Centrify Offers Day 1 Support for Apple Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard"
Friday, August 28, 2009
As you probably know, Centrify offers the leading solution for integrating Macs into a Windows environment from an Active Directory perspective (e.g. Group Policy for Mac). Yesterday I saw this note coming from our support team:
Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" introduces 64-bit capability for those Mac systems that can support 64-bit operation. In order to log in with their Active Directory accounts, customers who upgrade to Snow Leopard will also need to upgrade to the DirectControl 4.4 agent, which adds support for 64-bit operation in the Mac environment.
An early access version of the DirectControl 4.4 agent for Mac OS X is available for those who must upgrade to 10.6 now, or for those who have already upgraded and need help restoring Active Directory login functionality. Contact support for access to this agent, and consult the following article for more information:
KB-1353: Support for Mac OS X 10.6
Note: To access the KB article you are required to login to Support Portal.
In looking at the other products that work with Mac, they either say they "will not work with Snow Leopard" or are silent on Snow Leopard support altogether, meaning you have to wait (and wait and wait ...). Give us a call and we will help you out! If an ISV does not have a day 1 answer for a new release of Mac OS X, they are not taking the market (and you, the customer) seriously.
Great job to the Centrify engineering and support team in delivering day 1 support to customers for Snow Leopard and of course delivering the best Mac/Active Directory solution out there as validated by customers and third parties such as these reviewers:
"DirectControl does a better job of integrating the Mac experience with Windows than any other solution."
Jonathan Hassell, SearchWindowsServer.com
"DirectControl offers the simplest and most full-featured Active Directory integration solution for Mac OS X. Because it relies on Active Directory's Group Policy architecture, it functions more seamlessly for managing access ... particularly for systems administrators who are unfamiliar with Mac OS X."
Ryan Faas, ComputerWorld
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The DirectControl MIIS Management Agent is a great example of how Centrify enables customers to get more value out of their investment in Active Directory and MIIS.
Michael Stephenson
Director
Windows Server Division
Microsoft Corp.