Macs@IBM

I remember migrating from Symphony to MacWrite one afternoon in
1985: it took 40 minutes. Later I migrated to Lotus Jazz for a
symphonic experience on Mac. Then System 3.1? came and ate the
printer drivers. Jazz was really good. About as good as Claris
Works when that appeared.

But in those days we expected a development team of 1 to produce the
best work. Then it would take 10,000 salespeople to move it.

George

Chris Devers wrote:
> On Apr 17, 2008, at 3:08 PM, sagg928 wrote:
>
>
> I just read the following article:
>
> <http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/04/16/ibm-launches-pilot-program-for-migrating-to-macs/#more-1752>
>
>
> which drew my attention because of this sentence:
>
> "IBM’s software strategy is also embracing the Mac platform, with a
> new version of Lotus Notes and an integrated package of office
> productivity software based on OpenOffice and branded as Lotus
> Symphony being slated for release for the Mac later this year."
>
> This sounds hopeful, though I've not used anything Lotus in decades
> but really want something decent in order to migrate all my AW docs.
> Any comments or other info on this?

Switch from AW to Lotus anything will be like switching from a right hand driver sedan to a left hand drive sports car. Or maybe a truck. They will both allow you to get "there" but the experience will be vastly different.

> A pilot program of 24 employees, being expanded by another 100 within
> the next year, seems really timid & conservative to me. Even adding
> these 124 to the 930 said to be in the "MacsIBM" group, that's still
> a tiny fraction of the 386k employees IBM has worldwide. (Source:
> <http://finance.google.com/finance?q=ibm)>. I find it difficult be
> impressed by what they're doing with such a small fraction of their
> workforce.

There are a LOT of folks at IBM who use Macs both officially (their manager approved the purchase) or unofficially (they bring in their personal machine). Mostly in the technical services side or in software development. Remember that IBM does a LOT of development and support on Windows of all flavors, Linux, Mac, etc... So firing up a Mac with Parallels or Fusion has a lot of benefits. One it's the only "real" way to run the Mac OS. Two it makes virus issues much easier to contain. And three it's easier to deal with (for many) than a Linux laptop running multiple virtual machines.

But before you give something to sales reps and secretaries and human resources and ... you need to look at the costs and issues when there are 100K people involved. Say it costs $3000 per person for equipment, software, estimated initial support, etc... A roll out to 20k people is $60,000,000. And the $3,000 is likely low.

> Also, I haven't seen this new version of Notes, but I had to use it
> at a job a few years ago, and it was by far the most painful mail
> client I've ever come across. I'm not a fan of Entourage/Outlook, but
> I can at least appreciate that they represent modern, well engineered
> productivity software. Notes was like some Zombie holdover from the
> 80s reaching forward from the grave of Agenda to strangle anyone that
> dared cross its path.

> As for the last point, why use a Symphony branded version of
> OpenOffice when you can just use the OpenOffice branded version of
> OpenOffice? Nostalgic for more 80s zombie software? :-) You would
> probably be better off, at least in the short run, seeing if
> NeoOffice (a Java based Mac port of OpenOffice) can handle your
> documents, rather than waiting for Symphony to come along...

So when you open up or work this those old Symphony documents or just want a tech support number to call, you have one. Large companies want to have a place to get support for large scale roll outs, tech support desks, etc...

David Ross

On 18 Apr 2008, at 18:03, David Ross wrote:

> There are a LOT of folks at IBM who use Macs both officially (their
> manager approved the purchase) or unofficially (they bring in their
> personal machine). Mostly in the technical services side or in
> software development. Remember that IBM does a LOT of development
> and support on Windows of all flavors, Linux, Mac, etc... So firing
> up a Mac with Parallels or Fusion has a lot of benefits. One it's
> the only "real" way to run the Mac OS. Two it makes virus issues
> much easier to contain. And three it's easier to deal with (for
> many) than a Linux laptop running multiple virtual machines.

I was at a developer event in Dublin las November where IBM had a
group showing their software for Windows & DB2. All bar one guy ran
Mac Book Pros, he didn't as he had not been due to renew his laptop
since the two year tie in deal with Lenovo expired.

The software of course will run on a Mac, but it just ain't
supported :-) These were die hard ThinkPad users who are now die hard
MBP users.

        f

I believe that IBM is being more aggressive then this article indicates. I had a IBM representative at my office last week, and he received a substantial rebate from IBM for buying a MacBook Pro.

Jonathan Cohn
Application Developer
Sprint

On Mon, Apr 21, 2008 at 3:44 AM, Cohn, Jonathan C [IT]
<Jonathan.C.Cohnsprint.com> wrote:
> I believe that IBM is being more aggressive then this article indicates. I had a IBM representative at my office last week, and he received a substantial rebate from IBM for buying a MacBook Pro.

I have a friend who works in Rational sales, and he, too, received a
significant rebate. I don't remember the details now of how it worked,
but I think it's some sort of employee discount program where IBM
gives rebates to offset part of the cost of the computer purchase.
Apparently, Apple was recently added to the program because of demand.

--
Bob Williams
TriVectus, LC

Good for IBM. Now why can't the satellite TV companies such as DISH support the Mac by offering high speed internet? Why must I keep paying Comcast for "channels" I don't watch just so I can use my computer?

Denise Kusel Santa Fe