Apple moves to government and military IT at FOSE

www.fose.com...

This has been a remarkable year for Apple.

Apple's participation in next week's annual FOSE convention April 5-7 in Washington D.C. should prove to be quite interesting.

With all the security issues still plaguing Microsoft and continued delay
of Longhorn, I expect both OSX and Linux to take major ground in new
large scale equipment acquisitions.

Apple's latest build for OSX 10.4 TIGER has been "unofficially" declared Gold Master as of March 31st with official announcement expected any day now.

The Mac mini now offers the first truly affordable Apple desktop with plenty of features
to handle any office network environment. Bulk pricing for Microsoft office 2004 Mac Edition should not be much of an issue for those who fear compatibility issues.
It doesn't take much computer now adays to handle database entry, but that data
needs to be secure and stable.

Apple G4 PowerBooks are well proven for performance and reliability, although
many users will await the G5's some time later this year.

Recent large scale deployments of Apple XServe and XSan with the likes of
Oracle and Cisco also can't be ignored.

Many deeply embedded Microsoft systems are due for replacement NOW
and IT buyers must consider the long term costs of upgrading hardware, software licensing and training once Longhorn makes it's debut and then hope that it all somehow comes together some time after late 2006.

Microsoft Certified personnel may not be able to count on job security as strongly
as they have in previous years.
Not only is OSX breaking new ground, but Red Hat Linux will also require
re-training.

No doubt competition will be fierce with Intel, AMD and Apple ALL moving to
dual core 64 bit processing in a matter of months.
But competetion is good for innovation.

Apple's Unix based OSX and XServe powered by IBM Power PC processors make for
a respectable combination at any level.

I guess we'll find out next week.

Cheers!