More Good News for Apple on the Enterprise Front

This really should come as no surprise to anyone who has taken the time to really do their due diligence on Apple hardware and OS X.

It especially should come as no surprise to those who look for alternatives to Outlook and Office in how they manage their workflow and businesses. You don't have to pay the MS tax for client licenses and server products.

You can be a lot more creative in iWorks offerings than you can in Office. Pages and Keynote templates in particular are outstanding for novice users in comparison to Office offerings.

With so many companies tapping into web-based solutions for database, CRM, and content management, the need for extraneous costs associated with MS products is diminishing every year.

Make products that customers want.

Looks like Steve Jobs and Co may have the winning recipe after all.

More and more it'll be bye bye MS.

About a year ago, I made it a policy to buy Apple hardware only. For users that _require_ Windows as a full-time OS, we install and run XP via Boot Camp. Everyone else runs OS X. When I need to redeploy or shift machines around to accommodate personnel changes, I just re-image the machine depending on the end-user's computing requirements. Believe it or not, XP is easier and quicker to install on a Mac than any Dell, HP or IBM I've ever worked with. It's very convenient having a common hardware platform.

Of course that 68% said they would let their staff use Macs because what they didn't say was that staff was going to be laid off and so since they will be out of a job they can use whatever they want.

Microsoft makes platforms for partners to develop solutions for the enterprise. Their products are aimed at buyers: home, business, enterprise, and so forth. The problem is that partners can't support Microsoft's products as well as Microsoft could, and buyers aren't separate species that can't interbreed. Two different buyers (home and business) can be the same user.

Apple's secret is to make hardware and software for users. Not partners, not customers, but users. That's why Microsoft products are imposed on the user from the top, and Apple products invade the enterprise from the bottom.

The biggest hurdle Apple has are IT department personnel not wanting to support Apple products. What is changing is that now these hard core Windows people are using Macs and iPhones at home and are beginning to realize that having to support high quality products where the hardware and the software are made by the same reliable manufacturer, will actually make their jobs easier.

What IT departments REALLY dislike is that Macs require a fraction of the care of PCs. Any manager will tell you their goal is to INcrease payroll and personnel . . . not DEcrease it.

Make products that customers want.

If only GM/Ford/Chrysler had that kind of wisdom!

After finding my laptop crashing due to a virus and then going through the process a second time, I am about to change. Life does not need to be filled with Gatesisms.

Although I am pro Apple and believe they will do increasingly well in the consumer / entertainment arena, I do not believe for a second it will make much progress in the enterprise arena.
Companies are cutting costs and standardizing / trimming their hardware and software portfolio like hell, which makes it very unlikely they would increase the number of platforms again.

The company I work for gave me a MacBook when I started (marketing), which is the first for the company. Shortly after the IT guy got one for himself after seeing how easy everything was for me.

I think the iPhone would be in here as well if it wasn't a Rogers exclusive - since we are with Telus.

Apple vs MS. Please note that the success of the iPhone in the corporate environment is specifically tied to the new MS Exchange Active Synch functionality. It works great for me.

As a small business owner, I've been using a MacBook Pro for the last year running Parallels for the lone application that I need Windows - QuickBooks Pro. (Intuit makes a single user QB, but not the multiuser version I need to run my business)

I've been so pleased that I plan to phase out Windoz machines all together for my staff as machines get replaced.

MAC OS Functions like SPACES, QUICKVIEW and the included PREVIEW application simply make me more productive. And while the ultra power MS OFFICE users may prefer it over iWork, Pages, Numbers and Keynote are easier to use and just as powerful for my needs. At $79, the price is very attractive compared to Office. And the icing on the cake is the iLife bundle of creative software for photo, music, web.

Jon T has it right. Given a (vastly oversimplified but still useful) two-horse race between "products that customers want" and "products that consumers feel they get shoved down their throats"...which will succeed? In an open, honest marketplace, rather obviously the first. Microsoft's true genius has been taking what started as an open environment (when was the last time your TV manual had a full schematic and parts list like the IBM 5150?), and locking it down tight. Not through excellence of product, not through excellence of support, but through sheer marketing effort and relentlessly ruthless media management. Fortunately, the king hasn't smashed all the mirrors; people are beginning to notice the richness of his wardrobe - and the sense he makes when he tells them how to dress.