VPN / Remote Desktop Capabilities on Mac

Yes Macs can connect t VPN's their is a built in VPN client on 10.3 and up. Go into applications and find Internet Connect and select VPN there you can setup the parameters. Here is a link that shows the steps,

http://www.depts.ttu.edu/helpcentral/directions/VPN/vpn_panther.php#setup

There are also remote desktop capabilities, if you go to Apple's website under the downloads section you can search for remote desktop there is a Windows and Mac client that you can download.

Windows client.
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/networking_security/remotedesktopconnectionclient.html

Our Mac user says he'll try these solutions out later tonight and report in tomorrow morning.  Will fill you in the, thanks for the quick reply guys!

If you need RDP into Windows from OS X, you need Microsoft RDP client http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/remote-desktop/default.mspx

The beta version of remote desktop is available on :
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/remote-desktop/default.mspx
to use via browser without any software
use http://logmein.com
or alternatively search on google:
Vnc viewer

Sorry for the late reply guys I'm still waiting on the Mac user :(

OK
no worris but im am sure he will get all wat he wants as mac is as compatible as windows but the windows family has left very little space for mac and other os like linux and unix thus its not dominant and widely accepted.
But this will work as our job is to make sure all os get same priority as windows
..
cheers have a nice day

The above solutions from hankerin, and from vishal_impact both work. I would steer clear of log me in, because it means that you have to have a computer on at all times.

As for the DNS issues, it is true that macs are a bit unforgiving, that is due to thier linux/unix/BSD heritage, (had to include all, before I got flamed!) On the other hand, if your VPN gateway is configured correctly to push out the required DNS information, then we would have no isses at all (provided that the FQDN is only avalible inside your network, for example, if you have www.mydomain.com which points to your internal website, and also have www.mydomain.com, which points to a real live external site, the primary DNS server of the client, that is, the one which provided DNS for the original internet connection, will win out, and it would be impossible to connect via FQDN, unless you specify the IP and FQDN in a host file, which is now going beyond the scope of this question!)

Wow, so far it sounds good.  I still haven't received word from our Mac user if its working or not.  I push him to tell but not too much cuz he is the CIO.  The pain of politics at work :P

Thanks for all the contributing answers though, its appreciated muchly!

Sorry this took so long, but the IT dept was finally able to get a hold of his laptop.

Thanks!