Hello - We just joined the Tessitura Network and I have a question regarding the use of Macs vs. PCs with Tessitura. We are about to replace all of our desk top units and we are considering replacing our PCs with the Mac Mini. I understand the we will need to purchase and install the Windows parallel software and we will be using Tessitura v.11.
Does anyone have a point of view or a suggestion before we make this purchase. We will be purchasing about 12 new desktops in the next two weeks.
Thank you - David
I'd definitely recommend a pilot install of 1 Mac running Parallels/Fusion/Remote Desktop Client before getting all 12, if you haven't done so already. While possible to run Tess in a virtual machine locally, I've run into issues, primarily with printing. You may also run into PCI-DSS issues if you go with desktop virtualization, as the host Mac OS may now be in scope as well as the virtual environment.
The best recommendation I can offer would be to use separate Windows queues for the printers instead of relying on the virtualization layer to take care of that for you. I've had great success using RDC on the Mac to our Terminal Server and then printing to our Windows queues, but that only uses the Mac as a dumb client.