Michigan Technic Corporation
Mac OS X Consolidates Three Desktop Systems
The Right Stuff
Although Santangelo initially chose the Macintosh platform for its ease of use and practically nonexistent need for maintenance, his army of Macs has become crucial to the success of his assignments. With incredibly complex mathematical modeling involved in the analysis and design of his satellites and their payloads, Santangelo demands unprecedented power from his machine. And his Power Mac with its Velocity Engine delivers.
The Power Mac has the accelerated performance Santangelo’s processing-intensive applications need — specifically Photoshop, and CAD applications including Vellum, Vector Works, and Infini-D. With the Power Mac, Santangelo gets consistently sustained performance at incredible speeds — over one billion floating-point operations per second (a gigaflop), to be exact. When asked why Santangelo insists on the Mac platform, he answers that no other platform delivers supercomputer power at a desktop price.
With the introduction of Mac OS X, Santangelo is looking forward to bringing more software programs for space exploration to the Macintosh. In fact, he is working with NASA to convert one of its UNIX-based environmental modeling programs to Mac OS X. “Apple’s Mac OS X combines the power of a UNIX computer with the trademark ease of use of the Mac to create a platform that exceeds the combination of the two,” says Santangelo. “Mac OS X provides a tremendous opportunity in space exploration for porting applications that now run only on UNIX to the Mac platform.”
Minimal Maintenance
Not only does Santangelo insist that everyone in his office work on a Mac, he’s also mandating it for his contractors. “If contractors want to work with us, they have to use the Mac platform,” he says. “That’s because, as a small business, I can’t afford a big IS department.” Santangelo employs one MIS person who spends only a third of his time on the computers, and MT has never experienced a Mac-related system failure.
Santangelo also relies on the ability to easily create and maintain customized applications on the Mac. After all, there aren’t a lot of off-the-shelf project management solutions for an organization that researches and designs tether technology for NASA. Michigan Technic’s databases have been designed to track all the requirements for their satellites. Santangelo’s staff enters the requirements for each part of the satellite into an Excel spreadsheet. NASA then reviews the spreadsheet to make sure it complies with the mission’s objectives. Finally the data is automatically transferred to a customized database using AppleScript.
Santangelo has also been impressed by the interoperability between the different applications. From spreadsheets and CAD programs to personalized FileMaker Pro databases, information can be cut and pasted between applications, and each task can be done using most of the same commands, promoting quick learning and efficiency. Santangelo recognizes that other platforms are striving to reach that same plateau, but his feeling is “Why go with somebody who is trying to get somewhere, when the Mac is already there?”
Mac-of-the-Month Club
MT relies on so much Apple technology, Santangelo jokes that the company is part of “the Mac of the Month Club.” They have seven Power Macs, eight iMacs, five iBooks, and three PowerBooks that run everything from business operations and sales presentations to incredibly complex math models and CAD designs. Oh, and there’s also the occasional inter-office pod race.
Santangelo is currently configuring his desktop computer for two Apple Cinema Displays to give him the maximum amount of screen real estate as he multi-tasks his way through the day. In addition, each of his analysts carry Palm handhelds to keep track of their schedules. An AirPort Base Station keeps the office fluid as the analysts and their laptops and handheld devices move about the building.
A Balanced Equation
When all is said and done, it’s clear that the equation for successful space tether missions will be the sum of the following parts: a lot of rocket science, Santangelo’s ingenuity and acumen, a little help from NASA, and the supercomputing power of the Macintosh.