- Sunday, 29 November 2009
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Too bad all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxi cabs and cutting hair - George Burns
How Apple can change IT’s spots
WHEN APPLE lets slip the leash on Leopard this Friday, its predatory instincts will be trained on Microsoft and Steve Ballmer’s blood will be scented in the twitching nostrils of its, er, operating system.
Yes, I know, but as well as tempting hacks the world over with the possibility of untold numbers of rubbishy metaphors and similes, Leopard is Apple’s best chance in a decade and a half at clawing back (oh bloody hell, it’s happening again) market share in the dull but fantastically lucrative world of fluorescent lighting, datacentres and systems ordered by the fleet. In short, the corporate client computing world.
It’s well established that the Ipod and Iphone have created a halo effect on Apple’s desktop and notebook business, both of which are growing at wonderful rates. Most of these sales have been to consumers but Apple has half a chance of converting IT shops too.
The old wisdom is that Microsoft has deep hooks into business and these can never be severed because of dependency on legacy software, systems, skills and processes. That’s true up to a point but the times are changing.
Item: mobility. IT likes to act as if it has total control over what’s going on over the network. The problem is that lots of users are only touching the network now and then. IT can’t control the laptop crowd and the laptop crowd is getting to be the majority in many businesses. These people often aren’t following processes for security, and IT can’t catch them. Also, it can’t discipline them because a lot of them are the bosses. Apple’s US client sales are two-thirds laptops, despite the fact that a lot its laptop products have been sub-optimal (that’s American for crap): heavy boxes with high prices and keyboards that wipe characters. If Apple can right that weakness, it can attack a crowd of users that specify their own brand and justify it because they spend so much damn time on the road that they’re damned if IT is going to make them get a Dell. Or some such contentious wisdom.
Item: funkiness. Apple’s got it, Dell hasn’t. Sony’s Vaio showed that the big swinging dicks get what they ask for, even if it is twice the price of the Hokey-Cokey brand that is the company standard. Execs live on these boxes and they feel that it might as well be a nice box that is good at displaying the family pictures, playing music and the like.
Item: the bottom-up push. Once users are wedded to their Iphones, users will start asking for something that works in tandem. It’s not going to be something beige and PC-like.
Item: the new, new thing. There’s a wave of new companies that want to distinguish themselves out there. They’re in technology, marketing, PR, whatever, and they want to make a stand. They’ve had it with pot plants, vending machines, strip lighting and cubicles. They think they know better than the old guys and they’re going to make changes even if it’s only for the hell of it.
Item: the time is right. Who can say when the British public got fed up with Thatcher? There comes a time when the old stuff isn’t wanted any longer and a change is perceived as being as good as a rest. That feeling is in the air right now but it’s going to take some balls to walk away from Microsoft. A lot of IT buyers will wait on case studies and examples of peers and rivals. Apple just needs one showcase business customer on the desktop and some other dominoes might just fall.
Item: new evaluations. A lot of companies are looking at PC blades, server-based computing, streaming and virtualisation. This is a time for considering your options and that always gives disruptive forces a chance.
Item: price. The days of fantastic premiums for Macs over PCs are gone. If Apple would be willing to take a little less margin, the difference could have an effect on the attitude of IT buyers.
Apple’s not going to get 30 per cent of the business desktop anytime soon but this market is ready to move. If Apple is smart it can revive its business relevance, assumed dead back in the early 1990s. µ
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It's fun to see how one article on The Inq talks about how Apple spin and concludes that "Either way there is no halo effect." while another article released the same date uses a premise that "It’s well established that the Ipod and Iphone have created a halo effect on Apple’s desktop and notebook business,..."

You guys need to communicate more internaly :-)
Yeah....sure dude. And while we're at it, we'll migrate to Motorola because well know know Intel sucks and Motorola will eventually put them out of business. So why exactly should we migrate to Apple hardware again? So we can pay for OSX when Linux does everything it does for free? Yeah...ok. BTW - the 'coolness' factor went in the toilet along with showing up for interviews wearing jeans in the 90's. Ain't nobody in the U.S. who wants to keep their job that can afford 'bling-bling' in IT. So, how do we upgrade a Mac again? Oh yeah....load YellowDog on it.
What a strange comment toward the top of your article. Please back up the line about Apple that "a lot of its laptops have been sub-optimal (that's American for crap)." What do you base this on besides your personal preference?
Don't want to make a big deal out of it, but its a line with no journalistic integrity at all.
However, I think your notion about mobility is spot on. Corporate IT control is fading some, and that does give Apple openings in some segments of the corporate world. But not as much as Steve Jobs might hope.
i don't see apple suffering a slighter profit margin to seduce businesses... isn't that part of the snobbish attitude for all us fan boys and big swingers?
can't say anything about older apple portables, but a macbook pro with backlighting for the keyboard doesn't seem like the keys would lose lettering, if i'm reading right...and the entire system is slimmer than any other portable i've had. only complaint i have is the system doesn't seem as solid as i'd like (the chassis seems to bend when lifted with one hand)...otherwise a great system, and u gotta love the magnet power connection if nothing else. no crashes, clean and simple inside and out...i'm not a snobby apple fan, tho, so i don't see why some would be so adamantly against an apple system (or the owner).... it shouldn't bother, anyway.
one other complaint...the only CRU in the system seems to be memory modules...not so friendly for those who'd service their own systems.
"Item: price. The days of fantastic premiums for Macs over PCs are gone."

Err, no they haven't.

Want an iMac upgrading fron 2GB to 4GB? That'll be £449.
Mesh Computers want only £100 extra. Perhaps Mr Jobs could offer 'justification'
Much of what people do with computers nowadays--even in a corporate environment--is centred around the web, be it Internet or intranet, plus of course email. It matters much less what the client platform is than in the thick-client days of yore where Windows was de rigeur.

This trend plays well into Apple's hands, where design and ease-of-use may take precedence over standardisation.
How about, every bulk Mac purchase of say, 5 or more systems (just to exclude the home user market) gets a free 5 license pack of Windows XP Pro. I don't know what the OEM price is on these, but you figure it's under $100.

We all know Apple makes plenty more than $100 per system shipped, and the slight hit profit margins should be quite overmatched by the benefit to getting the foot in the door at companies. That way these folks know they can easily run XP if they need to, but as we all know, once you are up and running on the Mac you quickly see that you can do all the same things there as you can on the PC side.

Terrible idea?
How about, every bulk Mac purchase of say, 5 or more systems (just to exclude the home user market) gets a free 5 license pack of Windows XP Pro. I don't know what the OEM price is on these, but you figure it's under $100.

We all know Apple makes plenty more than $100 per system shipped, and the slight hit profit margins should be quite overmatched by the benefit to getting the foot in the door at companies. That way these folks know they can easily run XP if they need to, but as we all know, once you are up and running on the Mac you quickly see that you can do all the same things there as you can on the PC side.

Terrible idea?
Moving to two platforms would be a horrible business decision for any company. The cost and time of supporting multiple platforms outweighs any benefits. 

Also you have to consider that many Exec types have the perception that Apple sucks...even if they have never even touched one.

You also bring up the point that people love their iphones which means they will want a mac, right? ...point me to a business exec that doesn't have a crackberry...
seems the author has never worked for a large 30k+ organization cause he would know that going the "apple" way would never happen for 1001 reasons.

also if anything would happen in the near future in large organizations = thin clients aka dump terminals
Its an interesting read but its a little optimistic, all this really means is individuals who have free thought for buying PC kit may buy a mac, they are along way of stealing any of the corporate share away from microsoft. . . .but there are some indivuduals in buisnesses who 'may as well' be home users, who would go to PC world and buy Acer, a HP or a Sony Vaio laptop, rather than buy a company standard one through the IT Policy and the 'equipment request forms' that would ensure they 'get what he company uses', some people are just better than company policy though. . . .right? And, some firms just dont have a policy, and its Apples marketing machine that will affect those individuals direcly. It will be an emotional decision rather than an intellecual one.


J
Surely Apple is the best advert of successful use of Macs in an organisation - 18000 employees and not a Windows PC in sight!

Follow their lead and maybe your business can become a market leader too!
There wouldn't be 1001 reasons for IT not to go for Apple. There would be just three. The first is that Macs are too reliable, the second is that Macs are two secure and the third is that Macs are too easy to set up. Basically for these three reasons IT would lose control of the computers they administer to the end users. Rendering the IT department's jobs null and void.

That's why business IT departments won't go for Apple kit.

I have been running an all Apple company now for 9 years and so far I have not needed the advice of an IT company or individual. I can honestly say that the only issues I have had apart from a few extension conflicts in the pre OS X days is a couple of hard drives wearing out and a single stick of bad memory that needed replacing and one power supply that died on me. All easy to fix scenarios. As for the OS. It just works. And I say this from experience. Now with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard getting full UNIX certification and Vista being the nightmare it is it's just a matter of time before people (Mac buying home users) start questioning the good judgement of so called IT professionals for sticking with the kludge that is Windows. All it takes are a few big execs of major companies to try Macs for themselves for them to realise that their huge annual spend on IT staff inflated salaries is a waste of money and it's bye-bye Windows and hello Mac.

I really can't see how using Linux for desktops would be that much better. Apart from the obvious security benefit of Linux over Windows for servers, Linux is typically not that easy to set up and the use of IT personnel is still required.

Basically IT departments have their big bosses by the nads. They are currently essential to the everyday security of the Windows network, but that can change with a better OS like OS X. Leopard.

Then we can finally see true innovation within the computer industry and the internet as well.
I find some of these comments quite interesting. There is the cheapo hacker that cannot stand anything unless its free or stolen. And then there is the IT person that thinks that nothing will ever change. 

I think the real world is somewhere in-between. Apple hardware is evenly priced (and sometimes cheaper for upper systems) unless you look at the bottom level systems. And actually neither the hacker nor the IT or exec buy those systems. Really. They may start there then add this, that, oh, that over there. etc. 

25% + of college students today are using Apple. And 99% of people that use Apple products stay with Apple. People only migrate AWAY from MS systems. I think the future will be an interesting place. :-) 

en