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Topic: Enterprise Software

Salesforce dumping 4,000 PCs for Macs?

Summary: According to a post on Alex Curylo's Under The Bridge blog, Salesforce.com may become one of the largest switchers of all time.

Jason D. O'Grady

By for The Apple Core |

Salesforce dumping 4,000 PCs for Macs?According to a post on Alex Curylo's Under The Bridge blog, Salesforce.com may become one of the largest switchers of all time. Curylo's source tells him that 4,000+ staff will be issued Macs when their leases expire:

Salesforce.com is giving Macs to all employees. Yup, all 4000 of us; we are going to be one of the largest enterprise software Mac shops around.  As the leases come up for the Dells, IT is replacing with Macs.

And why, you ask, Security! The resources it takes to defend against all the stuff the baddies throw at a PC, it’s just cheaper/easier to pay a few bucks more for a Mac and not have any of those issues.

With the Google Apps integration, and moving to the Mac, we will be free of the clutches of the Redmond Beast!

One commenter says "I find this tough to believe considering how SF integrates so tightly with Outlook." Another notes that "They did participate in the iPhone demo w/Jobs, didn’t they?" (Thanks MacDailyNews).

Topics: Enterprise Software, Apple, Hardware

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66 comments
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  • Paradigm shift underway...

    When it happens, it happens fast.
    johnb9990
    Reply Vote

    • Good to see Apple making some gains

      Over the past 4 years I've seen too many schools and colleges we deal with change their networks over from Macs to Windows (we're talking ALOT more then 4000 computers here) that I wondered if Apple just gave up on the business market completely.

      Now the key word here is [i]lease[/i]: I wonder if Apple is finally starting to put together a better leasing package these days then it did in the past, losing the "We're Apple, schools love us, and will pay whatever we demand for our hardware" attitude I have heard they developed over the years.
      AllKnowingAllSeeing
      Reply Vote

      • That the opposite of everything I read and experience

        I am an IT admin at a university.. I keep reading about all the schools switching from PC's to Macs... university of Wisconsin, k-12's all over the US... As far as Apple and Education.. Apple has always led the way on Education and offers incredible discounts to schools... I can't speak for business leasing as I am not privy to any of that data. I recently read that the military was switching to macs because of the security as well...

        I gues people don't factor in the cost of all the antivirus software as well as the loss of productivity when they think about PCs.

        I wasn't aware that dell did direct leasing for business.. Does anyone know if that is dell or a 3rd party company that was leasing the Dell PCs to Salesforce???
        i8thecat
        Reply Vote

        • I have not heard that the military

          is switching to Apple. I know there is a push to use open sorce software, which does rule out Apple products also as security is becoming an issue on their products too.

          The military does not want to be locked into any one company, which makes Linux the only real choice in that sense.
          John Zern
          Reply Vote

          • They have increased the quantity of Apple stuff they buy

            They seem to think that for a lot of purposes that Apple stuff is more useful to them.
            zkiwi
            Reply Vote

          • I'm sure every OS

            has it's purpose in some place of the military.

            But the thought of a Tomahawk missle going off-couse as iTunes downloaded Safari and Quicktime into it... :)
            John Zern
            Reply Vote

          • Or...

            The thought of the world going boom because of Microsoft's stealth update. Or perhaps the entire US Marines finding they're part of a Zimbabwean botnet.
            zkiwi
            Reply Vote

          • The most frightening thought

            The thought of the possibility of a tomahawk missile guided by MS Windows just surfaced in my mind for a split second. I am now typing from my wardrobe, half paralyzed by fear.
            theoxygenthief
            Reply Vote

          • Message has been deleted.

            ylysdexia2
            Reply Vote

          • Wrong Military

            Come again with the comment about the military wanting to use open source. I hate to disagree with you, but as a retired military member who worked IT while on active duty and presently as a government contractor that deals directly with the military?again doing IT work?I can fully attest that the military is NOT moving toward open source. Yes, in certain areas and situations open source is used; however, the only official supported distro is the one whose name is synonymous with a crimson colored cap. As for almost all normal desktop systems and servers, the military strictly focuses on Windows.
            DarienHawk67
            Reply Vote

          • Different military 'thinking'...

            Given Apple's marketing toward the young and the trendy,
            you wouldn't expect the U.S. Army to be much of a
            customer. Lieutenant Colonel C.J. Wallington is hoping
            hackers won't expect it either.<p>
            </p>
            Wallington, a division chief in the Army's office of
            enterprise information systems, says the military is quietly
            working to integrate Macintosh computers into its systems
            to make them harder to hack. That's because fewer attacks
            have been designed to infiltrate Mac computers, and
            adding more Macs to the military's computer mix makes it
            tougher to destabilize a group of military computers with a
            single attack, Wallington says.<p>
            </p>
            ...
            <p>
            </p>
            The Army's push to use Macs to help protect its computing
            corps got its start in August 2005, when General Steve
            Boutelle, the Army's chief information officer, gave a
            speech calling for more diversity in the Army's computer
            vendors. He argued the approach would both increase
            competition among military contractors and strengthen its
            IT defenses.
            <p>
            </p>
            [It's worth the read]
            <p>
            </p>
            http://www.forbes.com/home/technology/2007/12/20/ap
            ple-army-hackers-tech-security-cx_ag_1221army.html
            smdunn
            Reply Vote

    • Paradigm shift underway...

      I agree that Apple does seem to be gaining some speed here. If Microsoft doesn't do something soon, they will be headed down a slippery slope.

      I would say, that people switching to Macs, just because they are "more secure", should be aware, that as Mac gains market share, the malicious people will start giving a bigger share of their time to Mas, as well. It doesn't make sense for someone to spend time working on malicious code, when only 7% of the computers will be affected. Once that number hits 51%, you can bet that they will be switching too.
      Striker090871
      Reply Vote

  • when's the training?

    I would guess Salesforce has a slightly higher tech-knowledge crowd than other businesses.

    A wide-scale switch of any software, not just OSs, will require training on a large scale, and that time would have to be budgeted and set aside, or the IT guys will be getting the "omg where's the 'My Documents' folder?" questions every 3 minutes.

    Unfortunately, it doesn't matter how intuitive a piece of software may be.

    I applaud the switch because I want Microsoft to take note and improve their OS, especially from a security standpoint.
    coffeeshark
    Reply Vote

    • The myth of training

      No one does formal training like that in most businesses.
      They simply throw the new software on your desk and the IT
      guy installing it gives you about a five minute tutorial on how
      to use the main features. The rest happens via email.

      drone to IT: "how do I do x?"
      IT to drone: "see attached instruction sheet."
      frgough
      Reply Vote

      • You're right

        I guess this is one way to find out how easy Macintosh really is to use. My experience is that I end up spending an hour or two trying to figure out how to do something, only to find that it's absurdly easy.
        John L. Ries
        Reply Vote

        • Help Menu

          It's amazing how many people who switch to Macs forget about
          the Help menu. When they call me for help I ask if they checked
          the Help menu, they say ops I forgot about that. The we go to
          the Help menu and guess what 95% there is a very nice little
          tutorial on how to do what they want. What's the Help menu like
          on Windows? Don't Windows user use it?
          observer1959
          Reply Vote

          • Too Funny... you are absolutly correct.

            That help menu in OS X is both local and online... I found this out when I lost my internet while using 10.4... most of those helpful help topics dissapeared... They came back when my ISP came back online. I asked support about it and it is how they keep the help topics up to date so they will usually point to the correct documentation and Apple can purge anything that becomes out dated. Talk about brilliant... A help menu that actually works, is always up to date, and gives you a clean fast path to the apple support website. Once you get used to remembering it is there, it is faster than opening a browser and going to apple support.

            I have never seen a help app anywhere other than Apple that was ever worth anything.
            i8thecat
            Reply Vote

          • It's just that...

            ...the help provided by MS (not necessarily ISVs) is 95% worthless, so Windows users tend to get out of the habit.
            John L. Ries
            Reply Vote

          • Bloody worthless...

            [i]"What's the Help menu like on Windows?"[/i]

            Bloody worthless.

            [i]"Don't Windows user use it?"[/i]

            No.
            olePigeon
            Reply Vote

          • 0.o

            wow, now that you mention it, the last time i tried to rely on Windows' help menu was back when i was running Win95. I've gone straight to the internet ever since.
            theoxygenthief
            Reply Vote
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