Apple poised for big enterprise growth?
The combination of the new unibody MacBook and Microsoft Exchange-ready 3G iPhone could prove to be irresistible for enterprise users and system administrators alike.
In his write up on the new unibody MacBook, Scot Finnie of ComputerWorld makes the following observation:
I’m not predicting wholesale adoption of Macs by larger enterprises anytime soon, but the new MacBook will make the most significant inroads into the enterprise market of any Apple product, probably ever. It comes down to price / performance, price point, design focus, durability, suitability to task and market timing.
The bottom line here is that Finnie and his cohorts found that Apple’s new MacBook is competitively priced and has the look-n-feel and feature set of a business notebook.
So, Apple’s got the physical and cost characteristics down, but what about the timing?
Although absolute proof of Apple’s timing won’t come until well after the fact, a pair of enterprise surveys show that Cupertino might be right on the money.
First, a ChangeWave survey found that of those using Mac OS X 10.5, 53 percent said they were very satisfied, compared to just 7 percent of Vista users. And, second, is a Yankee Group survey that found eight-of-ten enterprises now have some Macs on their networks with nearly one-quarter running 30 or more Apple-branded computers—a high not seen since the late 1980s.
With the vast majority of enterprises skipping Windows Vista this upgrade cycle, the combination of the Microsoft Exchange-ready 3G iPhone, which outsold the RIM Blackberry last quarter, and the new unibody MacBook present a tempting combination for suits and sys admins alike.
That said, it’s been endlessly predicted (hoped for?) that Apple sales will tank with the economy because Cupertino’s products are all top-shelf, best-of-class solutions. However, the reality has been that company’s results have continued to outpace expectations and the competition by a wide margin.
Will tempting products and growing mind share translate into increasing enterprise market share in a down market? Now, that’s an interesting question…
What’s your take?
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October 30th, 2008
“Cupertino’s products are all top-shelf, best-of-class solutions”
If you don’t think you can’t do significantly better than a Mini or Macbook for the same money, you haven’t looked. Macbook Pro’s are a different matter.
Apple isn’t built for enterprise business. Doesn’t mean they make bad products, or it would be better if they did.
Doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be a good fit for certain businesses.
IT directors and CIO’s would lose their jobs with Apple’s current marketing and structure.
Enterprise and Business use are not the same.
The cost of the computer has very little impact on the bottom line overall investment in the Enterprise.
I’d be stunned if you didn’t find more Apple products used to accomplished business tasks. Quality products.
If all you’re doing, like many workers, is email and general office tasks. in a non-enterprise setting it’s hard to argue about a Macbook Pro or an iPhone for email. In many business uses the device used for the task is the main cost incurred.
Apple isn’t going to get even a small taste of true enterprise business. They would have to lower margins and blow up the very brilliant product mix.
October 31st, 2008
When the man behind the curtain can’t be seen, there’s a lot of leeway. If Apple can bundle any Mac, at a discounted price, with a free iPod touch for students, why can’t they make a similar deal work for business?
November 2nd, 2008
Discounting the price is only part of the issue. If you look at that favorite target of Macheads, Dell, their business line is much more expensive than their commodity craptastic lowest priced consumer models.
They also come with 3 year warranties, focus on the features most useful to business as a tool, and give their customers the ability to tweak options. They guarantee availability of service parts, give me information about product life cycles for budgeting and I know when our people are sent to do business in Europe, South America or the Caribbean the 8 hour response in the contract we signed is active should they need repair.
I can purchase servers with flexible options, switches, UPS, software and OS’s and I can call and talk to someone who is familiar with and has information about our equipment. They ship our computers already having the disk image we setup for specific locations.
Dell business tech support never was in India, it stayed here. Between Microsoft technet subscriptions that give us preproduction and production copies of every product they make and Dell sending us testing and evaluation hardware I can be reasonably certain my budget and time line won’t have nasty surprises.
As an IT Director you have to look at wireless phones, leasing of copiers which for us do much more than just copies, they take images of what is scanned and apply them to virtual customer files. All invoices and parts and labor service forms have unique customer bar codes. I’m not real concerned about my job going to India Mongo.
Can’t see anyway Apple is going to be able to help enterprise with much of that unless Jobs gets possessed by whatever bean counter demon that got Sculley and Spindler. If they starts discounting business sales, who are going to be buying multiple Macs unlike the single student sale, it will start pissing off all those “friends of Steve”. Look at what dropping the price of iPhone did.
Apple getting involved in a pricing war would be a bad idea for them. If your share, sales and profit are all growing at a blistering, record setting pace they would be foolish.
None of this is real important if you are a non-enterprise IT structure in your business.
Unless whoever the in house but a mixed environment and the additional cost if all you are doing is email and general office documents is a dubious investment.
If the users feel it makes them more productive and management is ok with it after we gave our analysis we would cheerfully make it work. My job is to implement, not dictate.
The computers on our network don’t BSOD, get viruses or require constant wipe and reloads. Our IT staff isn’t only mono-skilled paper MCSE’s, we aren’t worried about keeping our fiefdoms or losing our jobs