[MW Forums]

Apple is beginning to cast a shadow in the corporate-infrastructure world as the Mac becomes a realistic alternative to Windows and Linux. more

[hmurchison]

The Enterprise is nice but the infrastructure Apple would need to ensure solid SLAs and capital investment would be huge. I say "forget the Enterprise" and focus on the fattest part of the sector. The lucrative SMB sector is where Apple needs to play. Apple should make it a goal to own %10 of the SMB companies that are 50-500 seat range. These companies aren't likely going to spend 100k on SAN solutions like an Enterprise company will, but they will buy product frequently and Apple wouldn't have to retool as much to hit the group.
With Leopard they have


1. A capable Web Server, Email Server and File and Printer sharing.
2. Great collaboration services in iChat Server and a Calendar server and MySQL.
3. 64-bit software
Toss in the Xserve which is newly revamped with light out management and PCI Express. Apple simply needs a bit more glueware. The apps that tie the collaborative tools together. I'd like to see a biz oriented Office suite as well.

[uchuugaka]

with leopard they've got a lot more than that.
Heck, with Tiger,
with Panther.
With it comes the whole of the Open Source stack.
Enterprise uses Open Source a lot.
The companies that skimp on IT actually use Windows more.
They try to skimp by not hiring professional workers.
It bites them in the but when their guys with MCSE and A+ junk certs can't manage a system or deploy software. When their software is buggy and doesn't work, because they went for the lowest bid on initial cost only. then end up allocating more to fix the problems they bought. A good set of programmers, sysadmins and unix can supply the needs of an organization far better than most windows junk. Oh, and training. You can't not train your employees on software. You can't expect everyone to come to the job knowing all about how to do it.
Mac OS makes UNIX useable for the average person and wonderful for the geek.

[macnuke]

my thoughts are how about the bidness's that have all the Dells being used.
you know, the 256M RAM, miniscule hard drives, integrated graphics that have a very limited hardware upgrade path. the medical bidness uses mainly featureless software that runs fine on all those stations with XPPro and 2kPro. for them to change, it's going to be a wait on software to truly be debugged.
then they will upgrade to either new pc's with vista, or new macs.
so as long as they are going to HAVE to upgrade, Macs just might stand a chance.
but my money says it will be a pc to pc upgrade.

[joefrost01]

I think with the recent change in architecture and Bootcamp/Parallels, a number of the barriers for many people have now been removed. I don't believe that this will suddenly make large corporates turn round and put Macs on all of their desktops, neither will the addition a few extra business-targetted features. It's true that there are a number of core services such as email and file sharing available under OS-X and that it is a flavour of UNIX, but with so many places utilising Linux on Intel in data centres and posessing hundreds if not thousands of man-years of experience in maintaing Windows on the desktop, it's a tough sell. I agree with the reader that said there is hope in the SMB market space, especially where those SMBs are in a sector where Apple has traditionally been strong, by allowing those businesses to convert to Mac-only shops through offering a comprehensive set of hardward and software.
As for the rest of the market place it's a case of steadily chipping away and growing their share. I had wanted to own a Mac laptop for years but it wasn't until they switched across to Intel that I could justify doing so, as many of the development tools that I use for work do not run under OS-X. If enough people own a Mac at home then at some point a corporate architect 'convert' is going to specify them as an option for a solution e.g. iMacs in a call-centre rollout running a Java applet based client.
In summary, I think that once the barriers are gone then it's simply a case of hard-graft and good products to penetrate business. Business-targetted hardware and software from Apple and partners represents the further removal of barriers.

[jmincey]

This article completely misses the factors that would most impress IT departments in business who are not such Microsoft bigots that they would be open-minded enough to consider alternatives:
1. Licensing the OS and not locking in purchasing agents to a single company for computers.
2. The ability to define policies for departments and users through the OS.
3. Robust, enterprise-worthy backup software for the platform.
4. Viable and reputable security software -- even if OS X doesn't need it YET.
5. Collaboration, group calendaring and scheduling.
The article mentions this last item but it's not here yet and it remains to be seen whether it will support open standards to inter-operate with other technologies. Lotus Notes is a collaboration tool which runs under OS X but the Domino server itself does not.
Apart from the foregoing, another thing Apple needs to provide is bona fide corporate-worthy support. Without this, all bets are off. And it should bundle Open Office with all Macs.
As for clustering, that is more of interest to the scientific community than to even large businesses.

[guzzisport]

I've been out of this environment for a long time (retired), but when OSX was introduced, Apple could have added CDE to Darwin and offered up Macs as a low cost workstation alternative. They didn't, and I'm pretty certain that by now, that wouldn't be a viable approach to garnering share in the workstation segment. Too bad.

[flexoffset]

Apple is an innovator; a fast-moving company. They march to their own beat.
That's great for us in multimedia and design who can also change on a dime without making much noise. It's dangerous to the corporate behemoths who rely on stability.
We must remember Apple has eliminated several technologies that were present for years on their older machines. (ADB change to USB, SCSI & ATA change to SATA, etc.)
Nearly every time apple updates OS X, they tweak Python just enough to require programmers to play catch-up with existing scripts. Corporations don't need this extra hassle.

The threat of forced migration to new technology standards don't help corporations feel safe and cozy. Apple's reputation for cutting edge can be a two-edge sword. The article even supports this premise. Corporations are wary of the changes required by the Vista switch. They've got to buy new stuff. Change is bad.
Corporations rely on stability. They don't really need the hassle of having to patch together stuff in their computer systems to bridge the gap on some technology Apple decided to discontinue.
They need systems that will support legacy infrastructure as much as possible.
IMHO, Apple will always be fickle tinkering with different technologies, but Vista will signal an operating system and technology support that will remain in place for much longer.
Odds are we're only one or two hardware revisions away from Apple deciding for us that we don't need analog monitor connections, or that all we should use are bluetooth keyboards and cutting the USB cord completely. You get the picture.
In enterprise computing, Apple is it's own worst enemy.
I think it's smart (and better for us) if they stay away.

[RiversideGuy]

At least 2 folks here (jmincey & flexoffset) seem to understand a bit about the corporate IT market. One issue neither mentioned is the drumbeat of frequently OS upgrades. Up until Tiger, the yearly "re-buy the whole" OS strategy was a complete and total killer. Now that we seem to be on a 16 month or so schedule, it's better, but nowhere near what it needs or should be.
And don't discount the issue of the support services. Sure, a lot of it is essentially showing up to chit-chat, but it IS a fact of life. Back when Macs had real presence in the corporate market, they had account execs regularly showing up to offer help. Or just showing their faces. If an IT guy had ANY issue, he knew someone to call. Do you really think corporations will start switching to Macs when the current "support" is calling a call center and hearing "oh, you have to reinstall the OS" from someone who doesn't have a clue what is really going on?
And don't discount that on the hardware side, Apple has always been way too quick to summarily toss things out (how many years ago did they toss serial ports, and guess how many/much serial based equipment is still in use today?).
I also doubt the SMB market is THAT different... it's only smaller in number of desktops. But the impact is just as large percentage-wise.
AND another factor to throw in... imagine yourself an IT director with several hundred seats to deal with. How comfortable would you be suggesting to management that the company spend a big bundle on converting to a company who does NOT want to be known as a computer company? To a company that the market overall sees as a highly successful one selling music players and one that everyone expects may have another huge hit selling way overpriced phones that could never be a part of any enterprise strategy (oh, your iPhone can't access my Exchange e-mail server?)?
I find this all very much a shame as in many aspects the hardware and the software COULD make for a very good corporate platform. But it's the way the company is run and it's focus that invalidate what could be an excellent choice for an enterprise platform.

[jmincey]

RiversideGuy, you make a good point -- Apple needs to have formal volume licensing plans available for business (if it does not have them already). I think Apple needs also to get serious about the nonprofit market and to offer discounts to legitimate 501.c(3) organizations.

[rgetter]

Looking back 20 years or so, it's easy to remember the industry adage, "Nobody every got fired for buying IBM." Compared to the sleek offerings by companies like Digital, Amdahl and even HP, IBM was pretty stodgy. But their intense focus on sales and support resulted in a level of market domination comparable to what Microsoft has now.
Apple could push itself into the enterprise if it wanted to. At least, the company has enough money socked away to develop the sales, marketing and support infrastructure for the enterprise market. It would, however, take years to ramp up the infrastructure to a point where it could truly compete. The cost, as some of the previous posters have pointed out, is that Apple could no longer be quite as light on its feet in terms of innovation. Enterprise really doesn't like change. It's expensive. And that's a trait that impedes innovation.
Anywhere the Mac OS is not the dominant technology, you'll also find a strong personal bias in the IT groups. Variety adds complexity and, as elegantly as the Mac is designed, having them around makes life more complicated for MCSE-types. Like any minority, Macs are a magnet for bias.
Having watched the industry transform from IBM domination to Microsoft (and having been both an ardent DEC and Apple fan), I've often wondered why mediocrity always seemed to rule in the IT business. Unfortunately, I'm starting to understand why.
Ric

[jmincey]

Corporations are methodical and not likely to rush to change, but I think it's an oversimplification to say they are loathe to change. It's expensive, to be sure, to make changes on an enterprise level, but to stand pat and fail to upgrade carries costs as well.
Also, we are confusing innovation with change. Microsoft certainly does the latter but not so much the former. After corporations made the leap to the PC platform with DOS, they moved to Windows 3.1 and many also supplemented that with Novell Netware and IPX. Then corporations changed again with the arrival of Windows NT and then once again with Windows 2000/XP.
In time, corporations will make the shift to Vista -- probably in 18-24 months. The change is methodical and performed in phases, but it is done.
Since corporations are clearly willing to make change, albeit at a steady pace, I don't see this as a problem for Apple. Apple would not have to cease innovating as much as it would just have to ramp up its support for legacy systems in the corporate installed base. THIS is the real issue.

[jg167]

Despite Mail's addition some revs ago of the Exchange account type, it still is not fully interoperable. I have used this successfully with some exchange servers but not with others. My current situation is in the latter category so its most annoying.
The situation is much worse for calendar where the interoperability with exchange is terrible to nonexistent.
If you are going into the enterprise, were MS has a large presence such things are required. Usually I run into the situation of "sure you can use your Mac, we won't put up any roadblocks to prevent that but you're on your own ala support", thus things like making Mail work no matter what, is key since often you can't call IT for help, you have to take the XP config details and use them.

[Nobody]

In Australia, Apple really needs to sharpen the on-site repair/Apple-Care. I recently installed a XServe into a Windows site and it worked well. One week later the temperature sensor on the Northbridge chips decided to fail making the server sound like a 2000 watt vacuum cleaner as the fans all ran flat out. In a small office environment this made the area almost impossible to work in. The local repair authority (UNISYS) took over 7 days to repair. Not what I call corporate-ready service, and a dent in my reputation with the client. If anyone from Apple is reading this the case no is... 75209436.