The US Army wants some more Apple if we are to believe recent rumors emanating from the media. In its war on terror the military must first secure its own intelligence (…) and this is why the Macintosh platform is gaining ground.

According to Forbes, the US Army is ready to take the competition between the two main operating systems (OSX and Windows) to a new level. Following a report from 2005 by General Steve Boutelle, the Army's chief information officer, the new trend in the military is to have as many Macs around as possible, in order to keep information safe. General Boutelle asked in his report that competition among Army contractors be sharpened in order to strengthen IT defenses.

Lieutenant Colonel C.J. Wallington, a division chief in the Army's office of enterprise information systems, is convinced that Apple’s Macintosh platform, already renowned for its security and for the fact that it has generally been less of target for hackers than Windows, will protect the Army from intrusions. Such intrusions have already occurred in the past, not only inside military’s servers, but on the servers of big corporations supplying the Army, like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon.

Out of approximately 700,000 servers and desktops currently in possession of the military personnel, more than 20,000 are Macs, according to Wallington. The number is increasing by a thousand every time the Army buys new hardware (twice a year).

Until recently, the hefty price and the lack of compatible software have determined high-ranked officials to go with the less secure Windows platform. Moreover, a heavily-used security key-card system called Common Access Cards system or CAC, could not be ported on the OSX because of technical issues.

All until now. By February 2008, an Arlington, Texas-based software firm called Thursby Software will make sure that no incompatibility stands between the CAC and the Mac. Add to this the inherent security of the UNIX-based MacOSX and the fact that Apple’s smaller install base has generally“deflected” hackers, and you understand the Army’s willingness to switch to Mac.

"If you look at the numbers, you see that malicious software for Macs is very limited," Forbes quoted Jonathan Broskey, a former Apple employee who now heads the Army's Apple program. "We used to sell Apples by saying they don't get viruses."