Submitted by Powered by its OS X Tiger operating system and buzz surrounding the iPod, Apple Computer has gained traction in the personal computer market. Macintosh computers used to be popular with the creative crowd, but now are finding a place on the desks of corporate America. According to the Wall Street Journal, JupiterResearch surveyed technology decision makers at 258 medium and large businesses and projected that 33 percent would be running Macs next year, while only 21 percent were doing so now.
Yet another sign that Apple is failing </sarcasm >
Looks like Microsoft has got something to worry about besides wasting their huge cash reserves on doomed atttempts to enter new markets. Of course, if they were smart enough to optimize the OS X version of Office they could pretty much garuntee that every Mac business sale was a sale for them. But they’re just not that smart…
You make a good point. Microsoft Office is so ubiquitous that even if Mac OS X captured another few percentage points in the OS market, Microsoft could benefit from it instead of being worried about selling XP/Vista. Last I checked, Office costs a fortune and a half, much more than the OS itself… and if most businesses are running XP then they are likely running Office.
It would help if they would at least get a native Intel version out there….
Good point. Has there been anything released about when we can expect an intel (Universal) version from MS?
Corporation see the advantages of having a machine that can run the 3 different OS ( Windows XP, Mac OS X & Linux ) via boot camp.
Corporation that develop software reduced their machines count by replacing Dev/QA machines with iMacs so that the Developpers/QA teams can develop & test on the 3 OS at the same time.
As soon as boot camp got out, the company replaced all the G5 & X86 with brand new iMacs with Boot Camp Installed!
Edited 2006-07-26 18:56
Yes, because all of corporate America consists of software companies writing applications for multiple operating systems.
Yes, because all of corporate America consists of software companies writing applications for multiple operating systems
… yet neither all of corp America consists of Office Users…
“There still is the perception, although it is less and less, that IT departments don’t want to deal with Macs because they are Unix-based.”
Can anyone support this? This sounds simply outrageous.
Count the number of “professionals” in an IT shop with MCSE’s. If Windows is all they know, of course they won’t bother with alternatives.
It’s not quite outrageous, but it’s still wrong. Maybe some MS-centric IT departments try to avoid UNIX-y stuff, but IT departments wanted even less to do with Macs before they were UNIX-based. The more accurate statement would be:
“There still is the perception, although it is less and less, that IT departments don’t want to deal with Macs because they don’t come with Windows.”
“There still is the perception, although it is less and less, that IT departments don’t want to deal with Macs because they don’t come with Windows.”
Actually, most IT departments don’t want to deal with Macs because they do not offer anything to the company but additional costs. The purpose of a platform switch is to save money, while either maintaining or increasing productivity and services. If a switch was made to OSX, then you would see a huge jump in spending. This is where Linux comes in. Older machines that have been replaced by newer Windows machines can be wiped and have Linux loaded on them, and then put into immediate use without any additional costs.
For those that work in IT departments, we have seen the trend of IT budgets being tightened up. CFO’s are not interested in spending more money. They are looking for ways to cut spending. This is why OSX is not a consideration for the majority of companies out there. Unless the company does graphic designs or web development, they have no reason to choose OSX over Linux.
Now, before I get flamed by OSX fans/users, I will point out that Apple has made large strides in developing a good OS in OSX. But, until Apple opens up OSX to run on “PC”s, then they will be behind Linux when it comes to platform migrations in the office place. If a company can see that they can switch to OSX without having to purchase additional hardware (and the price of the OS is around $100 USD), then OSX would be a consideration. But, it just makes too much sense, right now, to choose Linux over OSX as an alternative OS.
Prepare for the onslaught of articles as Vista approaches release.
As someone managing a School, there’s good points for Windows and good points for Macs.
Sure Macs would make life easier, not sure if many people have really used OS X server and clients, with all the imaging you can do, Remote Desktop, Media potential, and even simple restricting of whether the app can run or can’t.
For education at least, I can see Macs really improving a lot of productivity. Not sure what it’s like in other business’s.
I don’t think Unix has anything to do with why they won’t put it in, maybe they fear because they don’t know much about it, so they stick with what they know.
An onslaught of articles I can handle. An onslaught of articles as bad as this one? Not so sure. I don’t know about anyone else, but this article made me feel borderline retarded.
Since when is there a free program that let’s Mac users run Windows on Mac OSX? Boot Camp doesn’t do this, and Parallels isn’t free.
The author somehow correlate Apple’s hardware/software integration with the platform’s resistance to malware. It’s a stretch to imply any relationship between these ideas, but if I had to, I would say that this integration could *possibly* make the Mac platform a little *easier* to exploit. In practice, probably not.
Then he suggests that Macs run the same types of software that Windows does. I guess millions of Apple customers are delighted to hear that Macs now run win32 executables and link their dlls!
The author must have asked everybody in Winchester, PA about Macs, which is a great way to get a good sample. He even asked the manager of a Costco who obviously doesn’t realize that the poor sales of Macs relative to HP computers is probably due to the fact that they didn’t restock when they ran our of Macs.
Qemu is free. It’s performance sucks badly though.
Well, when you reach such a high share, it would be wise to consider substantial price cuts.
And what pray tell would those price cuts achieve?
Obvious, an even higher share, and not only on “the desks of corporate America”.
time to switch i think! I’m so happy about this progress
What i see where I work there is a lot of new macs being bought but only for research and marketing types going to conferences showing presentations macing folders and websites. I do not see our internal application’s (delphi,foxpro,visual basic) ported to mac.
I would expect your ‘internal apps’ to be professinal stuff… but delphi? foxpro? visual basic?
No they are for admistration of customers and production we are a fusion of some small nonprofit … All future projects are going to be developed in java so there is hope
Visula Basic is easily replaced by Realbasic. The rest of you needs sound like simple database stuff, no?
Yes I know I am a totaly crazy mac fanboy I think it is posible but I am not the boss. But when did database stuff become easy?
I suppose some very hairy DB task could be difficult, but 99% of it is dead simple.
“There still is the perception, although it is less and less, that IT departments don’t want to deal with Macs because they are Unix-based.”
“Still”?? Whatever the perception has been, I’m pretty sure the traditional perception of Mac’s aren’t that they are UNIX-based.
“Macs are Macs because they handle such things as video conferencing with a little camera on the iMac and MacBook.”
Uh, and PC’s dont have those kind of cameras? How does having a camera make Macs “Macs”?
“Apple software is written a little bit differently,” said Steam. “It is more integrated with the hardware. You can’t put OS X Tiger [operating system] on an HP computer, whereas Windows goes on hardware.”
Say what? Well, you cant run Windows on an iMac either so I guess that makes Windows “more integrated”. And what OS isn’t “integrated with the hardware”?
Nice grammar too; “whereas Windows goes on hardware”.
What does that even mean? OSX doesnt run on hardware?
“Gen Y and Gen X, which for a while had written Apple off, the iPod has brought Apple to the forefront”
Who the heck is Generation Y?
Are there *ANY* good IT journalists left? How about interviewing “experts” who actually have a clue?
“Macs are Macs because they handle such things as video conferencing with a little camera on the iMac and MacBook.”
Uh, and PC’s dont have those kind of cameras? How does having a camera make Macs “Macs”?
You need to read the next line,
“It’s part of the software package, and you need a high-speed Internet connection, but it’s beginning to catch on”
It’s a software implementation of a camera! How do they do that???
>Are there *ANY* good IT journalists left? How about >interviewing “experts” who actually have a clue?
Short answer, no
Long answer, someone who is knowledgable in IT usually does not end as it journalist, I do not know what the background of those people writing for mass media it journalism is, but it is definitely not comp sci, probably they majored in english etc…
Serious IT articles cannot be found in business magazines with IT printed on top of it, you can find those in the remaining handful of real it magazines like the german iX, or more hardcore stuff like Sigs…
The so called IT journalism is nothing more than often business papers revolving around computers printed on top and often written by people with more knowledge in writing skills than computers at all, and also written for the same audience.
I can’t wait for another journalist to interview an “expert” like Rob Enderle or Laura DiDido! The only time they make no sense is when their lips move.
Business is “monkey see; monkey do”. Once a few Fortune 500’s figure out what we have known a long time — that Macs make you more productive– expect the flood gates to open. I worked in a company that downgraded to Mac to Win 95 and it was a horrible, horrible experience. IT support costs ballooned.
But we couldn’t get management to switch us back because 1) they would have had to own up to making a mistake 2) Apple was “doomed” back then. To be sure AAPl was more doomed then than now; now its just Micheal Dell and Ron Enderle doing the “Apple is doomed” speech, and the usability and quality gap between Mac and PC has widened a lot.
If Microsoft were smart, they’d dump IE, and build Asp.Net to support Foxfire.
– No Browser development expense!
– Near 100% web site compatibility with Microsoft software1.
– No business arm twisting to build some dumb tech: ActiveX.
Agreed. They have effectively dumped IE already– finish the job.
Why wouldn’t a company with a Unix backend system:
AIX, Solaris, HP-UX, Linux…
Run desktop Mac systems?
There’s a clear productivity benefit to having Apples/Microsoft desktop solutions, while you develop and support unix from the Apple “Terminal” window.