Submitted by It appears that Snow Leopard, the new Mac OS X, will be aimed at business and enterprise users, signaling Apple’s push to take Windows head on outside the consumer and education markets. Slated for availability six months prior to Windows 7, Snow Leopard will not only improve performance but also bring Microsoft Exchange Synchronization into the OS itself — evidence that Apple is targeting the enterprise, seeking to capitalize on corporate disappointment with the Vista transition.
1. Apple makes its money from hardware. They’re not going to change the licensing to suit business customers running on brand-x hardware.
2. Much as I dislike Microsoft, the Vista thing is overblown. I’ve had more problems with my notebook and Leopard than I have with my desktop and Vista. Many of the same complaints were made about XP, really up until SP2 was released. I know that at my old job, we were still implementing 2k on production machines two years after XP showed up.
3. Many of these interoperability improvements are user requests, and target the iPhone as much as they do OSX. I do IT engineering for a smallish federal agency (part of DoD). While I spend quite a bit of time working on non-MS machines, the agency’s (and my own company’s) infrastructure is AD/Exchange-centric. The legions of MCSEs and IA weenies won’t enable anything other than the MS default stuff, “Durh, IMAPS IS INSEKUR! MAPI ONLY.”
Where in this article did it say anything about hardware? You’d still be running on Mac hardware irregardless.
Anecdotal. Small business may be delaying rollouts, but larger business may not have a choice.
Again, anecdotal. Not necessarily the methodology used by every company out there.
Where in this article did it say anything about hardware? You’d still be running on Mac hardware irregardless.
I think this is his point. He seems to be implying (though not saying explicitly) that the hardware is inadequate to the enterprise, and that Apple is not going to let you use the hardware of your choice.
Probably correct on both counts.
I see what you’re saying..Thanks for pointing that out.
I admit that the “made to order” component would have to be addressed for some businesses, but there has been an upturn in the amount of businesses buying “out of the box” Macs.
More so than could have and would have been predicted.
Also, I’ve found that many businesses order “lowest common denominator” PC’s, much of which is eclipsed by the hardware used in a Mac.
Exchange is really the lynchpin of all this though. It is the major reason why people wouldn’t consider Mac until the advent of Fusion/Parallels and the switchover to Intel.
It’s why my business is considering using Mac as the default platform.
Vista worried overblown? Tell that to Intel. They aren’t moving to Vista, period. They are using XP and investigating alternatives.
Well for Ericsson XP was overblown, they never moved to XP. Instead they use Vista nowdays. Skipping products isn’t new thing in business world. You have named 1 company that doesn’t move to Vista (most likely they move to Windows 7), so what thousands and thousands will move to Vista. Windows XP sold less copies than Windows 9x when it came up, people change slowly and companies slower.
Apple really does own the home market. For years I have fixed patched and imaged PCs and had my PowerBook then MacBook right there. I have had lots of people ask me why I use a Mac. And for me it was just something that feels right – right out of the box (and that is not the debate today — I said ‘for me’) But now I am running into execs and VIPs who got one for home or for the kids or sat at my desk for a minute and said they would switch except for exchange compatibility Well I don’t don’t believe that this has escaped Microsoft’s Mac BU. I cannot think of a real good reason to not have Real Exchange Compatibility in Mac Office.
Well Apple is looking the hurricane right in the eye. With all of the ‘Enterprise’ class functionality built into the OS plus service discovery plus AD integration plus phenomenal ease of use and now I will be able to use whatever client\desktop SW that I choose then I can see no reason to not choose a Mac over a Lenovo\ThinkPad, Toshiba, or Compaq, or Dell. They are all within the same price range for a business Laptop not a student model. And if the iBook goes metal than they do have a bargain bin laptop too.
Yes Apple really can do it without licensing, or they can license… It doesn’t really matter. They can actually afford to take chances. It is not HW it is simply market self reliance that drives Apple. The user wants something better than XP and might not be ready to trust MS again and this company can deliver. Apple will give me the same email and corp contacts at home that I have at the office. But with the ease that I have come to expect and can also give me the extended web\cloud computing “promise of the internet” thing. So Microsoft has virtually ensured that people are willing to pay a little more for an all around ‘happier’ computer experience.
This is just my take on it. I have one desktop and All my SW runs on it Mac\Win\Linux
..they do? got any data to back this up? how many people use computers at their houses and what percentage of these people use apple computers?
this might work in a small environment but i dont see it happening on a large scale ..apple supports their systems up to one version back, with the frequency of their releases ..you have what? 2,3,4 years of official support of your current system? ..constantly updating may work on a small scale but not on a large scale ..
Well lets see 8 percent of the user market (and that is in the middle of a fairly significant economic downturn) and possibly up to 20 percent of the installed base of web users. And while 8 out of 10 companies have a significant mac presence and these numbers are 2-3 times what they were 6 quarters ago doesn’t exactly count as ‘pwnage’ in the “we owned the other team” POV. I feel like it just maybe might be a market shift.
In this context I sense ownership to be more about mindshare or as some people call it a “Halo Effect”. It is a sense that if the SW is half as good as it looks or if it just works and gets out of my way then I might look into some other products this company makes. I have never had the experience that Bill Gates had with MS Movie Maker because iMovie is built in and free and stable. I would think that he was an above average user or at least understands his company.
And on the other hand I am just an Average Joe, and my company understands me. These are opinions not Dogma of the Math Gods From On High. And I also say that my experience is anecdotal. When then Janitor says Macs are expensive and the CIO or CTO says “Wow I can run Gnome and Vista and OS X at the same time” well I will take them both seriously but feel pride knowing which slice of the market I am trending towards.
I suppose the question is would Apple offer build to order features such as iMacs and MacMini’s without features that come as standard… Off the top of my head, I’d say “can I order an iMac sans optical drive and iSight?”
The hardware can be locked down to with MXC settings pretty easily, but why buy what you don’t need in the first place.
The nice thing w/ the hardware is you can run just about any OS on it either directly or via virtualization. And the combination of network homes and netboot/restore makes blowing a borked machine a 5 minute procedure.
In corporate entities, they would open up OS X to other hardware manufacturers. Let’s face it, the reason Why Corporations moved from IBM was because of proprietary hardware on the desktop. Same with SUN/Solaris to Linux/HP and Dell in the server rooms. Think of the world if Everything was monopolized by Apple! That situation would be far worse than Microsoft’s domination in that You’re Locked in on BOTH hardware and software.
How many times does it have to be said? Apple is a hardware company. They make their money on selling machines.
Apple have enough trouble supporting the hardware they sell. They’re not going to support thousands of configurations.
In corporate entities, this is less than an issue than you make it out to be. Whether you choose Dell, HP, Lenovo or Apple for your desktops and laptops there is still a significant issue of vendor lock-in. For example, if your company has a fleet of 1000 Dell Latitudes you most likely also have 1000+ docking stations, innumerable extra batteries and power adapters, modular drives and other accessories. Support must also be trained in troubleshooting each vendor’s hardware. Even though Dell, HP and Lenovo may all be running Windows, the ancillary investments are non-trivial and provide incentives to stick with a single vendor.
That is true. But What HP, Dell, Lenovo all have in common is that they run ALL of the same OS and applications for the end user.
As great an OS for the enduser Mac OSX is, Neither the OS (application catalogwise) nor the parent company’s financial philosophy will allow it to be a serious competitor to the other HW manufacturers especially in the business market. Exchange integration is a good first step. But apps, especially financial apps such as Bloomberg, Reuters, ILX, Intinet, Lehman Smartconnect, etc.
Bottom line: I wouldn’t read into this article too deeply. I believe that APple is just responding to customer demand. People are buying Macs for home use and Entourage, Mac Mail are terrible in working with exchange. Mail.app only works with IMAP currently.
My experience is that clients like the feel of Macs but, they need to run stuff that OS-X can’t handle natively and Parallels doesn’t cut it network wise.
I now hear customers trying to integrate their Macbooks into Windows networks cursing their Macs due to their frustration with Windows only apps and OS-X’s inability to virtualise them well enough in a network environment.
Personally I put it down to flawed dumbed down UI from Apple. If Apple allowed people a little more hands on control of OS-X and its settings then we would have a more harmonious environment to work with.
I do not Blame Apple’s UI, That’s actually a strong point. There must be NATIVE application support. Not virtualized Application support. That’s a sysadmin’s nightmare! Parallels is good for the consumer, developer, or home user. In business You need Support for these apps to the parent SW firm. If there is a middleman (or middleman application or layer), Support will Quickly brush you off blaming the Virtualization SW and their product was designed for, You guessed it… Windows!
And we already talked about hardware. If Apple is truly trying to gain traction in the Corporate world, They Most likely will have to change their business model, gain partnership with SW companies that are currently Microsoft Only, and have their Operating system run on Non-apple HW. We didn’t even scratch the surface of IT Policy enforcement and compliance yet!
Also to consider, The economy right now is on a decline. Do you think it is feasible for corporations now to be Locked in on an expensive, Under supported solution? Or have a solution that still allows for exit plans?
I don’t think this is a move for world domination but simply Apple getting in a better position. This started with moving from ADC to DVI adaptors, Firewire to USB, I think this move makes the Mac OS X experience more attractive. That’s all. Just little steps in the right direction.
The next step should be flac on ipods! Hehe
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best wishes!