Joanne Kossuth knows all too well the allure of Macs. As CIO of Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, she frequently gets pressure from faculty and staff to integrate Apple computers into the Needham, Mass.-based school’s environment. But until manageability tools become more readily available for the Mac, Kossuth says her answer will remain “no.”

“Enterprise management tools are a critical piece that I don’t think Apple has addressed well enough. They’ve got a long way to go to provide the consistency and supportability that Microsoft offers with Windows,” Kossuth says. The Windows Vista environment she’s ultimately planning to roll out allows her to automate configurations, deployments, updates, and patches. Such centralized controls are critical to supporting users and meeting compliance demands without increased staffing, Kossuth says.

“With Windows XP and Vista, you can do all these things to troubleshoot PC problems on site or remotely,” she adds.

Indeed, Vista’s built-in centralized management features include new support for automated installation and standardized desktop imaging, as well as hundreds of group policy settings. “These features give Vista the foundation to be the most manageable client operating system for business clients,” says Ryan McCune, solutions director for Seattle-based IT consultancy Avanade Inc., a joint venture between Accenture and Microsoft.

McCune further credits the Microsoft operating system’s superiority in enterprise manageability to the large selection of Vista-compatible management products now available. “Windows has been the predominant operating system for businesses for years now, so vendors have built hardware and software to support the mass management of those machines,” he says. Products and services are available for everything from zero-touch mass deployment to centralized distribution of applications to automated configuration and patch management.

Moreover, though Macs have many strong features, organizations that use Windows Server—Microsoft’s network operating system—have a further incentive to stick with Windows-based clients, observes Al Gillen, research vice president for system software at Framingham, Mass.-based research firm IDC. “It’s inherently harder to manage [Macs] from Windows Server, because it’s not easy to do things like automatically distribute software,” he says.

To Kossuth, such lack of interoperability would inevitably lead to staffing headaches. “If you’re a smaller organization with only one or two IT people, how can you justify having to bring in extra help just to manage your Mac environment?” she asks.

Sandra Gittlen is a freelance technology editor in the greater Boston area.

Other articles in this series:
Mac vs. Vista: Which is better for business? Part 2: Reliability
Mac vs. Vista: Which is better for business? Part 3: Security
Mac vs. Vista: Which is better for business? Part 4: Price
Mac vs. Vista: Which is better for business? Part 5: Usability, compatibility, and integration