Filed under: Cult of Mac, Odds and ends
Mac-savvy Obama staffers frustrated with legacy White House
According to the Washington Post, the incoming U.S. presidential administration has inherited quite the challenging IT environment: The White House.
President Obama's staff -- accustomed to Macs, social media, and having the latest equipment -- found Windows PCs with Microsoft Office 2003 in their new offices. Laptops were "scarce," apparently, and the team had trouble finding ways to update the redesigned White House website and add subtitles to web videos. Perhaps they were misled by the prominence of Mac hardware in the fictional-but-familiar West Wing version of the executive mansion.
Valleywag's Owen Thomas suggests that Obama's staff are "whiners." "Outside the Manhattan media bubble and Silicon Valley's startup cube farms, this is how most Americans work. Want a Macintosh? Sorry, IT hasn't approved it. Oh, you need to use Facebook to interact with customers? Sorry, that site's blocked -- and management suspects that 'social media' is a buzzword which means 'getting paid to waste time chatting with friends.'"
Part of the reason for the White House's legacy systems is related to the need to retain all computer records for the National Archives, and protect all kinds of communication (from emails to IMs to tweets) on the network for national security reasons. This task isn't impossible with a Mac -- some might say it's easier to accomplish with a Mac than with a PC -- but there will be a lot of sleepless nights for the White House's new IT staff while the new system is set up. Meanwhile, the tech-friendly new Commander in Chief appears to have won his first geek battle; he is going to get to keep his Blackberry [or something like it; Engadget clarifies that we don't know the details yet, but press secretary Robert Gibbs said it was indeed a BlackBerry during today's press briefing (his first) -Ed.] subject to a security overhaul by an unnamed federal agency (assumed to be the NSA).
With the new administration's focus on change, it seems as though a new tech infrastructure and business rules for the executive office of the President are in the cards. It remains to be seen if our favorite platform, though, makes the cut.
Thanks to Michael and Joe for sending this in.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 6)
David Hildreth said 1:41PM on 1-22-2009
Sounds like Owen Thomas has yet to leave 1995.
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ProfessorDex said 1:47PM on 1-22-2009
As for Obama keeping his BB, might want to read this.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/22/dear-mainstream-media-obamas-new-phone-isnt-a-blackberry-mig/
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Michael Rose said 2:02PM on 1-22-2009
Thanks for pointing that out -- post amended.
Dr. Spaceman said 5:06PM on 1-22-2009
As for your comment, might want to read this:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/22/confirmed-obama-gets-his-blackberry-no-sectera-edge-in-sight/
qwerty613 said 7:42PM on 1-22-2009
Also read this:
http://www.engadget.com/2008/09/16/john-mccain-inventor-of-the-blackberry/
Adam Rice said 1:53PM on 1-22-2009
You know, I think the freaking President of the United States of America could go down to the IT department and say "Guys. This is what I want. And don't give me any guff, because I am the freaking President of the United States of America."
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m said 3:42PM on 1-22-2009
you know, i think we're in the middle of a recession. that *might* not fly.
JKT said 11:46PM on 1-22-2009
And he could reply "If you want to find your way out of the recession faster, it had better fly."
(01) said 8:34AM on 1-23-2009
You mean the way Bush ran the country for the last 8 years? Yeah, that's what we need.
eric f. said 10:54AM on 1-23-2009
Really, "M"? Who is going to say no to him?
On another note. I've never read Valleywag, but after spending five minutes there, I don't ever want to go back. Talk about a bunch of negative smug haters. It's worse than Engadget.
NNTPgrip said 1:59PM on 1-22-2009
Fairly standard for government stuff. Office 2007 is not allowed because of the possibility of having documents in the new file format(regardless of how you set the default save settings in group policy). Vista is not allowed because of any compatibility issues(and as we all know there really is no point to the "upgrade"), They just started getting issued XP stuff over Windows 2000 a couple of years ago as well, they use a lot of third party security stuff that is soaked pretty deep into the heart of the OS, so they are always going to be at least 5 years behind.
Maybe they'll push for more Apple stuff and either Apple or some contractor will develop the kind of far-reaching centralized management and modular security we have seen from Microsoft and Novell on the OSX platform.
The NMCI user I know just uses an XP laptop with no permissions for him, and uses his RSA key-fob to citrix login into a server that is his real workspace. That could easily be done on a mac since the laptop is essentially a thin client. Of course the "apple benefits" would be nothing if you arn't actually working in OSX.
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Robert Palmer said 2:05PM on 1-22-2009
In all fairness, though, NMCI (Navy-Marine Corps Intranet, for those wondering) is an enormous flaming pile of monkey crap. I've written websites for NMCI. My best friend used to administer email to a large Marine group on NMCI. If the White House builds a system entirely like NMCI, they're doomed.
I understand -- and agree with -- what you're trying to say about a centralized authentication sort of idea with Mac OS X, where everyone's files live in the aether and are stored ultra-securely. But I wouldn't cite NMCI as the gold standard for that.
I personally hope the administration will be able to move nimbly on this IT issue, but knowing how the government works -- I agree with you -- it isn't likely.
brux2dc said 2:27PM on 1-22-2009
???? The Air Force, which just stood up the new Cyberspace Command, is rapidly deploying Vista right now, and we've had Office 07 on our XP machines for well over a year now. The AF buys crappy machines, but they are modern machines with modern OSs. Not OS X modern, but we can't win them all :)
I would love to see the AF deploy Macs. Too bad we need our CAC to do anything, and getting the CAC to work on Mac is a PITA. I got it to work at home, but I have to change the keychain settings for each CAC enabled site I visit. Apple are you listening?
vandil said 1:58PM on 1-22-2009
I was a sysadmin in a Windows/MacOS9/OSX/Unix environmnent for over 13 years and I will never trust my data to Microsoft products.
I find it downright disturbing that Presidential-level business is being conducted with it, just so its work is compatible with proprietary formats and SARBOX-like crap for government work.
Even the US Army uses Macs.
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Squelch said 3:00PM on 1-22-2009
The US Army uses Macs? Where? I am an Army Signal Officer, and I haven't had a single Mac on the network in my past four assignments. Apparently I haven't had those cushy rear echelon assignments where they get to use Macs. No, we always got stuck with Dells and Panasonic Toughbooks.
As far as the Obama administration being surprised that they've entered a Mac-free zone, perhaps they should have done their homework and investigated things before they moved in. Most government agencies use Windows for user-level machines. And of course laptops are scarce - they cost much more than comparable desktops, and are not as easily fixed on-site. Of course, they had nice Macs during the campaign because it was all private donations, so they could spend the money on them.
Though I am a Mac user in my home and have five Macs from a 12" Powerbook to a year-old Mac Pro, I sure don't want the American taxpayer to finance a White House "switch" campaign. They need to suck it up and drive on.
ack154 said 6:08PM on 1-22-2009
"I sure don't want the American taxpayer to finance a White House "switch" campaign. They need to suck it up and drive on."
If it truly helps them work more efficiently and effectively to get things rolling, I'd be happy to have my tax dollars buy a couple more Macs for the White House.
Brad said 7:36PM on 1-22-2009
"Even the US Army uses Macs."
I believe you are thinking of the Apple ads from the G4.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzxz3k2zQJI
Truth be told, almost no government organization buys Macs, and it's precisely because of how Apple structures its business model. Want to buy Hardware? Call Apple. Want to buy software? Call Apple. Need service? Warranty replacement? Call Apple.
The government is required to have competing bids on things like "All the computers in White House" and "Field military equipment" - when you have to get EVERYTHING from the same vendor, you're SOL on competition, if they decide to change prices on you, etc.
Most companies don't use Apple for the same reason - you can't threaten to switch vendors if your only supplier decides to treat you like crap, and no one else will ever come along and offer you a better price.
Dan Mosqueda said 8:44PM on 1-22-2009
In fact the Army has purchased 20,000 Macs and is using Xserve servers, plus they are testing iPhones for "every soldier, a sensor".
It's not a big leap for the White House to piggyback on the Army's program.
96D said 9:58PM on 1-22-2009
@squelch - I believe he's referring to the Army's webserver, which has been running on a Mac for about decade now...
http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://www.army.mil
Buran said 2:07PM on 1-22-2009
Gotta love how anyone who gripes that they don't have the tools they need to work effectively (and as someone who NEEDS those subtitles due to hearing difficulty, I know how important that kind of thing is) is painted as a "whiner" by those who don't have the same tools.
If I need a widget to do my job effectively, and I say that I don't have it because management short-sightedly thinks I don't need it, when just giving me the tool would let me do my task 5 times instead of just 2, am I a whiner? No; short-sighted management is holding me back from doing my job as well as I can. That's just irresponsible.
This seems to me to be a case of "I don't want to look bad so I'm going to paint somebody else with negative words so they get blamed and not me".
Besides... the President is the one in charge and can (and should) overhaul the out-of-date regulations that prevent the government from serving its citizens as best as possible. Modern technologies surely allow for all platforms and the newest operating systems, software, and file formats to be archived as required under records laws.
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