Anyone use a company Managed Mac?

[LiE]

When I used my Mini for a while, it had to be managed but didn't find it got in the way at all, as I still used it as a personal machine. I can't remember seeing anything being locked down or blocked

I think it depends on the policies from what I've read. Some are more relaxed that others.

 

[Junglist]

Our IT management are a bit backwards. Won’t allow Macs on the the network, despite every management and security system having full support. They simply don’t understand them, and refuse to even contemplate learning about and supporting them. Just means the odd Mac user we have has a painful experience all told, even when their core work function pretty much demands using a Mac!

Do you work for the company i run the network at? Whenever someone asks for a Macbook I just laugh in their face. No chance. I served my time running a Windows environment with a suite of iMacs and never, ever, ever again. I'm sure they may play well with GPO now but it was just a headache I'd rather not inflict on myself

We supply some of our salesmen with iPad Pros and I manage them with AirWatch. I have different profiles for different people and their level determines how locked down the iPad is. I expect it may be the same for Macbooks

 

[JollyJamma]

Our IT management are a bit backwards. Won’t allow Macs on the the network, despite every management and security system having full support. They simply don’t understand them, and refuse to even contemplate learning about and supporting them. Just means the odd Mac user we have has a painful experience all told, even when their core work function pretty much demands using a Mac!

Yeah I’ve had this experience.

I worked for a Microsoft Good certified tech support company who refused to support Mac because they loved Microsoft’s long big shaft too much.

When I worked at a bank for 5 years, the IT guys loved Mac computers and happily worked on them saying that they have fewer issues.

Mac isn’t perfect. Not by a long stretch but when you lock down the system so much that the end user struggles to install anything, it does lead to fewer random issues.

Microsoft also has to account for a million configurations which adds complexity.

Using an old iMac with Big Sur on it and it’s a bad OS by modern standards but it does do Linux like things at times that are more reliable.

I do prefer using MS Office on Mac.

 

[JollyJamma]

I served my time running a Windows environment with a suite of iMacs and never, ever, ever again.

The iMac (and the equivalent Windows) are horrendous machines and should never be exist as a machine hardware support wise.

Was it the software just not working with the Windows domain?

I do know that old Mac machines often just refused to work with a Windows domain and you needed hacky workarounds for some stuff.

 

[visibleman]

Do you work for the company i run the network at? Whenever someone asks for a Macbook I just laugh in their face. No chance. I served my time running a Windows environment with a suite of iMacs and never, ever, ever again. I'm sure they may play well with GPO now but it was just a headache I'd rather not inflict on myself

Binding still isn't great (there's a handful of issues that can easily occur) and the recommended option is to sync using something like NoMad. But as you still realistically need an MDM for Apple management (you're not getting much out of GPO), you might as well just deploy MDM + local accounts. And this is probably the best solution for a few fringe Mac users albeit you/the business still needs to invest time and money into the tools and knowledge to support it all and there are, arguably, better solutions for multi-platform environments.

Employees throwing paddys because IT won't (and can't) support their favourite OS/device, even though it's not company policy/requirement, would very quickly get to told to go forth though

When I worked at a bank for 5 years, the IT guys loved Mac computers and happily worked on them saying that they have fewer issues.

System admining MacOS isn't amazing and arguably i say it's more complicated (and costlier) than it should be but, that's not to say other OS's are better - i've found they're all equally as good and **** as each other.

I do prefer using MS Office on Mac.

Office for Mac is still a long way off from feature/functionality parity with Office on Windows and i doubt we'll actually see it given Microsoft has been banging that drum since the Office 2016 launch and shouting about the shared codebase between the two platforms.
At the moment though, Office on Windows still offers a bit more.