[X4U] Trying to get a Mac Laptop approved - Part 1

Zane H. Healy healyzh at aracnet.com
Sat Oct 18 00:04:37 PDT 2008


At 12:13 PM -0700 10/16/08, Ken Schneider wrote:
>  >> I have copied the response from my company's IT Manager.  He has
>>>  refused my request for my laptop replacement to be a Mac.  You'll see
>>>  that many of his reasons are baseless but I'm not sure how to
>>>  respond.  Any help would be appreciated.  I do need to use Outlook and
>>>  some other Windoze specific applications but that should be fine with
>>>  BootCamp or Parallels.  I remember there were some web sites that have
>>>  info to help refute reasons like the ones I was given but I can't seem
>>>  to locate any recent ones.
>>
>>  Actually I'd say he provided you with very good reasons to refuse your
>>  request.  My question is why you think you need a Mac laptop for work?  What
>>  is your justification?  What is the business need?
>
>Great!  Now with parts 1, 2 and 3, it looks like I have given a 
>bunch of reasons for people to keep Macs out of the workplace.  :-(

What can I say, I sit on the other side of the fence, though all the 
stuff I support sits in a computer room.  There is a lot to be said 
for standardized hardware and software builds.

>I wasn't coming at it from a business need.  I was coming at it from 
>the issue of the Mac being the best tool for my job.  I don't want 
>to give away who I work for or what I do but my job involves a lot 
>of travel to customer sites with Mac-based graphics departments. 
>Many times I need to troubleshoot why certain graphics don't work 
>with our device (non-Mac hardware/software) and I can't be on-site 
>all the time so I need to use these graphics in both Mac and PC 
>environments to get to the root of the problem.  Plus we are trying 
>to court these same graphics people and going in there with a PC 
>laptop will many times generate dirty looks.

You're in sales I believe from something you've said, is this 
correct?  While you start by saying you weren't approaching this from 
a business need, what is the best tool for your job *IS* a business 
need.  As someone that deals with Vendors, what you say above tells 
me that you're looking for the hardware and software necessary to 
"replicate and troubleshoot issues that your customers have". 
Additionally you're trying to "avoid alienating your customers" by 
showing up in a Mac Design house with a Windows laptop.

>I thought there were articles about how well the Mac works in the PC 
>networking architecture and how adding Macs into a Windows 
>environment did not add to IT support costs.  That is the type of 
>information I was looking for to help back up my response.

These sorts of things are more nebulous.  In the corporate 
environment you've described I don't see this helping.

I think someone mentioned using your own laptop as a last resort.  I 
knew a woman that did customer support, in fact I converted her to 
the Mac.  While the company was *strictly* anti-Mac, she always 
brought in her PowerBook and used it.  I've heard of others doing 
this as well.

Zane




-- 
| Zane H. Healy                    | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary)    | OpenVMS Enthusiast         |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet)           | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
|     Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing,    |
|          PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum.         |
|                http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/               |


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