OS used in the business/corporate environment in NZ and the world

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blackjack17

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#210442 27-Mar-2017 17:45

I work in a school which have almost all students using a mac device whether it is a mac air, mac pro, or macbook. The teachers seem to be split 50/50 between a variety of devices both windows and MacOS.

Today we had a discussion whether we should move to an exclusive OS ie everyone on MacOS, or move to ipad pros for the touch or move to windows devices.

Personally I prefer the windows 2 in 1s the touch works very well in science and maths, while others prefer the app ecosystem of macs and wireless streaming through apple tv etc.

One thing that concerns me is very few of our students have any knowledge of using a windows computer, will submit assignments in pages format and other mac only file types and are generally under the impression that the whole world uses Macs.

So I am just wondering what proportion of the world does use macs? I have done a bit of googling but haven't really been able to get a clear idea other than windows seem to dominate? but is this changing?

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#1748874 27-Mar-2017 18:07

PeterReader bot must be having an afternoon siesta.

Hmmmm. Here we go.

timmmay

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#1748875 27-Mar-2017 18:11

I'd guess 95%+ of corporates use Windows desktops, as they have pretty good admin and deployment tools, plus Active Directory. Mac, I'm sure it's possible, but I don't know how. Laptops, sure, you see them in business, they integrate fine with Windows AD.

Servers, Linux.

yitz

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#1748878 27-Mar-2017 18:15

Do you not use any of Google Drive, Office 365.... Moodle, OneNote, Google Classroom etc..?

I think a more relevant question than the proportion between Windows and Mac would be what proportion integrate the cloud?

Linux

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#1748884 27-Mar-2017 18:20

I agree Windows 8 and above for desktops but actual Systems would be Linux

Linux

blackjack17

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#1748897 27-Mar-2017 18:45

yitz: Do you not use any of Google Drive, Office 365.... Moodle, OneNote, Google Classroom etc..?

I think a more relevant question than the proportion between Windows and Mac would be what proportion integrate the cloud?

We do use Google drive and the windows devices have 365 /office 2016. The Mac devices have office 2011. The girls click between pages and Google drive. Staff use one drive, Dropbox, remote desktop with shared drives and Google drive

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sir1963

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#1748947 27-Mar-2017 20:07

blackjack17:

I work in a school which have almost all students using a mac device whether it is a mac air, mac pro, or macbook. The teachers seem to be split 50/50 between a variety of devices both windows and MacOS.

Today we had a discussion whether we should move to an exclusive OS ie everyone on MacOS, or move to ipad pros for the touch or move to windows devices.

Personally I prefer the windows 2 in 1s the touch works very well in science and maths, while others prefer the app ecosystem of macs and wireless streaming through apple tv etc.

One thing that concerns me is very few of our students have any knowledge of using a windows computer, will submit assignments in pages format and other mac only file types and are generally under the impression that the whole world uses Macs.

So I am just wondering what proportion of the world does use macs? I have done a bit of googling but haven't really been able to get a clear idea other than windows seem to dominate? but is this changing?

ROTFLMAO, ever consider that Mac users also feel put out getting files in "Windows format".

And everyone personally prefers the system they are most familiar with...duh !

Anyway, I mange the Macs we have in my department at University , they are used by Chemists, Statisticians , Mathematicians, Microbiologists, Engineers, Vets, Physicists, etc etc etc. Documents are done in LaTex, Word, Acrobat, information is gathered/manipulated in Mathematica, Matlab, R, Filemaker,as well as a lot of custom software. We use Windows, OSX, Linux.

I use my Mac for designing PCBs (DipTrace), Arduino programming. I use the Mac to run Diagnostics on Centrifuges via a terminal emulator (ZTerm).

IBM is now Apples largest customer , they are buying something like 1000 new Macs a week, and based on their very large install base have said the total cost of ownership is much lower than for Windows boxes.

Fact is, at primary and intermediate schools, any "OS" learned will have long disappeared by the time they get into the workplace. You are in effect teaching them the past.

The most important thing kids need to learn is HOW to gather information, HOW to sort information, HOW to interpret information, HOW to present information, they do NOT need to know anything about the OS.

GOOD students tend to be the ones who are introduced to a variety of OSs, and learn the principles of Applications etc.

For example, instead of learning "word", they learn that they have cut/copy/paste, they have control over fonts, font sizes, Bold, underline, etc etc etc etc and once they understand these "cores" they can recognise that functionality in unfamiliar software and adapt easily. The poor students are the ones who sit and complain its not "Windows"

sir1963

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#1748956 27-Mar-2017 20:24

Linux: I agree Windows 8 and above for desktops but actual Systems would be Linux

Linux

We have the policy you use the hardware/software that makes you the most productive.

So we have Linux number crunching boxes for the data gathered from Windows based instrumentation and its

all used by Mac users.

We have people doing bioinformatics on a Condor cluster which uses Macs, Windows, Linux machines as part of the cluster

We have Linux boxes connected to gather data from MRIs, the end users use Windows/Macs to manipulate the data.

We have documents written in Latex, Word, PDF formats.

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deadlyllama

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#1748986 27-Mar-2017 20:57

Linux: I agree Windows 8 and above for desktops but actual Systems would be Linux

Linux

Considered changing username?

blackjack17

1705 posts

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#1748988 27-Mar-2017 20:59

sir1963:
blackjack17:

I work in a school which have almost all students using a mac device whether it is a mac air, mac pro, or macbook. The teachers seem to be split 50/50 between a variety of devices both windows and MacOS.

Today we had a discussion whether we should move to an exclusive OS ie everyone on MacOS, or move to ipad pros for the touch or move to windows devices.

Personally I prefer the windows 2 in 1s the touch works very well in science and maths, while others prefer the app ecosystem of macs and wireless streaming through apple tv etc.

One thing that concerns me is very few of our students have any knowledge of using a windows computer, will submit assignments in pages format and other mac only file types and are generally under the impression that the whole world uses Macs.

So I am just wondering what proportion of the world does use macs? I have done a bit of googling but haven't really been able to get a clear idea other than windows seem to dominate? but is this changing?

ROTFLMAO, ever consider that Mac users also feel put out getting files in "Windows format".

And everyone personally prefers the system they are most familiar with...duh !

Anyway, I mange the Macs we have in my department at University , they are used by Chemists, Statisticians , Mathematicians, Microbiologists, Engineers, Vets, Physicists, etc etc etc. Documents are done in LaTex, Word, Acrobat, information is gathered/manipulated in Mathematica, Matlab, R, Filemaker,as well as a lot of custom software. We use Windows, OSX, Linux.

I use my Mac for designing PCBs (DipTrace), Arduino programming. I use the Mac to run Diagnostics on Centrifuges via a terminal emulator (ZTerm).

IBM is now Apples largest customer , they are buying something like 1000 new Macs a week, and based on their very large install base have said the total cost of ownership is much lower than for Windows boxes.

Fact is, at primary and intermediate schools, any "OS" learned will have long disappeared by the time they get into the workplace. You are in effect teaching them the past.

The most important thing kids need to learn is HOW to gather information, HOW to sort information, HOW to interpret information, HOW to present information, they do NOT need to know anything about the OS.

GOOD students tend to be the ones who are introduced to a variety of OSs, and learn the principles of Applications etc.

For example, instead of learning "word", they learn that they have cut/copy/paste, they have control over fonts, font sizes, Bold, underline, etc etc etc etc and once they understand these "cores" they can recognise that functionality in unfamiliar software and adapt easily. The poor students are the ones who sit and complain its not "Windows"

I do prefer windows as that as what i am most familiar with. My issue with pages is that is unopenable unless you have a Mac. Docx. PDFs mp4. Can be opened by anything.

I don't have any issues with Mac's other than the lack of stylus support.

OS knowledge is important think about how slow many of the big business were updating from XP. Some of my students will be in the workforce in 4 or so years (after uni) and are under the impression that they will be handed a shiny new Mac Pro. It does worry me. .(not an IT teacher. I teach science)

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timmmay

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#1749006 27-Mar-2017 21:16

To add to my post above... i've worked in a fairly significant number of government departments as a consultant (10?), private businesses small and large, in NZ and overseas. Every single one used PCs and Windows.

I have nothing against macs. Nice computers, and great marketing. But they're not used all that much in corporate.

sir1963:

Anyway, I mange the Macs we have in my department at University

University seems more like an extension of school. It's different from business / corporate.

yitz

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#1749008 27-Mar-2017 21:17

Can you not ask for documents to be submitted in PDF? Most secondary schools will have some sort of digital citizenship programme during year 9 and instructions on how to submit assessment work to Moodle etc. should be covered. I don't see this as a big issue.

Many NZ tertiary providers and all the universities provide Office 365 to their students through licensing agreement with Microsoft. You will most definitely need to know how to save final copies of documents as PDF by then.

geocom

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#1749012 27-Mar-2017 21:30

Honestly by the time they get to the workplace the tech is going to have changed.

I finished school in 2008 Years 11-13 where Mac and the time before was windows and a pre ribbon word and on mac we used word for mac which at the time was also pre ribbon and pages had only just released. For work i have always used pages.

The thing that is important thing to learn is the thing you do in the word processor not the word processor it's self.

Also if it was me i would not be accepting .pages or .docx format documents for handing in anyway both have issues when being transferred to a different system such as fonts. PDF's have become the defacto standard because they deal with these issues.

Geoff E

Geektastic

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#1749046 27-Mar-2017 21:49

Office 365 works just fine on Macs and gives you all the tools same as PC users with one or two very minor (well, for me anyway) exceptions. You can share documents, use the same cloud storage and so on.

Outlook works too although I do not use it. To be honest we really only have Office because my wife uses it to do work documents and things - Apple has programs that do all the same things mostly with nicer design and interface IMV.

Apple used to make servers too (X_Serve) but I do not know if they still do that. There is a server version of OSX for sure.

sir1963

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#1749051 27-Mar-2017 22:00

blackjack17:
sir1963:

blackjack17:

I work in a school which have almost all students using a mac device whether it is a mac air, mac pro, or macbook. The teachers seem to be split 50/50 between a variety of devices both windows and MacOS.

Today we had a discussion whether we should move to an exclusive OS ie everyone on MacOS, or move to ipad pros for the touch or move to windows devices.

Personally I prefer the windows 2 in 1s the touch works very well in science and maths, while others prefer the app ecosystem of macs and wireless streaming through apple tv etc.

One thing that concerns me is very few of our students have any knowledge of using a windows computer, will submit assignments in pages format and other mac only file types and are generally under the impression that the whole world uses Macs.

So I am just wondering what proportion of the world does use macs? I have done a bit of googling but haven't really been able to get a clear idea other than windows seem to dominate? but is this changing?

ROTFLMAO, ever consider that Mac users also feel put out getting files in "Windows format".

And everyone personally prefers the system they are most familiar with...duh !

Anyway, I mange the Macs we have in my department at University , they are used by Chemists, Statisticians , Mathematicians, Microbiologists, Engineers, Vets, Physicists, etc etc etc. Documents are done in LaTex, Word, Acrobat, information is gathered/manipulated in Mathematica, Matlab, R, Filemaker,as well as a lot of custom software. We use Windows, OSX, Linux.

I use my Mac for designing PCBs (DipTrace), Arduino programming. I use the Mac to run Diagnostics on Centrifuges via a terminal emulator (ZTerm).

IBM is now Apples largest customer , they are buying something like 1000 new Macs a week, and based on their very large install base have said the total cost of ownership is much lower than for Windows boxes.

Fact is, at primary and intermediate schools, any "OS" learned will have long disappeared by the time they get into the workplace. You are in effect teaching them the past.

The most important thing kids need to learn is HOW to gather information, HOW to sort information, HOW to interpret information, HOW to present information, they do NOT need to know anything about the OS.

GOOD students tend to be the ones who are introduced to a variety of OSs, and learn the principles of Applications etc.

For example, instead of learning "word", they learn that they have cut/copy/paste, they have control over fonts, font sizes, Bold, underline, etc etc etc etc and once they understand these "cores" they can recognise that functionality in unfamiliar software and adapt easily. The poor students are the ones who sit and complain its not "Windows"

I do prefer windows as that as what i am most familiar with. My issue with pages is that is unopenable unless you have a Mac. Docx. PDFs mp4. Can be opened by anything.

I don't have any issues with Mac's other than the lack of stylus support.

OS knowledge is important think about how slow many of the big business were updating from XP. Some of my students will be in the workforce in 4 or so years (after uni) and are under the impression that they will be handed a shiny new Mac Pro. It does worry me. .(not an IT teacher. I teach science)

Pages is easy

File > Export To > Word...

HOWEVER, if they use iCloud, you can open up Pages documents using the online "Pages" web app. So yeah, I have edited pages document on Linux boxes and Windows boxes to prove it can be done.

4 years is becoming a long time in IT now. Users were extremely "lucky" with XP in that it was around for such a long time, but that came with a LOT of issues too (32/64 bit), we have a number of machines that have 32/64GB of RAM which is not possible in XP (32 bit) and the 64bit version was flakey for a lot of things (drivers).

ALL of our computers are now on a 4-5 year replacement cycle, and we need serious justification to keep old hardware (instrument controllers for example). The New CNC mill still uses embedded XP.

Stylus are over rated for most tasks, for a start if you want to type you have to put it down. A mouse is still a great answer to the problem.

lxsw20

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#1749052 27-Mar-2017 22:00

Depends on the industry. I work for a media company. Developers, IT, Design and a few Exec's have Mac, everyone else is Windows. We are looking at giving users the choice of Windows/Mac when they start at the moment. We've got to the point of owning enough Macs I'm probably going to have to deploy JAMF Pro.

We are G Suite users, so for sales/BD and all that there isn't much they can't do in a Chrome window.

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