Simply put, because I can. I have been using Mac for years, and for the most part, it hasn’t given me the same problems that Windows plagued me with. With that said, the key lock system is compatible with MacOS, and that is the key thing. I will be missing out on some software, but this will be a small price to pay for an OS that just works. MacOS has a number of programs that Microsoft doesn’t offer, or charges a subscription to use. MacOS has an included office suite, an email client, and a web browser. Apple Messages will allow system to system communications to happen just by simply knowing the associated email address to the Apple ID. Since I will own the computers, I will own the Apple IDs. The only software that I will install that is not included will be BBEdit. This is so the employee can use a capable text editor if that is something they need. I personally use it to remove formatting from copy and pasting.
Apple Pages will be the default office suite. Any new documents to be created will be written in Pages. If the document has to be sent to someone else, a .pdf copy will be made. While FSP Realty will use MacOS, it can’t be expected that everyone will use MacOS. .pdf files are universal across all modern OSes. Apple Numbers will be used for spreadsheets. Since I personally don’t use Numbers now, I can’t define any saves to .pdf files, but I will like to think this is possible.
Apple Mail will allow the employee to interact with email correspondences. This will allow the employee to communicate with potential tenants, or even tenants. I will try to make an attempt to somehow use a unified contact manager for the LAN. This will allow changes to tenant’s contact information to change with hourly updates on the computers. I am sure there is a way, I just don’t know it. For web browsing, Safari will be used. The web browser is fast, and optimized for MacOS. It is also included with MacOS, so that is one less app to install.
iMessage will be used as the internetwork Instant Messaging tool. All one has to know is an Apple ID, or an associated telephone number. For sake of this page, every computer will have its own unique Apple ID. This will allow employees to communicate with each other, and those outside of FSP Realty that would use iMessage. There is also a phone app, but you need to have an iPhone connected to the computer, and that would not be allowed since this is the property of FSP Realty.
BBEdit will be the standard text editor for the network. I know that each UID will need to purchase a unique license, but this is fine considering it will do a lot better than text edit when using .txt files. Since I am the only one to manage FSP Realty’s websites, it will be just me that would have an FTP client. All other systems will not need an FTP client.