Is Microsoft the New Apple?
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Having spent a bit of time on the west coast recently, it's shocking how little Windows you see. Mac and Linux everywhere. Active Directory hasn't been in any company that I've talked to out here. All more modern SaaS tool sets and less hardware management. Apple dominates business desktop computing out here and once you don't have Microsoft on the desktop and AD you don't use it elsewhere either. So things like .NET are nonexistent in these shops.
And this is everything from ten person firms to a couple hundred to the enormous powerhouses that run the Internet. Windows is available almost everywhere as a person by person option if you request it (it is cheaper) but seeing people using it is rare out here. Now these are mostly tech companies, so that is very skewed. The mechanic down the street is invariably running Windows XP or Vista still. That isn't going to change soon. But the larger firms with real offices.... Windows and AD are losing big time in the SF and Seattle markets. Which is really something as Microsoft is based in Seattle.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Having spent a bit of time on the west coast recently, it's shocking how little Windows you see. Mac and Linux everywhere. Active Directory hasn't been in any company that I've talked to out here. All more modern SaaS tool sets and less hardware management. Apple dominates business desktop computing out here and once you don't have Microsoft on the desktop and AD you don't use it elsewhere either. So things like .NET are nonexistent in these shops.
And this is everything from ten person firms to a couple hundred to the enormous powerhouses that run the Internet. Windows is available almost everywhere as a person by person option if you request it (it is cheaper) but seeing people using it is rare out here. Now these are mostly tech companies, so that is very skewed. The mechanic down the street is invariably running Windows XP or Vista still. That isn't going to change soon. But the larger firms with real offices.... Windows and AD are losing big time in the SF and Seattle markets. Which is really something as Microsoft is based in Seattle.
That is very interesting to hear...coming from nearly 100% Microsoft Enterprises to now running my own humble shop of 120 employees and multi-million dollar company, I can't imagine what you just said. That makes me really want to think cross-platform...
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It's worth considering, but there is a reason why traditional work environments use Microsoft across the board too. There is huge value to being homogenous and Microsoft makes their systems have incredible value for the way that normal people work. AD and Windows desktops are secure and easy to maintain and well understood. And surprisingly cheap, all things considered.
Moving away from Microsoft means learning lots of new tools, taking on lots of new challenges and generally means decentralizing control of the desktop, which scares a lot of people (for good reason.) In a tech shop it can work well, in a non-tech company there are many more challenges.
But there is value in all of the systems. That there is more than one approach is great. It makes, if nothing else, Microsoft stay on their toes and continuously deliver more value. But in reality it gives us choice and different systems for people who work in different ways.
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I hope Nadella is the new Nadella!
MS really needs a leader and that article gave me some hope.
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They certainly do, but everything that I have seen leads me to believe that he has the real potential to be that person.
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That was an interesting read.
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He spelt Jabba the Hutt incorrectly a few lines in. I am finding it difficult to move past that.
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Pretty good opinion piece. Much better than the bile filled drivel that usually pass as opinion pieces.
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Scott, how are those west coast companies managing those Macs? For updates, local access control, etc? Is file sharing all done though drop box and the like? email through web only services, maybe O365 or Rackspace?
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@Dashrender said:
Scott, how are those west coast companies managing those Macs? For updates, local access control, etc? Is file sharing all done though drop box and the like? email through web only services, maybe O365 or Rackspace?
Updates are automatic on all modern systems, so that's a no brainer. Local access control is often handled by local accounts and one to one deployments (no sharing of computers like Windows users and Chromebooks users tend to do.) When I first talked to Pertino, for example, they had no idea that companies actually had logins that could be applied to more than one computer - on much of the west coast laptops and desktops are treated like mobile devices with a single login and single user per device. Not that I like that model, but it is often how it is. This makes AD not really useful.
Of course email is hosted, it would be unthinkable in a modern business to have in house email. It would never even come up as a possibility to have on-premises email out here. People would be shocked to find out that people still have that let alone still consider deploying something like that. Not that there aren't good times to have it, but out here, on premises email is a long forgot vestige.
File sharing is, in my experience even with NTG, becoming more rare. I just see less and less of it. That allows tools like Office 365 or Google Apps to really work well. Those are what I see the most of. Of course shops doing media editing need something more than that. But people doing docs, spreadsheets, presentations.... that is all that they need.
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Servers on premises are rare out here too. They exist, but are much less common. The west coast is much more focused on good hosting and good WAN links.
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We are seeing more and more of our SMB customers back away from on premise anything. We often get questions on why do they need to keep up with their AD environment as well.
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It's a new trend, but AD is rapidly dissolving as a needed service. It used to be the core of single sign on but today, as almost nothing easily connects to AD but easily connect to each other, the need for AD is fading away very rapidly. It has gone from a central connector to often being little more than a handy desktop password management system.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Servers on premises are rare out here too. They exist, but are much less common. The west coast is much more focused on good hosting and good WAN links.
If you're doing everything in the cloud, be it O365 or Google docs, what do you really need a server for? Chances are that server can be pushed offsite to Rackspace/Azure/Amazon, so again, why would you need it.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Updates are automatic on all modern systems, so that's a no brainer.
Sure but how do you report on that for any kind of compliance? Even without compliance requirements, do you really consider this good enough for your business? if so, why? and if not, why not?
Local access control is often handled by local accounts and one to one deployments (no sharing of computers like Windows users and Chromebooks users tend to do.) When I first talked to Pertino, for example, they had no idea that companies actually had logins that could be applied to more than one computer - on much of the west coast laptops and desktops are treated like mobile devices with a single login and single user per device. Not that I like that model, but it is often how it is. This makes AD not really useful.
While in corporate America even not on the west coast this is pretty true, one device one user, healthcare as an example this is simply not the case. Though what happens when the receptionist goes on vacation for week? Does the receptionist really have a laptop? My front desk space (along with most Dr's offices I've been to don't have the space to hookup a laptop to a screen, the whole space would have to be retrofit to support them, unless you whole sale replace the desktop/screen/full sized keyboard with a laptop only - and call me old fashion, that just seems wrong.
Of course email is hosted, it would be unthinkable in a modern business to have in house email. It would never even come up as a possibility to have on-premises email out here. People would be shocked to find out that people still have that let alone still consider deploying something like that. Not that there aren't good times to have it, but out here, on premises email is a long forgot vestige.
I knew this answer before I even asked
File sharing is, in my experience even with NTG, becoming more rare. I just see less and less of it. That allows tools like Office 365 or Google Apps to really work well. Those are what I see the most of. Of course shops doing media editing need something more than that. But people doing docs, spreadsheets, presentations.... that is all that they need.
Are you saying that document creation is happening in O365 and shared through O365 so there's really no file storage like the old days really needed? I can see that, assuming it's as easy to grant access and find other people's files when they are unavailable.
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@Minion-Queen said:
We are seeing more and more of our SMB customers back away from on premise anything. We often get questions on why do they need to keep up with their AD environment as well.
If you're in a one to one or BYOD environment, I see why AD becomes less important, especially if you move everything to O365.
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Are you saying that document creation is happening in O365 and shared through O365 so there's really no file storage like the old days really needed? I can see that, assuming it's as easy to grant access and find other people's files when they are unavailable.
We use Office365 for documents that may need to be shared across multiple people.
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@scottalanmiller said:
It's a new trend, but AD is rapidly dissolving as a needed service. It used to be the core of single sign on but today, as almost nothing easily connects to AD but easily connect to each other, the need for AD is fading away very rapidly. It has gone from a central connector to often being little more than a handy desktop password management system.
It's to bad federated services didn't take off more - I'd love to have a nearly global identity that isn't from google or facebook.
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If MS wanted to make serious cash, they'd update AD and make it relevant to other OS's somehow. When managing a fleet of hardware it's a serious PITA to have non-compliant stuff around. I've got AD for MS, and then it dissolves into a morass of generic accounts, specific accounts, user accounts and all sorts of other junk to cover iPads, OSX, linux.... what a mess & headache.
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@MattSpeller said:
If MS wanted to make serious cash, they'd update AD and make it relevant to other OS's somehow. When managing a fleet of hardware it's a serious PITA to have non-compliant stuff around. I've got AD for MS, and then it dissolves into a morass of generic accounts, specific accounts, user accounts and all sorts of other junk to cover iPads, OSX, linux.... what a mess & headache.
This lends into the constant discussion of controlling mobile devices. I realize that a mobile device like a iPhone/iPad/Android tablet, etc all generally a single user device, but when this device is used for a business, I should haven't have to purchase additional tools to mange them. The same tools I use to manage PCs should manage these mobile devices as well.
