The Won't Allow a MAC on the Windows Network!!!

The main reason probably is that there may not be any admin personal who knows how to support MAC's. This can be an important reason to deny MACs on a LAN.

Make me the third one to agree.
The Sys/Network Admins have to be responsible for what goes on through their network.
Adding Mac's or Linux or any other OS would be out of the question for any network I manage.

My network background is primarily Network Security and I agree with your Admin folks.

Vic

Ignorance is the only reason to resist putting a Mac on any network. I, too, am resistant to things I'm ignorant of. Being familiar with both environments and having administered both, I firmly believe there is more reason to resist putting Windows workstations on a windows network than Macs, especially with OSX Macs.

I would not recommend sharing working documents, though, as the document would have to be converted back and forth between the two. However, sharing true type or open type fonts and image and art files that are imported into working documents are not a problem. Sharing networked printers should not be a problem either.

Any concerns regarding viruses is a waste of energy. I've been working around Macs for 20 years and I've only seen one Mac virus...and it was benign to Windows computers.

My previous workplace was about 50/50 Windows and Mac OS computers on a Windows network. Though I prefer to work on a Windows workstation, as a network administrator, I'd have loved to do away with the Windows workstations and gone strictly with Macs.

I guess they don't want a MAC presence for the same reason everyone else has already suggested. Lack of knowledge about the platform, probably will result in lack of supportability and accountability when something does go wrong.  

Plus, the support headache is going to double for them, even though just one or a few MAC clients, then there will be issues with file access, font support, and software licenses.

I understand where your support guys are coming from, but most of the issues they mention are unfounded.

File incompatibility is only an issue if you are using different programs, but that is an issue amoung pc users also (ie if one user runs Corel Draw and another doesn't have it they can't open it). So if you have Illustrator files and they don't have illustrator on PC they won't be able to open it. That said there is a slight issue with Word 2007 files at the moment, but this is due to be fixed soon.

Fonts is not an issue, there are plenty of cross platform fonts, these are available from free online, from vendors like Adobe or some are included with the system

Virus' most decent AV applications have mac clients, we use Sophos here and it supports macs and pc's a like, also the Mac virus has not materialised to any significance thus far

Admittedly there is no way of enforcing global policies, although you can make the mac connect to the Active Directory and all file permissions will be inherited.

I think its more a case of them not wanting to than anything else. We use Mac's/PC's  with virtually no issues.

I'm a PC guy, but just spent three months preparing for the Mac certification.

If I was running an all-pc LAN and I had to start supporting Macs, I would do it, but I would want a raise to compensate for the added skills needed.  Knowledge of debugging Mac hardware and software is not trivial.

Macs are in the same category as LINUS boxes.
All the adherents claim there are no problems commingling all the OS's on the same network.
I ran one small network with 2 Macs and about 300 Windows boxes and the IT folks spent more time solving compatibility problems with the Macs than with all the Windows boxes combined.

On much larger networks, we always have a small group of UNIX boxes.
The interference with the primary network is so bad that we had to firewall the clowns that run them.

Keep the Mac's and other OS's in their own world and let the IT folks focus on what they're doing.