The Enterprise Desktop Alliance (EDA) was formed by five enterprise software companies to enable acceptance of Mac in Microsoft (News - Alert) Windows managed environments. This alliance is expected to validate and promote solutions which facilitate the deployment, integration and management of Apple (News - Alert) Macintosh computers using Windows-based solutions.

 

This will increase user productivity, reduce total cost of ownership besides increasing IT acceptance of Macs in the enterprise. The alliance members are Atempo, Centrify, Group Logic, LANrev and Parallels.

 

Enterprises can make use of the EDA capabilities for integrating Macs and getting required levels of control, security, policy compliance and services which they get from Windows platforms.

 

“Interest in the Mac at large organizations is growing along with Apple’s market share,” said Bob O’Donnell, vice president at IDC (News - Alert). “The challenge has been overcoming objections surrounding managing Macs within these corporate environments. Efforts that can make life easier for the IT professional and help the Mac become a more appealing and realistic alternative within the enterprise could help turn that interest into a stronger Mac presence.”

 

Peter Frankl, Founder and Chief Operating Officer of LANrev, one of the founding companies commented, “The popularity of the Mac among corporate end-users does not mean that there have to be headaches for IT administrators. We are determined to help companies integrate Macs into their enterprise environments by reducing total cost of ownership and increasing IT acceptance of Macs in the enterprise.”

The EDA solution has been designed to maintain the Mac experience even while interfacing with the Window infrastructure. The standard Windows-based management environment has been extended so that the EDA solution enables the Mac to be viewed and behave like a peer to Windows in the enterprise.

 

The cross platform solutions include LANrev providing Systems Lifecycle Management and Parallels offering Virtualization. Enterprise Data Protection is offered by Atempo, Identity & Access Management by Centrify and Group Logic offers File & Print Services.

 

IT Management by EDA suite helps IT departments deploy, integrate and manage Macs in the enterprise using the same standards as Windows-based management tools. The centralized, uniform management platform is used by administrators for delivering identical services and offer same controls for both Macs and Windows.

 

Mac and Windows users can share files with EDA offering identical views and avoids revision control problems for easy collaboration. This allows easy file exchange and cross platform collaboration. Access privileges and audit trails are controlled by Microsoft Active Directory for both users giving consistent network experience. EDA allows administrators to extend control to Macs in file and print access, identity management, client management, disaster recovery, backup and virtualization.

 

The Enterprise Desktop Alliance brings together enterprise-class software developers and makes it easy for deployment, integration and management of Macs in a sophisticated Windows-managed IT environment.