Sure, but this would be no different than any MP3 player, including WMP. This, along with "encourages proliferation of illegally obtained music", have nothing at all to do with iTunes or any other MP3 player. If your employees are thieves, it doesn't matter to which MP3 player you give them access. Do bricks encourage people to rob stores? As has been noted before, iTunes invented the notion of a legitimate way to purchase digital music and is therefore the antithesis of enouraging illegal downloads. The biggest problem with iTunes on Windows is that Apple is roughly as good at writing Windows software as Microsoft is at writing Mac software (at least in the last couple of decades). In other words: not too good. iTunes on Mac OS X is really nice, but at work I just bring in my iPod and listen to music from there. I personally don't think consumer software should be loaded on work computers unless there is a business need, but many of the things listed below in "cons" are silly, if not downright inaccurate.
________________________________ From: Crawford, Scott [mailto:crawfo...@evangel.edu] Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2010 11:22 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: iTunes Music obtained from peer to peer networks is often infected. No music format that I am aware of has the capability of carrying executable code. All files - music or otherwise - are streams of 1's and 0's. I's solely up to the application playing the files that determine what the bits mean. If there's a security vulnerability in iTunes, then an MP3 file would be a likely vehicle for delivering it. A file doesn't need to be overtly "code" to exploit a vulnerability. From: Ken Cornetet [mailto:ken.corne...@kimball.com] Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2010 9:20 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: iTunes Cons addressed in-line CONS It is more of an iTunes Store kiosk than a music manager. iTunes store is available, but you don't have to use it. What can't iTunes do as a manager that other media players can do? Encourages proliferation of illegally obtained music. More so than Windows Media Player? Actually, I'd say that the ability to very easily buy music via the iTunes store discourages illegal music. Music obtained from peer to peer networks is often infected. No music format that I am aware of has the capability of carrying executable code. Uses valuable bandwidth, streaming and downloading. No more than WMP and you can easily block it if you like. Windows Media Player is already included in Windows to play music. Why is this a con for iTunes? iTunes media is generally high bitrate, meaning audio and video will take up a lot of space. iTunes does not control the bitrate of the digital media. The person creating the media controls the bitrate. Massive memory footprint puts a strain on system resources. I wouldn't call iTunes svelte, but it isn't horrible in its requirements. I run it on a Thinkpad T23 (900Mhz, 512MB) at home. Time to backup user's files increases exponentially Again, this has nothing to do with iTunes. Have the user put their music files somewhere other than their "My Documents". Or, exclude media file types from being backed up. Installs other required applications with it (Quicktime, Safari, AppleApplicationSupport, MobileMe, Bonjour, etc) You don't have to install Safari. The other stuff stays out of the way. Requires frequent updating. You can turn checking for updates off. Requires admin rights to update it. AFAIK, you have to be admin to even run iTunes. This does suck. iTunes updates have a nasty history of triggering system crashes. I call BS on this. I've certainly never had a crash from running iTunes. PROS Apple users like it. ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin
