Green IT Toolkit

Is Apple on the way out?

David Berlind ZDNet.com

Published: 13 Oct 2004 17:45 BST

In the desktop world, end-users, small businesses, and even large corporations are willing to spend extra for ease-of-everything and take the requisite bloat (the GUI, printer and file sharing utilities, scripting hosts, power management, auto-configuring wireless networks, multimedia facilities, etc.) that comes along with it. But not too much extra. As evidenced by Apple's lack of traction on the desktop -- where it leads on ease of a lot of things (but not everything) -- the majority of users are satisfied with less than OS X.

Today, even the most reputable and recommended distributions of desktop Linux, such as Gentoo and Xandros, are not the no-brainers that OS X and Windows -- in that order -- are. However, it's only a matter of time before desktop Linux follows precisely the same path as server Linux did when it worked its way from the pockets of early adopters and risk takers into gaining the widespread affection of server administrators.

The target for desktop Linux is simple: OS X. All desktop Linux must do is aspire to be what OS X is. If it can do that, it will not only upset the "Applecart", it will also give desktop Windows a serious run as well. The number one issue working against OS X on the desktop today is cost. We're willing pay extra for an easy to use, shrink-wrapped bundle of hardware and software, but OS X in combination with Apple's hardware exceeds the budget for a majority of users. Many today would argue that it's not cost, but rather that they're walled into Windows because of compatibility issues. Indeed, for some, that walled garden is difficult to extract themselves from. For example, I'm still trying to figure out what I'm going to do about some custom developed Visual Basic applications that I left behind in my move to a Mac.

But, the majority of users -- people who use their PCs to browse the Web, do email, and run Office -- are not nearly as walled in as they think they are. For example, prior to my attempt to run solely on OS X, consider my environment: Windows XP, Outlook, Exchange Server, Internet Explorer, a virtual private network based on Microsoft's VPN technology (PPTP), Microsoft Office, and one Visual Basic application. You can't get much more "Microsoft" than this.

Since I'm dead without a connection to our corporate network, OS X 10.3's (Panther) provision of a solid PPTP client matches Windows XP provision of the same. Regarding access to my Exchange Server, OS X's built-in mail client is capable of natively accessing Exchange Server. It works fine. I tried it. Unfortunately, iCal, OS X's built-in calendaring program, won't connect to Exchange Server for calendaring. But, all is not lost. You can spend £400 to have the benefits of Microsoft Office 2003 Professional for Windows that includes the Outlook mail and calendaring client. With OS X, you can spend the same £400 for Office 2004 for OS X that includes the Exchange-compatible Entourage mail and calendaring client (which, with its project-oriented functionality, some might consider to be superior to Outlook).