I love this news story about Kraft Foods and their new “Bring Your Own Computer” to work program. Essentially, if you have a qualifying Mac or PC, and you prefer it over your work computer, just bring it on up and use it instead. Appleinsider reported on this Friday.

The silver lining is that you can bring your Intel Mac with Snow Leopard to work, assuming you have one.

You have one, don’t you?

My guess is that a large percentage of corporate employees that are chained to PCs all day, go home to a Mac that they love and adore and wish it could be their everyday computer. But in “corporate america”, the employees don’t make those decisions. In most companies, it’s the CIO or IT Dept that makes policy and enforces the status quo.

Today we are seeing a growing trend where CEOs, CIOs, and CFOs are increasing using a Mac at home, and wishing they could simply bring it to work and plug it right in to the mix. More and more, small and medium sized businesses that have been wholey based on WIndows are switching over to the Mac and loving it. They still have some PCs, and often a Windows server, but it all plays nicely together.  The great news is that it’s pretty easy to integrate Macs into your existing Windows based network. We’ve been doing it a long time, and we can say with confidence that a mixed platform Utopia can exist.

Sure, there are challenges, like home folders for all, and cross-platform printer support, and even Active Directory Group Policy support for the Mac. But it can all be done.  If you are wanting to push forward into a bright future of PCs and Macs playing happily together, give us a call. We would love to help you find the solution that best fits your company’s goals and personality. That’s what we do.

I Can Do Anything © 2008 Apple Inc.

Yes, we are very personable IT guys.  And yes, we pride ourselves in looking just a little bit cooler than your average computer geek.  But we also like to stay on top of our game, and make sure our skills exceed your expectations every time.

To that end, I thought I’d mention that we are now Apple Certified in the latest Snow Leopard certifications. These are just little badges of honor that tell you that we know what we are doing. The Apple Certified Support Professional, and Apple Certified Technical Coordinator mean that we have the skills not only on the client side of things, but are totally proficient on the Server side of things.

Snow Leopard Server is easier in some ways, but is more complex in other ways.  So if you are needing help with your Tiger, Leopard or Snow Leopard server, I think you’ll be glad you called us first.

No release date has been set yet, but pre-orders have begun at the usual places like Amazon.com, and so with upgrading in mind, let’s take a quick look at some of the new bundles available. (For details on new features, see below.)

First things first… If you have not upgraded to Leopard yet, you won’t be able to buy the inexpensive Snow Leopard “Upgrade”, but instead you’ll need to buy Apple’s “Full Version”  of Snow Leopard (about $99), or go full tilt and get the new “Mac Box Set” with Snow Leopard, iLife 09 and iWork 09. (about $169)

For those of us who have been using Leopard for a while, we’ll only need to buy the Snow Leopard Upgrade for $29.  I love this price. And it’s the very nature of Snow Leopard that makes it affordable. What I mean is that this new OS is really a super refinement of the current OS.  To get acquainted with Snow Leopard’s great new features, check out Apple’s overview of Mac OS X’s refinements.

One last note for you procrastinators. If you are still using an older PowerPC based Mac, Snow Leopard will be a non-option.  It only installs and runs on Apple’s Intel based Macs.  For you rebels, my recommendation is to wait for Snow Leopard to be released, and then make your way directly to the nearest Apple Store. Do not pass Go, and do not collect $200, just save your cash now and get ready to buy a whole new Mac with Snow Leopard installed and ready to purr.