So you’ve decided to switch your business to Macs, and you’re wondering how to move over all of your data from Windows, and get everything else setup?  In this article, I will discuss some of the process, and show you that switching to the Mac isn’t as hard as you think.

Email, Contacts, and Calendars

These days, businesses can’t function without staying in touch with their customers, and keeping all of their employees on schedule, and organized.  Microsoft Outlook has served businesses very well, but there is no version yet available for the Mac.  Outlook holds email, contacts, and calendar data inside of one file, the PST file.  While you can move the PST file to the Mac, the Mac cannot read, or import the file.  Therefore, we must convert the data inside the PST into a form that is readable by the Mac.  There are many methods to make this conversion.  You need some type of conversion software to make your Outlook data compatible with the Mac.  Some of my favorites are Outlook To Mac, and two apps made by Mozilla — Thunderbird, and Sunbird.

Outlook To Mac (O2M) was created by a company called Little Machines.  O2M exports your email into mBox format, which is an open format.  Since the Mac also uses mBox to store email messages, your converted email can easily be imported onto your new Mac.  mBox is also used by many other mail clients such as Thunderbird, and Eudora.  O2M will convert your contacts to vCard, which can then be imported into Address Book on the Mac.  Calendars are exported by O2M into iCalendar, another open format.  The new iCalendar files can then be imported into iCal on the Mac.  If you choose instead to use Microsoft Entourage for email, contacts, and calendars, Entourage can also import your converted data.  Outlook To Mac costs only $10, but if you want a free option, there’s Mozilla Thunderbird.

Like Mail.app on the Mac, Thunderbird uses a variant of mBox to store email.  After you have installed Thunderbird onto your PC, you can then import your email and contacts into Thunderbird.  Once the import is complete, you will be able to export your contacts into LDIF.  Your emails are stored inside of the current user’s local application data in Windows.  Once you’ve moved the converted email to your Mac, all you have to do is import it into your email client of choice.  Address Book, on the Mac is able to import the contacts stored in the LDIF file created by Thunderbird.  Since Thunderbird does not handle calendars, you’ll need to import your Outlook calendars into Sunbird.  Once you’ve completed the calendar import into Sunbird, you can then export the calendar data into iCalendar format.

They key is to free all of your information from Outlook.  This process seems complicated, but it’s really not.

Word, Excel, Powerpoint, PDF, Music, Pictures

All of your files created in Microsoft Office, pictures, music, PDFs will just work.  Microsoft makes a great version of Office for the Mac.  It includes Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Entourage.  If you’ve decided to abandon Microsoft altogether, Apple’s iWork suite of applications can open files created by Microsoft Office.  In addition, there are several office suites such as Neo Office, and Open Office, which will allow you to open, and create Word, and Excel documents.

Mac OS X already includes an application called Preview, which will open, and combine PDF documents, and even allow you to notate them.  Any document that can be printed can be exported to PDF on the Mac.  PDF exporting has been built into Mac OS X since day one.  There’s no need to purchase additional software to export documents to PDF, or to combine PDF files.

Since late 2003, Windows users have enjoyed using iTunes on their PCs.  If you’ve been using iTunes on your PC, moving your music to the Mac is simple.  All of the pictures on your PC can be easily imported into iPhoto on the Mac.  Both iTunes, and iPhoto are included on every Mac at no additional charge.

Setting up your all Mac office

Gone are the days when Windows ruled the business world.  Macs can serve all of your computing needs from basic office tasks to serving up files, websites, and email.  Accounting applications for the Mac have greatly improved over the last few years.  Intuit’s Quickbooks, and Quicken have finally achieved feature parity with the Windows versions.  There are even several point of sale applications available for the Mac.  The medical industry has several EMR (electronic medical records) options for the Mac.  MacPractice works really well for most types of medical practices.  Two months ago, I helped move an orthodontics practice from Windows to the Mac.  Their choice of EMR software was Tops Ortho.  Tops doesn’t require Mac OS X Server, which will save time, and money during setup, and the support team at Tops is awesome.  Law offices have been making the switch to Mac.  Recently, my colleagues from Kinetic Technology Group and I migrated two law firms to Mac.

Mac OS X Server includes a built in email server in addition to calendar server.  For a lot of small offices, Mac OS X Server’s built in messaging technologies work really well.  For businesses who need a messaging solution with more features, I recommend Kerio Connect from Kerio Technologies.  Like Exchange, Kerio Connect includes a robust email server, calendar server, and contacts server.  Kerio Connect is a great cross platform messaging solution.  It works seamlessly with Macs, Windows PCs, iPhone, and several other mobile devices.  Your email, calendars, and contacts stay synched between all of your devices, and computers.  Kerio Connect provides easy administration, and it is compatible with most smartphone platforms such as iPhone, Blackberry, Android, and Windows Mobile.  If your business continues to run Windows servers, Kerio Connect will integrate easily into Active Directory, so that all of your user accounts are available in Kerio.  If you need to migrate Exchange accounts to Kerio Connect, Kerio provides an Exchange migration tool which will transfer all of your user accounts, their email, contacts, and calendars directly into Kerio Connect.  Kerio Connect runs on Mac OS X Server, and Windows Server.  If your business intends to keep its Exchange server, your new Macs will be able to work with Exchange.

If you plan on keeping some Windows PCs, or servers, have no fear.  Macs, and Windows PCs get along quite well on the same network.  Macs can use file, print, email, and web services hosted by Windows servers, and Windows PCs can do the same with Mac servers.

While the transition from Windows to the Mac isn’t as difficult as you might have believed, there are thousands of Apple Consultants around the U.S. who can assist you.  Apple Consultants are independent contractors who are Apple certified.  Their skills range from setting up home, or small office networks to enterprise level deployments.  They’re fanatical about Apple technology, and they will always try to find the best solutions for their customers.  If you have questions about moving to the Mac, feel free to contact me.

Even after the dramatic resurgence of the Mac platform since the late 1990s, most businesses today still use Windows PCs. There is still the prevailing  misconception that, for general business, Windows is the better choice whereas, the Mac is a better choice for home users, or for creative endeavors.  As an Apple Consultant, I see every day that this old myth is wrong.  The Mac is great for business.  In fact, you can run your whole business on a Mac.

There is a growing number of small and medium sized businesses (and even some large ones) that are adopting the Mac as their primary computing platform.  These companies have found that the Mac is just as capable of running their accounting, email and messaging, file sharing, and web services.  There are several great accounting software titles available for the Mac [Macworld Review].  These include Quickbooks from Intuit, and MYOB AccountEdge.  For businesses who are seeking to avoid the high licensing and maintenance costs associated with Microsoft Exchange, my recommendation is Kerio Connect 7 (formerly Kerio Mail Server).    Mac OS X Server’s file sharing capabilities are excellent, even in mixed computing environments.  Since 2003′s release of Mac OS X Server v. 10.3, Mac OS X Server has had the capability of serving as a primary domain controller for Windows PCs.  Mac OS X Server leverages industry standard LDAP (lightweight directory access protocol), and Kerberos services to provide secure authentication services to both Mac and Windows PCs.  Apple calls its implementation of LDAP Open Directory.   Mac and Windows PCs can bind directly to Open Directory, which enables the server to host home directories for end users, and allow each user to access all of the share points and services that he or she has been authorized to access.  Mac OS X Server offers a much simpler interface for which to manage the server, and all of its services.

Accounting

Accounting as long been a Windows only endeavor.  While the Mac has always had some kind of accounting software available, it has always fallen short of the needs of business customers.  That’s changing.  Intuit has made several improvements to its Mac offerings in recent years.  In addition, Intuit has released Quickbooks Online, which allows both Mac, and Windows users to access their company’s financial data whenever, and wherever they choose.  The iPhone is also supported.  For customers who prefer to use Windows for accounting, but a Mac for everything else, Parallels Desktop, and VMware Fusion will allow customers to run Windows side by side with Mac OS X.  This allows businesses to continue running the Windows versions of their accounting software while enjoying the many benefits and advantages that a Mac offers.  Running Windows in this way will also allow accountants to access the various web based payroll services that are still not Mac friendly.

Email, contacts, and scheduling

For years, business computing has been dominated by Microsoft.  Most large businesses, and many small businesses, use Exchange.  Exchange offers access to email on your desktop PC, and compatible mobile devices, and it offers the ability to check your email, access contacts, and your schedule from a web site.  Exchange works really well with Windows, but its spotty support for the Mac has been an annoyance for Mac users, and I.T. professionals ever since its introduction.  Often, Mac users in large organizations are left in the cold when it comes to full support for email, contacts, and calendaring.

With the release of Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard), Apple has stepped up to make the Mac compatible with Exchange.  The Mac now fully supports Exchange 2007.  The iPhone also supports Exchange.  What if your business wants to totally abandon Microsoft, and go with an all Mac solution?  Mac OS X Server provides a great email, calendar, and contacts solution, but it does have some holes.  It’s not fully compatible with Windows, and even the iPhone is not fully supported in the same way that Exchange works with the iPhone.  Wouldn’t it be great to have a truly cross platform solution that is both easy to manage, and Mac friendly?  That’s where Kerio Connect comes in.

Kerio Connect is the perfect solution for small and medium businesses (even large businesses) who need true groupware email, calendars, and contacts management.  Like Exchange, Kerio Connect provides an excellent webmail interface, and it also synchs with your Macs, PCs, and portable devices.  Kerio Connect is cross platform, and it can be ran from a server running Mac OS X Server, Windows Server, or Linux.  It’s very robust, and easy to manage.  New to Kerio Connect is a fully functional web based admin tool which will enable administrators to login from anywhere to repair issues.  [Read more about Kerio Connect]  Kerio Connect works great with Microsoft Entourage, and with Apple’s mail app.  It works very well with iCal, and Address Book through CalDav, and CardDav.   Kerio Connect can link to your server’s LDAP directory for authentication.  It has full support for both Active Directory (Windows), and Open Directory (Mac).  If your organization or business has a mix of Macs and Windows PCs, Kerio is a great solution to enable Mac users and Windows users to collaborate seamlessly.  Users can share their mail boxes, calendars, and contacts with other users, and provide others with read/write access when needed.

File sharing and web services

For businesses to be truly collaborative, all users need to be able to store and access the company’s files from a central location.  All Mac offices are no different.  Mac OS X Server provides an excellent solution for file sharing.  Administrators can manage access to the server’s resources from a simple server admin tool that can be installed on a laptop, or desktop Mac.  Like Windows Server, Mac OS X Server provides management options on the user, and group level, as well as on the machine level.  Mac OS X Server incorporates industry standard LDAP services which enables it to act as a primary domain controller for both Mac and Windows PCs.  Windows PCs can bind to the Mac server in the same way that they bind to Windows servers.  Mac OS X Server will also host home folders for various users whether they are using a desktop system, or a laptop.  Similar to Windows Server, Mac OS X Server can be configured to enforce password policies to allow administrators to mandate regular password changes, and create policies on the number of characters that end users must use in their passwords.  Mac OS X Server provides file sharing access through Apple File Protocol (AFP), Windows sharing (SMB), File Transfer Protocol (FTP), and Network File System (NFS).

Mac OS X Server uses industry standard Apache, an open source foundation for web services. WebDav, also included in Mac OS X Server, enables collaborative web publishing for your organization.  Mac OS X Server includes fast and easy publishing of wikis and blogs.  Even a small businesses with no I.T. staff can easily have a full featured company blog running on Mac OS X Server.

Making the switch

Making the switch to Mac isn’t as difficult as it might seem.  In addition to the almost 300 Apple Stores worldwide ready to assist you, there are thousands of Apple Consultants all over the U.S., and in many other countries.  An Apple Consultant is an experienced independent contractor who is Apple certified.  Their services and skills range from providing basic desktop support for homes, and small businesses to setting up and deploying servers, and large scale networks.  Apple Consultants can help your organization build a plan to make the transition as easy and painless as possible.  They enjoy challenges, and they’re always willing to go the extra mile to build the right solution for their customers.

If you are located in Dallas/Fort Worth, contact Kinetic Technology Group to assist with your Windows to Mac transition.  We have the knowledge, the skills, and the creativity to make your transition a success.

*Kerio Mail Server has been renamed Kerio Connect. Many new features have been added since the time this entry was written.

One of the few drawbacks to using a Mac in a business environment has been the lack of a solid, business class groupware email, calendar, and contacts solution.  With the release of Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6), Apple has introduced built in support for Exchange, but for small businesses who are concerned about cost of deployment, and maintaining the solution once it has been deployed, Exchange is not always the best choice.  Why should an all Mac office deploy a Windows server just for email?

Two years ago, when I left Apple to become an Apple Consultant, I was introduced to Kerio Mail Server by the new company that I was working for.  I was impressed that my email, contacts, and calendars could easily be synced between my Mac, and any other computer that I wanted to configure with my Kerio account.  In the Summer of 2008, Kerio added full iPhone support which allowed my contacts, and calendars to stay synced with my Mac.  If I ever found myself without access to my Mac, or my iPhone, Kerio Mail Server’s webmail feature had everything that I needed.  All of my contacts, calendars, and email were there.

Although I have worked with a lot of customers who run all Mac offices, most have been a mix and Mac and Windows PCs.  Mac OS X Server provides a really great email solution, but it doesn’t have a true cross platform groupware features.  That’s where Kerio Mail Server comes in.  For small businesses who need cross platform groupware features, Kerio Mail Server (KMS) is a great solution.  Kerio Mail Server runs on Mac OS X Server, Windows Server, and on Linux.  It has full support for Open Directory, and Active Directory, and it allows businesses to run LDAP services on one kind of server (Mac or Windows), and Kerio Mail Server on another server.  One deployment that I worked on involved setting up Mac OS X Server with KMS, but the user accounts were stored in Active Directory on a Windows Server.  This enabled the customer to easily integrate Mac OS X Server into their network without having to make major changes to their existing server/network configuration.

The cost of deployment is always a major concern for small businesses. [Comparison Chart]  This is another reason why Kerio Mail Server is a great choice.  For 50 users, the minimum licensing cost for Kerio Mail Server is $1299.  The same amount of users in Exchange 2007 will cost your business over $5000.  Depending upon your server and workstation configurations, you could also be facing additional client access license (CAL) costs which is a problem that does not exist with Mac OS X Server.  Mac OS X Server includes licensing for unlimited users.

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For years, Mac users in business have languished without a good, business class email solution.  Exchange compatibility in some form has existed on the Mac for quite sometime.  However, I.T. departments often don’t know how to get Exchange to work properly with Macs, or they are unwilling to make changes to accommodate Mac users.  Entourage, which is part of Microsoft Office for the Mac, includes Exchange compatibility, but it requires more configuration than Outlook.  Most of the time, the I.T. staff has no idea how to properly configure Entourage to take full advantage of Exchange, and all of its groupware features.  Even when Entourage is configured with all of the necessary LDAP information, there are often features missing from the product due to a company’s unique security requirements, or server configuration .  Access to Kerio Mail Server can be configured on numerous email clients on the Mac.  Apple’s own Mail app that is included in Mac OS X works very well with Kerio Mail Server, as does Microsoft Entourage.  Apple’s Address Book app, and iCal work very well with KMS.  There is no complicated setup process, and Kerio Mail Server includes auto configuration scripts for Entourage, and iCal.  For contacts syncing, Kerio Mail Server provides the Kerio Sync Connector to ensure that contacts stay synced between your Mac, smartphone, webmail, and other computers that you choose to setup.  Kerio Mail Server (soon to be renamed Kerio Connect) will support CardDav, which was recently introduced  into Mac OS X.  Kerio Mail Server supports iPhone, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, and Palm smartphones to allow access to email, contacts, and calendars from anywhere.  Let’s not forget Windows, of course.  Kerio Mail Server works great with Microsoft Outlook.

For administrators, KMS offers easy installation and updating, as well as easy management, and maintenance.  The installation process for KMS averages about 2 minutes, and updates can be performed while the server is actively serving clients.  If you need to migrate from Exchange to KMS, Kerio provides an Exchange migration tool which will move all of your users from Exchange to Kerio Mail Server, including all of their email, contacts, and calendars.  Kerio also provides a tool to migrate users from IMAP email systems.  KMS includes built in backup and archiving, and can be bundled with anti-virus software built in.  Administrators will have some great anti-spam tools at their disposal.  KMS can be administrated remotely using a web interface, or by using the Kerio admin console that can be downloaded from Kerio’s website.  The admin console is included in every KMS install.  If you need support, Kerio offers some of the best phone support that I have ever received.  Their techs are extremely knowledgeable, and they are always willing to give advice on how to find the best configuration for your needs.  There is also a growing number of Kerio resellers, and support providers throughout the U.S.  who can setup your new Kerio Mail Server, and offer onsite support when you need help.

Please feel free to contact me if you have questions about Kerio Mail Server.

Beta 3 of Kerio Connect 7 (renamed from Kerio Mail Server) from Kerio Technologies, Inc. now supports CardDav.  Snow Leopard users can now rejoice that fully native contacts synching is on the way.

When Snow Leopard released on August 28th, Kerio Mail Server was not fully compatible with Snow Leopard.  I have always enthusiastically upgraded to the latest version of Mac OS X on the date of the release, so when I found out that KMS was not going to support Snow Leopard, that was a major drawback.  Although email was unaffected, Kerio Mail Server was not compatible with the new version of iCal in Snow Leopard.  Anyone who upgraded to Snow Leopard found out afterward that their Kerio hosted calendar was read only in iCal, and could not be managed in iCal.  Users needed to either modify their calendar from webmail, or use another device such as their iPhone.  Kerio followed up with an update (6.7.2) less than a month later.  The update fixed the compatibility issue with iCal.  With Snow Leopard, Apple introduced CardDav into Address Book.  Along with CardDav, Apple also added an updated native Exchange synching feature in Address Book.  This broke the ability for Address Book to synch with Kerio Mail Server through ‘Exchange’ synching.  Snow Leopard users would need to use the Kerio Sync Connector instead, which is a separate add-on that needs to be installed, and later, manually updated each time that there is a Kerio Mail Server update.  Kerio Sync Connector will synchronize the user’s contacts and  calendars with the Kerio server automatically.  Calendar synching can also be handled through CalDav instead of using the Kerio Sync Connector.   Computer geeks like myself don’t have a problem with updating software on a regular basis.  However, non-savvy users will often put off downloading updates, which over time, will lead to synchronization problems.

My goal as a Kerio Mail Server administrator has always been to use a deployment solution that does not require the end user to download and install an update each time that Kerio Mail Server is updated.  This is why I try not to use the Kerio Sync Connector, and instead, use the native ‘Exchange’ synching in Address Book for Macs running Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard), or earlier.  For Macs running Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard), the Kerio Sync Connector has been the best way to synch contacts with the server.  With the release of Kerio Connect 7 beta 3,  Kerio has introduced native CardDav synching into their product.  This will eliminate the need to use a separate add-on.  Contacts will stay synchronized as long as the computer is connected to the network.

Although Apple has made a huge improvement in Exchange support for the Mac, Kerio Mail Server remains to be the best solution for small and medium businesses who need groupware features such as server hosted shared contacts, and calendars.  Kerio Mail Server supports all three of the major computing platforms (Mac, Windows, Linux).  My own email host, Get Sync’d, is using Kerio Mail Server to provide their customers with business class email service.  In mixed computing environments, Mac users and Windows users can collaborate seamlessly.  Often Mac users are made to live with little to no collaborative features when using email that is hosted an Exchange server.  This is due in part to the I.T. staff not knowing how to properly setup Exchange on the Mac, but also because Macs have lacked the native ability to tap into all of the features of Exchange.  Apple has brought native Exchange compatibility to the Mac, but only for Exchange 2007.  Kerio Mail Server brings all of the collaborative features of Exchange to the Mac with an easier setup process, and at a lower overall cost.  Kerio Mail Server is perfect for small and medium businesses since the cost of setting up an in house mail server running Kerio Mail Server is considerably less than deploying Exchange.  If your business does not need an in house mail server, Kerio hosting providers such as Rocket Fast, and  Get Sync’d are a great choice.  These providers can take the headache out of managing your email, and free you to concentrate on growing your business.  If you’re a home user, and you own your own domain name, having your email hosted by a Kerio hosting provider is a great way to maintain your email address even when you’re switching from one Internet service provider to another.  You won’t have to give up your email address just because you’ve grown tired of your ISP.

If you have a server available to use for testing, I suggest that you download, and check out Kerio Mail Server, or the new Kerio Connect beta.  Kerio allows a limited time test drive of Kerio Mail Server.  You will love the fast, and easy setup (2 minute install), and the ease of administration.  Kerio Mail Server has full support for Open Directory, and Active Directory.  It runs on Mac OS X Server, Windows Server, and Linux.  You can even run Kerio Mail Server on client versions of Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux, but you won’t have the ability to tap into Open Directory and Active Directory.  As with any beta, Kerio Connect should not be deployed on a production server.