Microsoft embraces Apple Mac loyalists – as long as they're using its software Microsoft is seeing the work environment – both in office and remote – become more heterogeneous, with a healthier mix of Windows and Apple Mac devices being embraced by enterprises and workers alike. In response, the software titan has been building up its Intune cloud-based endpoint management system to include a growing …
A healthy mix would allow a choice of both hardware and operating software. And wouldn't be limited to whatever hardware Apple or Microsoft happen to be selling or supporting right now. Raspberry Pi running Linux? Good luck with that.
On the other hand...
"the software titan has been building up its Intune cloud-based endpoint management system to include a growing range of Mac capabilities"
Yes, well please don't bother bringing that to Linux (or anything else) running on a Pi (or anything else).
"In a recent example, Redmond made its native macOS Outlook client free to use, without first having to get a Microsoft 365 subscription or an Office license."
You couldn't pay me enough to use Outlook, thanks. How about making Exchange accessible to real email clients?
-A.
I’m no MS fanboy but although it has its problems, if you have to use Exchange, Outlook is actually a reasonably good email client.
I don’t think you need to worry about them coming for your raspberry pi… for now. But if they do offer a way of managing any OS platform from one “easy” to use management portal then you know management will go for it. Think of the savings!
"Yes, well please don't bother bringing that to Linux (or anything else) running on a Pi (or anything else)."
There's already a penguin section in Intune! Only sub-sections in it so far are Compliance Policies and Configuration Scripts, but I expect it'll expand in due course. There's also a section for Cheome OS in there too (that one's stil marked as (preview). Clearly, they want to suck all devices into Intune, no matter what OS they are running!
I said to my last company I'd walk if they insisted on putting Intune or any other Microsoft shit on my Linux development machine. Luckily the post pandemic squeeze (including the cost of the Intune licences no doubt) meant they ended up paying me to leave, and walk into a better paid job a week later - still Linux and no Microsoft!
You'll find that corporate environments allow you to use whatever operating system you'd like as long as IT's management software runs on it. Don't expect to find anything performing once it's loaded up with antivirus, anti-ransomware, anti-phishing filtering, software asset tracking, intellectual property tracking, location tracking, usage metrics, device access filtering, storage encryption, mandatory VPN, remote wipe... Oh, yes. It will scrutinize temporary files too.
Outlook is, with not the slightest hint of doubt, the worst email client that has ever existed.
I'm prepared to at least entertain the idea that Outlook's calendaring might be useful, for people who value meetings rather more than I do.
-A.
You obviously haven't had Lotus Notes enforced on you. It's over 10 years since I left that employer but I still have bad memories of Lotus Notes and it's appalling UI.
Still frustrated that I have an Office365 subscription (via my employment) on my mac. I only really want it for occasional Word/Excel/OneNote usage but have to suffer the bi-weekly reminders that Lookout has to be updated - a product that is taking up disk space, never actively used (OSX mail runs ok with exchange and failing that there's always webmail), and I don't trust it even when "idle" not to be phoning home/wasting disk/cpu/network bandwidth
> You obviously haven't had Lotus Notes enforced on you.
Oh, but I have (see above).
I thought it to be a dreadful email client.
Of course, it was never designed for that, it was supposed to be a document database. And in that role it worked pretty well. The developers added the ability to email documents almost as an aside. One useful consequence was that your in- and outbox were comprehensively indexed, and finding a message based on it's content was a doddle. I also took a bit of a shine to it as an (accidental) email client when I discovered that it could be configured to quote replies in a reasonably RFC-compliant manner.
Notes was sufficiently successful to keep OS/2 going as a server for a while. In response Microsoft bestowed not only Exchange but also Sharepoint, a legacy only surpassed by Sinofsky gifting us first the Office ribbon and then Windows 8 tiles.
-A.
Outlook on a Mac is a waste of space. The native mail, calendar etc apps are way better and work happily with Exchange across all your iThings.
Outlook on iOS is truly awful, I uninstalled that a full 10 minutes after downloading it and trying it out; for anything other than mail or calendar, it uses web apps…. did the developers run out of funding?
I've got a 365 subscription for my mac, but I'm thinking of rebuilding it from scratch and going to the native Mac OS apps for Office tasks and things.
Most of my work, even in an office would be RDP sessions or writing design documents that REALLY should be in a more friendly format than .docx
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