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Tuesday
Jan212014

Businesses: Keep using Windows. I need the money!

I just finished with a visit to one of my clients. We were investigating why several users could not use a specific invoicing site. The first thing I did was connect my MBP to their wireless network and try the site in question. Bing! Everything worked great. That eliminated the possibility of there being a systemic network/firewall problem preventing the site from functioning properly. Next I went to the user who submitted the problem. When I sat down at his desk and tried to get to the same site that just worked fine on my Mac I was deluged with popups, redirects and more ads than I could sift through. Holy crap! I wondered how this guy gets anything done on this machine. He had TrendMicro installed as his security suite so I decided to run a quick scan of his C drive. Within 5 minutes with only 10% of the drive scanned, TrendMicro found 18 threats. I immediately went to the next room and shut down my Mac. This network was completely compromised.

Don’t misunderstand. I had little fear of my MacBook Pro getting infected, it’s just a digital hygiene thing. I don’t like being on any network that I know includes one or more infected machines. Similarly, I choose not to play in the septic ditch even if I am wearing rubber waders.

Every time I run into a situation like this I’m reminded of just how smart I am to have switched to Macs back in 2006. I don’t run any antivirus on any of my or my family’s Macs and I have never been infected. I just keep my OS X firewalls turned on and try not to do anything stupid like clicking on an unsolicited “Update” who’s URL ends in .ru. Not that it would hurt my Mac. Again, digital hygiene and just a good habit.

At the last corporate IT meeting I attended as IT manager for a Fortune 500 company, I listened to the CIO drone on and on about how network security was “Job 1”. When he opened the floor for questions I raised my hand and asked, “If we are truly so concerned about security, why are we still running Windows?”. He didn’t take that too well. Aside from being visibly agitated by the question, his response was mostly pre-programmed techno-babble usually reserved for non-technical types. In other words, no answer at all. I resigned a few months later. I just got so completely exhausted from maintaining antivirus servers, continually scanning workstations and pouring over daily security reports. I estimate one-third of my time was spent maintaining our security systems.

Guess what? I will be doing exactly that for my customer. His existing desktop support guy doesn’t seem to understand how to prevent outbreaks like the one I saw today. There are about a dozen things I can think of to mitigate my customer’s problem. None of which were happening.  I’ll gladly clean up this mess, but this time I’ll be getting my price.

The point is, this would never happen on a network of Mac or Linux machines. So why do companies continue to use Windows?

I understand all the arguments. “Macs are more expensive. Our employees don’t understand OS X or Ubuntu. We need MS Office (or some other Windows-only app).” First, when you add up the cost of a PC plus antivirus software plus someone to install and maintain it plus the cost of fixing machines that get infected (some always do, even with the best AV protection), dollar parity gets pretty close and I haven’t even considered the costs of downtime and data loss in this equation. Second, most employees don’t understand Windows either. I still find users who don’t know how to use the “Start” button and think if there isn’t an Excel shortcut on their desktop then Excel must not be installed. Third, MS Office was one of the first Mac apps and will work just fine for 99% of users. There are also more free “open office” suites than you can shake a stick at. So if you need a couple of Windows machines to accommodate the odd 1%, then so be it. You’ll only have to worry about keeping those clean. Additionally, the world is moving away from local, OS-specific applications altogether anyway. From office suites to accounting packages to full ERP systems, the largest application providers now offer hosted web services as an option to their “boxware”. Those that don’t will do so soon or die. The argument for using Windows is becoming increasingly tenuous.

Well, I’m not wishing things would change any time soon. My business runs on Macs, so I’m not worried about me and mine. I do keep a single Windows 7 machine in the office for testing scripts and the like, but that’s it. So as long as there are Windows-equipped businesses out there my family will not go hungry. The work isn’t the most rewarding, but it does pay the bills.

It’s almost too easy.

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