Apple’s MacOS X is making inroads in the business world, according to a report by market research firm Jupiter Research, the report covers desktop and server OS usage in medium to large sized businesses.
Apple’s MacOS X is making inroads in the business world, according to a report by market research firm Jupiter Research, the report covers desktop and server OS usage in medium to large sized businesses.
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looks like a problem in the page when there are no comments?
Someone doesn’t seem to know how to use isset() …
Error handling, my friends, ERROR HANDLING!
Yesterday, we did a bunch of optimization on the way OSNews handles comments. It’s fixed.
The department I work in (I’m just an external PowerBook-using contractor, though) somehow managed to get PowerBooks and a couple Mac desktops back about when the Titanium PB first came out. They are, I think, the only department in the entire IT branch of the (rather large) company using Apple. Then there was a corporate shakeup effectively ending all Apple purchases. Rather than put up with inferior hardware/OS combinations, most of them have stuck with their old laptops and Mac OSX desktops holding out hope for the day when new ones could be ordered again. Approval happened just yesterday – and this time it isn’t by some rouge element, but in fact was double approved up a couple rungs of the corporate ladder (albeit reluctantly, but it was hard to argue against the internal productivity stats).
True, unfortunately the old wives tale of “Macs are only good for graphics” is still alive and well in the business world – if it isn’t the IT staff justifying their huge pay packets and thousands of dollars in man hours wasted fixing Wintel machines (and therefore, justifying their existance in the company), its the management upstairs who are either held to old prejudices or willing to accept any ‘research data’ as gospel
Why do I slam research data? because according to some researchers, currently right now Itanium should have grown to sales of $10billion, SUN and all the old RISC based vendors should either be backrupted or moving to Itanium – the reality is, however, what their so-called research shows, and what happens in reality are two diametrically opposing things.
Why do I slam research data? because according to some researchers, currently right now Itanium should have grown to sales of $10billion, SUN and all the old RISC based vendors should either be backrupted or moving to Itanium – the reality is, however, what their so-called research shows, and what happens in reality are two diametrically opposing things.
I think you meant to say forecasts. Research does have beneficial purposes when the information is gathered and interpreted properly.
But at the same time, it can be simply be maninpulated via bias; if people took the research with a few truck loads of salt, then sure, but far too many PHBs would rather take the lazy option, pay the $500 or what ever to get access to the paper, then declare that they ‘know the future’ and all they had to do was swipe their EFTPOS card and charge $500 to it.
Regarding this research; who is it actually benefiting? are we gong to suddenly see the drones from the top floor going, “oooh, shiny Mac now popular, me must jump on bandwagon before me gets lost” – if they’re basing their purchasing decisions on what is vogue, hip or in for that particular quarter, then god help them; because quite frankly, if they really want to make a decent decision, they could easily make a small deployment via an arrrangement by Apple, and worth through any problems on a miniture scale, once the trial period ends, then compare it to the alternative of the status quo – upgrade hardware and throw the latest and greatest Windows/Office solution on them.
“Then there was a corporate shakeup effectively ending all Apple purchases.”
Too familiar.
What drives these CIO n00bs to hate Mac and love BillG so much?
What will become of them when the wind changes?
More like steaming pile of shit, am I right folks?
No.
Absolutely!
Can you please extrapolate on this?
the same trend is being seen in the academic world as well. Most physical science research labs have a tradition of UNIX – based apps (custom coded by us poor grad students) but require Word or similar to write our manuscripts (why most non-math journals don’t accept LaTex is beyond me!). Slowly I have noticed a gradual shift away from the dual boot systems to a nice shiny Mac which gives you both without having to shut down your analysis so you can work on your paper. Glad to see those in the business world are coming to the same conclusion. It will be interesting to see how the switch to Intel will affect this.
Yea, that’s a sad shift to watch. I’ve seen more of a switch from Latex to Powerpoint though; especially after they find out powerpoint has a utility to put in non-english symbols.
Anyway, I still use latex
. Mostly because I just write a layout and then write my paper and never write a new layout; and cause I can organize my stuff a little differently. And a few researchers I work with still use latex; more and more are using Adobe’s Pagemaker though: I think they realize that .doc is not a portable format.
The switch to Intel will not affect it in the least… except perhaps to encourage more purchases due to the better performance.
Nice to see that Apple/Mac OS X has appealed to the labs! Hope that trend continues.
“More like steaming pile of shit, am I right folks?”
You’re talking about M$ Windows, right?
By the time Mac makes the switch to Intel, virtualization tech should be very good. So you’ll have Unix underneath, with all the open source bits too, plus Office for Mac, plus a polished desktop, and the ability to run Windows apps at good speeds and(probably) the ability to dual-boot.
This should answer the question. “Is linux ready for the desktop?”
I’m not sure what the credibilty is of this article. However, I can see why OS X might be getting adapted faster than other UNIX flavors. Commercial application support might be one of them. In any case it is nice to see the news. Looks like people adopting different kinds of OS’s no matter what kind of “UNIX” it is. Choice is good.
Executives love Microsoft because they can brag about the deals they got on the software, since negotiation is always a part of the Microsoft tax on business.
UI amDrunk
I <3 OS X
:ijniux sucks
you all suck
<3 Eugian
Frankly, I’m amazed by these figures – 17% & 21% for Desktop use and 9% & 14% for Server use.
It just seems, well, way too high. If it were the case, then great! But I just think it seems like the research is a little biased, that’s all.
I agree with the comment that these results must be biased — a polite way of saying they are lying through their teeth.
Wouldn’t be the first, or tenth, time that Apple does this. Their claim of the fastest processor in the world was hilarious, as the recent switch to Intel Inside underlines.
I also remember Jobs’ touting the ten “world class” innovations of NeXT — hmmmm, how is everyone’s NeXT cube running this morning?
It is interesting that if MS came out with these obviously bogus numbers, everyone would be ranting. Instead the tone of commenters here is, “Yeah, why aren’t even more companies using Macs?” Fanatics are easy marks.
A co-worker bragged and bragged about the new Macs/OS X and finally brought in his laptop. Showed me the GUI — yawn, and topped it off playing a DivX movie — now there’s a uniquely Mac application, lol.
I must admit I do have Mac envy for at least one part of every shipping Mac system — that one button mouse <eye roll>.
One final question: why is it that MS is supposedly gouging everyone with their $89 OS, when Mac regularly (even addictively) gouges their entire user base by forcing whole system upgrades on all foolish enough to buy an “i”?
Anyway, I’m no big MS lover, and wish I could replace a hard drive on an XP machine without it costing $500. But other than that, MS dominates for good reasons.
I also remember Jobs’ touting the ten “world class” innovations of NeXT — hmmmm, how is everyone’s NeXT cube running this morning?
Your implicit conclusion that NeXT wasn’t innovative because it didn’t sell is based on the wrong proposition that superior products automatically sell.
I’m sure quite a number of NeXT/Amiga/BeOS fans could point out that that proposition is flawed.
NeXT was innovative, a lot of innovations later becoming major selling points for the Mac. Display Postscript, an Object Oriented Application Layer, and for the time very advanced development tools + Objective-C come to mind.
Since this is MacWorld, you could suspect their numbers were on the optimistic side.
OTOH, the important thing is that OS X is now a viable alternative. You can get the corporate exec to actually contemplate using it. That wasn’t the case in the 90s. They’d have laughed you out of the company.
Now Apple offers a vastly better value proposition and Macs are getting into companies. The good thing about that is that people will see Macs who never saw them before and they will see them perform. And decide that maybe they’re not -quite- as bad as everybody had made them out to be for so long. This in all likelihood will win them wider acceptance in the corporate world, which will inspire people to buy one for themselves, who would not have considered it mere years ago.
I would be very surprised if this was not a very strong indication that Apple is going to be re-introduced in the main stream office space, where they will be as common as PCs are today. The switch to MacTel should only help the local CIO to control their nerves.
If Apple plays its cards right, this could be the precursor to phenomenal growth in the years ahead. I’d even go as far to say that it’s their business to lose.
I’m kicking myself for not buying Apple stock a few years ago. I should have bought it when they anounced the original iMac
.
/destined to stay poor.
And their number are US numbers. Apple is a lot weaker in Europe…..
hmm, given that i think the split will be like this:
mac will go high in the US. linux on the other hand will go high in europe
hmm, given that i think the split will be like this:
mac will go high in the US. linux on the other hand will go high in europe
Funny you mention this. I remember someone saying that Europeans typically like the superior system, and that this is typically the death-kiss for the system. For example Amiga was huge in Europe. But in the end, the shoddier yet cheaper PCs won out. Now it seems the other way around: a pricier better system does better in the US, and the cheapest of cheapest systems win in Europe.
Actually, that’s not true either. Third world countries are picking up on FOSS faster, while the US and EU are stuck on Windows..
Regarding the iMac; when I saw it, it was “yeap, thats gonna be an instant success”, and I was right; it was new, innovative and different. Rather than the same regurgitation of the same crap, it was something different, only difference, I was only 16 at the time and thus a little clueless about share trading 😉
First wall is applications. MS office doesn’t do it all. There are the multitude of specialised business apps, big and small that don’t even think of targetting anything else than windows. And the weak adoption of Java for desktop apps is a curse for both Linux and MacOSX. No sign of any change here.
Second wall is hardware. Business even more than consumers like it cheap and commoditised with a huge array of choice. SUN rode the gravy train way too long. How long will Apple ride it ?
No; what people didn’t like about SUN was the lack of price/performance, and yes, SUN was hammered hard; customers were now demanding that SUN justify its pricing vs the performance vs what ever else they could use to justify the price. SUN has since lowered the price of the SPARC machines, and are now relatively competitive with the offerings out there.
Apple won’t suffer from the same fait because they’ve learned the lesson once; their focus; provide a machine at a moderate price, well integrated, and looks great on the desktop. As long as they provide that combination, they won’t suffer the same fait as SUN.
Cause there is no way in hell it wold happen here with the pricing of Macs in Australia. Paying 2 to 3 times the price of a PC for a Mac, get real.
Next
Deluded idiots
Cause there is no way in hell it wold happen here with the pricing of Macs in Australia. Paying 2 to 3 times the price of a PC for a Mac, get real.
Next
Deluded idiots
And you definitely can say that for Latin America, too. Here in Brazil a Mac doesn’t cost 2 or 3 times a PC: its costs waaaay more than that!
I was looking for the Mini (the cheapest thing that you can buy from Apple, mind you!) when it came out to see if I could put it into my budget, but guess what… The damn thing costs the same thing as an ultra high-end PC! I can’t justify that purchase for my wife (or even for me) no matter how much I’d like to own a Mac. I played a little bit with it, I want it but it is so damn expensive that I just can’t buy it now.
Hmmm… American people tends to forget that there is a whole world after their shores. Macs might be doing great on the USA but I don’t see Macs doing particularly well even on wealthy countries from Europe, let alone in the rest of the world. I’d guess that the Linux installed base these days is at least the double of Apple’s, judging by its success on Brazil alone.
Evertyhing is cheaper in the US. iMacs are not too bad in the UK especially the 20″ one. But business like to get £200-£400 quid boxes for typical office desktop that can run MS software. Enough said.
…and it’s POS kernel design
Hopefully the Hurd kernel will become more stable and people will start using it. Now that’s a well designed kernel, rather than some guy’s weekend project to clone Minix.
Besides, I am tired of the “Linux” community. Bunch of raving lunatics. I have myself contributed to OOS projects, but find it discouraging that many users seem to expect that all programmers should work for free, like it’s their damned god-given right to not have to pay for software. News flash! We also need to make money to live just like you! I don’t expect you to work for no pay, don’t expect me to work for no pay. If I decide to write a program and give it away for free, it is because I am being nice, and you should be thankful. It is not your right to have it for free, and I am well within my rights to sell my program if I decide that I need to make money!
If that’s not off topic, then I don’t know what is, but hey, I am bored.
I bought from the kompany, mandriva, libranet, codeweavers, garage games, linux games and others I forget in the last few years. They are all still in business I think so it can’t be entirely true.
I am looking for iDVD type program for Linux with templates, artwork and all. If you can do something like that well, put it up for sale and you’ll see.
Remember, the majority is silent.
When I first looked at those numbers, I thought that they could not be real. They are talking about fairly large companies, companies which typically have purchasing policies. While those policies are rarely anti-Mac, the Mac may not have been accepted for reasons which are internal to the company: using a single platform eases support and licensing, they may depend upon Windows only software (or have not approved its Mac counterpart), and so forth.
The second thing which came to mind is that those businesses must be universities. Since individuals have a lot of influence over computer purchases, and people who have been exposed to Macs are more likely to want to have a Mac, Macs can (and do) spread like wildfire. Even then, Wintel tends to be favoured when larger institutional purchases are made (administrative systems, computer labs, and so forth). Even though they may purchase a small number of Macs for special purposes, they probably don’t reflect the numbers seen in this article.
So the more I think about it, the more I think that survey is misleading. It may be true for universities, or other sectors which have a high adoption rate for Macs, but it is not a global figure.
I’m a consultant to goes from company to company every 6 months or so and I’ve never even seen one Mac – anywhere. As much as I’d like to see more choice, business IT is not about choice, it’s about getting work done in a safe, unified manner. Maybe my experiance is too narrow, but this study strikes me as totally biased fantasy.
I agree the numbers are skewed. On the other hand, the company I currently work at has several Macs (5 I think) for testing browser compatibility for their websites.
I should add that the reason for that is a good deal of the company’s customer base are universities and they do use Macs. I wish I had the percentages to post. :/ They aren’t huge, but significant enough for QA to test on Macs.
Interesting that every single link I could find reporting on server sales indicates extremely strong linux sales growth followed by strong year over year windows server growth EXCEPT a mac publication.
Here are just two of the MANY that say something totally different than this article.
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2137317/linux-drives-worldwide-se…
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-5590722.html
Just google it for the rest.
I have no doubt the mac is growing its user base. Its a great system but the number presented in this article are way off base.
My current company fits into the 250+ employee bracket and we have exactly 1 macintosh. Its for one of the photo layout guys in advertising.
All our desktops are Windows 2000 or XP and we have 4 Linux based servers and 5 Windows 2000/2003 servers.
I really regret not convincing my dad that he should use Macs for his Photostore-chain. It would’ve ment so much less trouble-shooting.
I hope you reming him everyday 😉
i really do NOT regret getting my dad a mac for his browsing, emails, letter writing etc.
in 3 years not one virus, worm crash etc etc etc
Whenever I suggest Macs to our IT department, they bring up the lack of a future roadmap for the platform. They say they are concerned they will be left with stranded investment.
They have a good point too. Apple has a reputation for big hasty decisions like cutting to a different processor line, switching OS bases, and all sorts of other loveliness. It’s only a matter of a market shift before they say “no more pc’s” or “completely revamping pc line.”
I find it amazing that so many of you are striving so hard to find fault with the data.
“I find it amazing that so many of you are striving so hard to find fault with the data.”
It doesn’t take any great striving to measure somebody’s statements against reality and find them totally out of kilter. Well, maybe it does for some people.
Yeah, and everything that does not mesh with your “reality” of Linux taking over the world must be by definition a bunch of garbage right?
Show me the studies and statistics from the middle 90s when Linux was starting to take off. What, no Linux mentioned? How is that possible? The simple answer is of course that Linux was too small yet, and not included in the studies. The same reasoning applies here. Although I think that some of the numbers are off, I do not find it hard to believe that OS X is starting to gain traction. I also do not find it hard to believe that it can gain share against both Windows and Linux. OS X is superior to both.
Superior for what? Most productive businesses don’t need eye candy unless they’re into advertising, design or video production.
Once Apple will have completed its move to x86, it will be a much lesser risk to try out OSX on a couple of boxes since you will be able to wipe it off when you feel Apple is charging too much for the yearly upgrade that brings mostly eyecandy and bug fixes.
The reality is that the people finding fault with the article are deluded, childish, and incompetent. All they have time to do is flaunt ridiculous claims that Apple Computer is not poised to soon become a dominant leader, if not the only player, in the North American computer marketplace.
What is happening is that people not using computers running the Most Advanced Operating System in the World are feeling insecure and very frightened. They have invested their lives, money, and future in something that is really just an overpriced toy when compared to an Apple Computer.
So I suggest to those of you misguided individuals, get a clue, get a grip, and RTFA again.
Mac Zealots, explain this dilemna. It Mac sales account for only 3-4% of all computer sales in the United States, and the number of computers in corporations far outweigh the number of computers sold each year, how did Mac’s end up on 21% of corporate desktops? That number is simple BS.
Regarding servers, I trust this number as much as the last number. However, this was particularly stupid because all it said was that 14% of companies used Mac Sever. Most likely, this means that the company deployed a single Mac Server for testing their code on the platform while 99.999% of their real servers used a)Unix, b)Linux, and c)Windows.
You just answered your own dilemma, Linux zealot.
A company using a Mac may mean that they have 1 Mac in the whole company. The IT people can play with this computer and figure out whether they want more Macs. FYI, this is how Linux grew: The IT admins installed 1 machine (among their sea of Solaris and AIX), and tested it. When they were happy with it, they started replacing their Unix machines with Linux PCs. We are seeing the start of a trend here, and it is encouraging that so many companies are in fact toying with OS X. I suspect that as the IT dpts become more comfortable with OS X, some Windows and Linux machines will start being replaced in larger numbers.
And the point of using a Mac server other than testing if an app will run on it in case one of your client uses it? You can do the same thing with commodity hardware for much cheaper. Your IT sysadmin won’t see the difference.
“how did Mac’s end up on 21% of corporate desktops? That number is simple BS.”
No, the way you tried to spin it so tyhat it sopund like BS is BS.
The actual quote was, “In Businesses that had 10,000 or more employees, 21 percent of employees used Mac OS X on their desktop work computer.”,/i>
Forgot to reply to your other piece of spin-meistering.
“However, this was particularly stupid because all it said was that 14% of companies used Mac Sever.”
It looks false only when you represent the quote incorrectly. The actual quote was, “while 14 percent of companies with 10,000 employees or more used Apple’s Server software.”
Yo Mac Zealot. I didn’t answer my own question. I answered what 14% of companies using MacOS Server meant. But I couldn’t find an explanation for the desktop usage portion. Now the article states “17 percent of the employees were running Mac OS X on their desktop computer at work. In Businesses that had 10,000 or more employees, 21 percent of employees used Mac OS X on their desktop work computer.” The keyword is “THEIR”. This implies that it isn’t some lone computer of in the distance that they’ve seen in their company (like the MacOS X Server probably is). It’s implication is that this is the primary computer for 21% of corporate users since most corporate users have one computer. So again, I will ask all Mac Zealots the same question. If the number of corporate desktops far outweigh the number of computers sold each year, and Mac’s only account for 3-4% of sales each year, how did 21% of corporate workers end up with MacOS on THEIR desktop?
In companies with 250 and up 17% are using Macs? I’m sorry that’s just a flat out lie. Who did they survey? Pixar?
I’d be shocked it if was 7% let alone 17%. That’s just wishful thinking. The idea that is over 20% in companies with 10,000+ is a joke as well. Try like 4-5% MAX.
I work a top 3 VAR who has contracts with several Fortune 100 companies. Let me tell you, I don’t see anything like that. 20% of my sales aren’t for Client Access Licenses for software that runs on OS X. And I sell a ton of software for Macs.
And btw as we all know technically there is no reason why OSX couldn’t be at 90% like Windows is. It’s a solid OS. But let’s not kid ourselves here. The small companies, small being 250-1000, who have that many Macs are dedicated marketing and media firms only. That doesn’t apply to regular businesses.
If this let’s Apple sell more Macs then great. More competition for Microsoft. However these numbers just aren’t based in reality.
MacOS X x86 is almost ready, so… what you think about that?
For what its worth…
I am the network administrator for a fairly good sized long distance company and 30% and growning of our desktop computers are iMac’s and Power Mac’s.
And yes, we do also have a Mac server running our email.
Yes the interface has eyecandy, but then it makes look XP very ugly.
But OSX strengh is in its design:
http://images.apple.com/macosx/pdf/MacOSX_UNIX_TB.pdf
and certainly windows will never match this. ( legancy )
I don’t believe the numbers. Look around you in any big company, and you should be seeing macs everywhere if they were true. They just are not there. The reason is simple, they have Windows installations locked down at the desktop, so they basically have licked the security problem, and they do overnight updates so they have licked the admin problems. All their apps work, and that means more than office and photoshop. They are not going to introduce a second infrastructure. And then there is Outlook and Exchange Server.
I don’t know what these guys are smoking.