use a couple of windows servers as our business app only has support for MS-SQL server and I have a retail system which must use windows. So before I go in there and and put my neck on the block saying that I don't think it's such a good idea I thought I had better find out a couple of important things first. I someone out there has a couple of mins could they answer me some basic questions?
1. Can MAC machines operate in and be controlled by windows group policy?
2. Is it possible for MACs to use active directory authorities?
3. Is there a fully functional AS/400 (iSeries / Powerx) emulator available for this platform? (I suspect yes but can only find old references to this type of app)
4. Is there some way to ensure that macro loaded MS Office documents can be opened without loss of functionality' especially Access?
Any help or pointers would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers
SC

I am currently doing something similar. I am the server/network admin where I work. It is a Windows environment, but we have a handful of Macs. Mostly the Graphic Design/Marketing department. But I primarily use a MacBook Pro as well.

There are a couple products that you should look at. Likewise and DirectControl will give you some Active Directory integration. As well as the built-in support in the Accounts Preference Pane.

And of course, a lot of Remote Desktop...

I'd have to research all of this for OS X.
But everything you want can be done in bootcamp if you wish. So that's a start. Sure doing it is OS X is the prefered method. But bootcamp is always there.