The future: Windows streaming through notched Apple screens

As Apple's devices continue to find favour with enterprise users, the fortress that is Windows appears to be under attack in the corporate world. Speaking to The Register as the Jamf Nation User Conference wound down, the software firm's CEO, Dean Hager, is - unsurprisingly - ebullient when it comes to the prospects for Apple …

[Marty McFly]

I didn't plan for it...

...but the majority of my home computers are now Macs. Just kind of happened, it wasn't some sort of personal epiphany to run away screaming from Windows. I didn't turn in to a crazed fanboi hanging on Apple's every announcement either.

Just seem more stable, less crap, and I don't have to learn a new UI every version. Ten year old Mac Mini's drive all my TVs (instead of Roku style IoT things), and they are rock solid. When I head to the couch and grab a laptop to surf on, I am reaching for a MacBook Pro & not a Lenovo.

[Kevin McMurtrie]

Re: I didn't plan for it...

It goes in waves. Apple has very long update cycles but they don't offer discounts on badly aging hardware. I really needed to update at a time when obsolete Trash Can Mac was still the premium offering. In came a couple of fast Linux desktops. They have a mix of spinning rust and SSD combined in ZFS giving me performance and storage I could never afford on a Mac with APFS.

[Steve Davies 3]

Pulling up the drawbridge

is a wonderful comment about MS.

Sooner or later, MS is going to have to go down the ARM route. The capability of ARM based CPU's is now beyond that of most Intel CPU's.

Once customers see ARM hardware costing less than Intel ones and that those lower cost devices will perform better than what they have, the Beancounters will demand Windows on ARM have the same functionality to Windows on Intel and that it is available to everyone.

How long will MS stick to Intel? That is the question.

I don't run any Windows systems and have no vested interest in MS going either way. TBH, the longer MS sticks to Intel Only the better. It will show everyone just how behind the times they have become AND how they simply don't care about their customers. It isn't the case at the moment but in one year or less? It could be another case of MS missing the trends in computing. It has happened before and can easily happen again.

[Dave 126]

Re: Pulling up the drawbridge

Microsoft have been *trying* to go the ARM route for years now. Currently, there are some native applications for Windows 10 ARM, emulation for legacy applications seems to work:

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/windows-on-arm-this-is-how-well-64-bit-emulation-is-working/

Interesting, but not ready for primetime might be fair assessment.

It should also be noted that for years Apple's iPhone SoCs have been distinct from rival ARM offerings from Qualcomm, Samsung et al, by having stacks of cache and super wide memory doodads. MacOS / iOS graphics API is designed for Apple silicon and vice versa, the CPUs and GPUs sharing all RAM radically saves power. Not off the shelf stuff. I don't believe Qualcomm have an M1-rivalling chip just waiting for Microsoft to jump on.

[Gunnar Wolf]

Re: Pulling up the drawbridge

MS actually runs quite well on ARM hardware.

I am writing this from a Snapdragon laptop — a Lenovo Yoga C630. I am running Linux, of course, but it is a very nice, modest ARM laptop. It was originally sold two years ago, and I bought it a couple of months ago. Speedwise, it's completely OK, comparable in most tasks with my same-generation i5 laptop, but is fanless — and the battery lasts like forever.

Of course, the machine was sold running Windows, and it runs quite happily. It does have some sort of x86 emulation for programs not available for ARM; I never tested the emulation's quality.

But anyway, I don't think MS will let this one go as they did with the Windows Phone.

[Anonymous Coward]

Which enterprise users?

Just the price alone means many companies won't approve them for many users. Moreover having to buy from a single supplier means you can't try to pitch salesmen one against the other. And not every application used has been turned into a web one or available for macOS. While many companies want tight control on devices. iPads are different devices - used for different tasks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Which enterprise users?

That's because nobody does a proper TCO evaluation.

From the moment you start adding in that large chuck of OPEX you waste on coping with all its problems known as people's salaries (time wasted because of patching, restarts and downtime), other platforms all of a sudden look very favourable - which is why you will never see that added if Microsoft has anything to say over it.

That is, however, why I have seen many private banks switching.

They know numbers.

[Shane Sturrock]

Re: Which enterprise users?

Oddly enough, the bean counters at a company I worked for a few years back looked at the costs of hardware and came to the conclusion that Apple hardware lasted longer and so was cheaper. They mandated all laptop purchases would be MacBook Pros and we were free to install Windows or Linux if we didn’t want to stick with MacOS.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Which enterprise users?

There's another benefit: international support.

People running around the planet with MacBooks (and other Apple gear) can rely on a degree of support on hardware and the base OS in Apple Stores around the world. The problem we had with any other bit of hardware was that we had to keep stores and for international support we had expensive contracts that never quite delivered value, which is not a problem with Apple stuff.

The disadvantage is that there aren't enough officially accredited repair centres (none in some countries) which is really something Apple has to fix if it wants to be more credible in the business world, and people who can run a commercial Apple based environment are still rare - we had to basically grow our own :).

[Shane Sturrock]

Re: Which enterprise users?

I have personal experience of just this - I had (actually have because it still works after 15 years) a MacBook Pro Core Duo I bought in the UK and I moved halfway around the world about the time there was a battery recall. I took it to a local authorised service centre and there were no questions, just swapped the battery there and then. There aren’t any apple stores at all here, and if I buy anything it comes in from overseas but there are plenty of places that specialise in servicing although some are quite dodgy and can try to charge for repairs that are subject to a recall so you have to be on your guard. Given PC’s often have different components even within the same model it isn’t surprising they have such a short lifespan.

[Ali Dodd]

Hmm

"The pain of managing a mixed hardware fleet aside, there is always that one weird corporate app for which Windows is required."

Just one? We have several, but that's not all of it. Mac users in general don't seem to understand: basic security, any form of tidying or filing systems to organise their data; file extensions; etc. Plus the cost and single supplier issues. They are not enterprise focused - as they say themselves.

Windows may have it's issues but at least it's cheap and massively supported not a weird offshoot with their "do it this way nothing else will be tolerated" attitude. Rather go Linux, would be less painful.

[thondwe]

Re: Hmm

Mixed Hardware/Software is the bane of any enterprise I.T. trying to enforce security/data/licence compliance and these pressures increase, you can only see MS being the default solution

Mac Users aren't unique in understanding security/organizing etc - 90% of end users fall into this bucket, hence the importance of Enterprise Manageability tools which are an after thought in Apple Land

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Hmm

Enterprise Manageability tools which are an after thought in Apple Land

What exactly do you think Jamf supplies?

:)

[Shane Sturrock]

Re: Hmm

I have an IT supplied Windows laptop and my daily use workstation is a Mac. One of these things keeps getting stuffed up by IT pushing out updates requiring reboots at the most inconvenient times, plus forcing expiring passwords (which is just bad practice but do you think these IT gurus will listen?) versus the ssh keys I use for my Linux and Apple boxes. IT loves Windows because they can mess with it, I won’t let them near my Mac and it is fully updated and maintained plus an Apple machine is by far the best tool for working with Linux servers in a corporate environment because it has all that Office stuff Linux lacks. No, LibreOffice is good but won’t do everything so I’m stuck with Office365 and the web version of that is terrible so native apps that are better than the Windows versions (where are my menus Microsoft??? Oh, there they are on my Mac, phew) plus Apple hasn’t stolen CTRL-C for copy which clashes with every Linux/Unix system out there so working with Linux from a Mac is joyous and Windows isn’t.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Hmm

Ah, Windows. I wonder why the scammers (4 calls just today about the performance of my Windows Computer) make so much money if the windows users are so clued up on security?

I've yet to have a call about how my macOS system is slowing down and sending all sorts of alerts to Apple.

many people who use computers of all sorts don't know about regular maintenance, backups and everything else. At least with macOS, it comes with a pretty decent system backup solution included. With windows isn't it still an afterthought?

A friend of mine is hardly what you call computer literate. /well, at age 71 she is from a generation where the only computers were mainframes. She had a Windows system for about 10 years and I had to rebuild it three times. Finally, the thing gave up the ghost so I moved her to a Mac Mini in 2013. She took to it straight away and won't go back to Windows. Her system went out of support last year so I changed it for an M1 based Mini last Feb. Everything moved over without an issue. Her old Mini now runs Linux and is used for the development of a WordPress plugin. Her backups are done using Time Machine and she runs CleanMyMac once a week.

Ok, This isn't a scientific survey but it is a real experience.

[Throgmorton Horatio III]

It's not just weird office apps

I process photos, using a non-subscription version of Adobe Lightroom on Windows 10, and do not want software as a service. I also have a Macbook, but find Apple's walled garden claustrophobic. If windows goes this way, I can see myself running an obsolete version in a virtual machine under Linux, regardless of the hardware being offered.

TBH I don't think many users have cared for a long time what their hardware is - most of us just want something that works adequately quickly with enough storage space and reasonable stability without interference from the OS supplier. The direction Microsoft are headed in is likely to make users look for alternatives.

[sreynolds]

The circle is almost complete

I used to use citrix to run windoze on unix workstations in the 90s. Doesn't the enterprise want me to run windoze on hardware and storage that it controls?