TOM KEMP'S CENTRIFY BLOG

New Survey Details Top Mac/Windows Integration Needs

Thursday, September 4, 2008

GroupLogic — one of Centrify's partners in the Enterprise Desktop Alliance ("EDA") – has just released a very interesting survey detailing the major issues and concerns when faced with Mac integration within the enterprise. The survey of 350 IT professionals found that 70% had Macs within their enterprise with another 6% planned to add Macs to their IT infrastructure in the near future, which is another datapoint showing increased Mac adoption within enterprises. In terms of the most pressing integration challenge vis a vis Mac, the 350 IT pros surveyed said that "Adapting Active Directory policy to support Macs" was their top challenge. This is great news for Centrify and our customers, as we provide the industry's most robust solution for extending Microsoft Group Policy to the Mac.

The survey found that the top 5 challenges were specifically:

1. Adapting Active Directory policy to support Macs
2. Help desk calls from Mac users
3. Compatibility and/or data corruption issues
4. Lack of IT/file naming policy enforcement tools
5. Maintaining the full "Mac Experience" for their end-users

The vendors in the Enterprise Desktop Alliance actually do a great job of addressing these challenges, and you can see for yourself how they do it by viewing the EDA's first live demo on September 9, 2008 at 11 am PT / 2 pm ET. Click here to register. The goal of the webcast is to let you see how you can take the same data protection, identity management, software and client management, and network infrastructure that you use for Windows and use them to organize and control the Macs in your environment.

It seems like analysts are also seeing Mac management in a Windows world as a growing IT challenge. Two recent datapoints on this are:

1. Laura Didio, formerly an analyst with Yankee, and now with Information Technology Intelligence Corp, was quoted in the GroupLogic press release as saying the following: "There is no doubt that companies are increasing the size and scope of their Apple Mac networks. The increased presence and Mac usage brings with it new challenges for IT departments; foremost among these is access to enterprise class management and integration tools for the Mac environment."; and
2. Gartner Group just published a report entitled "An Overview of Supplemental PC Life Cycle Management Tools" (Gartner ID Number: G00159527). Gartner stated that "enterprise Mac support in the industry is still immature" but called out Centrify and LANRev (another EDA partner) as solutions to manage the Mac in the context of a Windows infrastructure. Gartner said this of Centrify: "Centrify offers tools to integrate Mac clients, as well as many varieties of UNIX and Linux systems, into Active Directory, and to extend Group Policies to manage them."

Good to see customers and analysts are seeing this a challenge that needs to be addressed, and products from Centrify and our partners in the EDA are there to help meet those needs.

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