Apple has found its best success in the consumer marketplace. But with a stable of enterprise-ready products, how can it penetrate this tough market?
Editorial Notice: All opinions are those of the author and not necessarily those of osnews.com
My employer, a globe-spanning technology company with hundreds of thousands of employees, spent the last two weeks in fire-fighting mode, trying to stamp out traces of problems caused by the Sasser worm. Our networks were barely usable, internal servers were inoperable, and even as I write this some critical services are still on the blink.
I am currently participating in a project costing the company over $1 million (trust me, that’s not as impressive as that sounds), and with the short timeline that’s been imposed, the last two weeks’ outages have been a disaster; there’s now no way we’ll make deadline, and that’s going to cost the company money.
This isn’t the first time that those widely-publicized Windows security issues have bitten this company. When you think of both man-hours trying to fix the problem, and the combined loss of productivity in a company this size, the cost must be amazing. So the question must be asked: how can this company — indeed, any large corporation — rationally choose to support a Windows infrastructure?
The answer is complicated, and has as much to do with inertia, ignorance and comfort level as it does with dollars and cents.
But the issue got me thinking about Apple, and their enterprise offerings. With the introduction of the XServe, XServe RAID, XGrid and OS X Server, why hasn’t Apple penetrated the enterprise market?
That answer is complicated too, but I’m going to try to explain it. There might even be a solution.
Problem 1: Enterprise IT hates surprises
The big players in the enterprise IT market (Microsoft, Intel, IBM, etc.) have roadmaps that CIOs use to plan their infrastructure: when to upgrade, when to stay put, are decisions made up to a year in advance thanks to roadmaps. If you’re planning a budget, having that view of the future can determine whether or not you go with a particular vendor.
Sadly, Apple does not offer a roadmap for its product lines, either on the OS X Server front, or the hardware front.
Problem 2: Apple needs a dedicated enterprise sales force
According to Think Secret, Apple may already have one, but it’s clearly too small to be effective. These are the folks that beat the street, getting into the offices of CIOs to explain, in person, the benefits of the platform. They’re the folks doing the unsolicited proposals that win surprise business, giving away a few XServes to test internal company deployments, opening regional corporate testing centers where companies can freely test their solution before going all the way. There needs to be real investment in developing the sales tools necessary to build those large accounts.
According to the report, Apple’s enterprise sales force consists of 16 people. I’m sure they’re doing good work, but it clearly won’t be enough to make a real dent in the enterprise market.
Problem 3: Solutions, solutions, solutions
Enterprise computing is a tricky business. There are an infinite number of permutations of software and hardware that a company may be required to support, and the best players in this market — Microsoft, IBM, HP, heck, even Red Hat — have developed partnerships to ensure interoperability. Large corporations want to buy products from different companies, and they want those products to play well together. That means the companies have to play well together, even if they compete in different areas.
Apple does have a partnership with Oracle, but there are no plans to run, say, Novell on OS X. There are dozens of other applications that Apple should support on OS X Server, but won’t or can’t because of politics.
Problem 4: A strong channel
Apple does have an ISV program (Integrated System Vendors) who provide solutions to customers with specialized needs. But Apple only emphasizes the authorization of ISVs in the media, video and publishing industries, its traditional stronghold. They need ISVs out there putting together solutions that address key enterprise pain points: integrating mail and groupware functionality; rolling out large Open Directory deployments; developing hardware and applications for vertical markets like CRM and eCommerce… the list goes on.
Apple has been shrinking in on itself more and more over the past few years; spurning its channel and selling direct. That might work for the consumer market, but one company can’t be all things to all customers: an ISV can be Apple’s savior for reaching customers it otherwise couldn’t touch.
Is there a solution?
I think so. The Apple we know today is, at is core, a consumer technology company that happens to have some great enterprise products. Why not spin the enterprise business off to a new company, one that can give those large businesses the attention they deserve? Let’s look at the advantages.
Let’s call the company Apple Enterprise (AE). Their stable of products would include the OS X Server operating system, the XServe, XServe RAID, WebObjects, XGrid and XSAN. These products would continue to be developed as they have been, so the company would bring over the same engineers that currently work on them.
The key to making this work is to ensure there is a collaborative-yet-separate development process, particularly where OS X is concerned. While Apple is working on building new blockbuster features like Exposé into Client, AE should be focused on publicly updating Server with the latest open source enhancements, and adding net-new features on a roadmap that is available to customers. This roadmap would let enterprise customers know what’s coming, without jeapardizing the consumer splash that Steve Jobs loves so well.
AE should embrace the reality that great products alone are not enough to sway enterprise clients. They should make a massive investment in their sales force, and open technology centers around the world to assist companies in a migration to Apple solutions.
AE should embrace partnerships with leading technology vendors, like Novell, Oracle and others, to make sure their stuff works on Apple gear. A formal certification process would ease a lot of minds too.
Speaking of certification, an Apple Enterprise should also have a full-fledged AE Certified Professional program, to create a workforce of pros qualified to manage Apple solutions. Part of the problem for enterprise adoption of Apple technology is a lack of IT professionals who can support the platform. There are probably more RHCE’s (Red Hat Certified Professionals) out there than Apple pros, and that’s just scary.
And let’s not forget the channel. AE should help grow a channel that is devoted to the platform through all manner of incentives. When the sales force encounters a whacky setup at some potential customer’s site, they should be able to call in an ISV that can help solve it. There should be ISVs for every market: telecom, healthcare, government and more. An independent Apple Enterprise could devote the kind of manpower needed to manage this program without having to worry about the baggage that comes from a consumer-focused Apple company.
The leadership of this company would also be a key consideration. We couldn’t have someone like Steve Jobs leading AE; he’s too flamboyant, too much the showman for the enterprise. To be taken seriously, AE needs management that is hardened to the realities of enterprise, that can be a credible spokesperson. Preferably, it would be someone stolen from the likes of HP or IBM, companies who are already successful in enterprise. Feel free to suggest some candidates!
It’s a crazy idea, but Apple’s a crazy company, and with a set of good (nay, great) enterprise products, it needs to set up an infrastructure that allows it to make a good argument to large corporations: You’re losing millions of dollars because of your Windows infrastructure. Here’s a solution that’s been around for 20 years, and we’ll support you every step of the way in your transition.
Phrased right, that could be music to the ears of many CIOs. And it could also result in a reverse of Apple’s market share trend as well. You never know…
“documenting a known problem with kb articles on apples site is not trolling.”
If the problem had related to the article it wouldn’t be trolling. Going from one Apple thread to the next bringing up half-truths and spreading FUD that doesn’t even relate to the topic in such a consistant manner makes you a troll. If you wanted to debate it without trolling you would use the OS Wars forum. That’s what it’s there for.
“seeding betas to a few thousand adc developers just doesn’t cut the mustard.”
There weren’t even a few thousand FW 800 drives being used at the time. It was almost brand new.
“14) lack of clear roadmaps that business can use to plan their expenditures over time. again no vendor is perfect with road maps, but no one is worse than apple….with both hardware and software.”
Lack of hardware roadmaps is a problem, but they could easily give enterprise roadmaps. Software roadmaps are more than obvious. Their operating system has a basic schedule, and their applications are on rotation. They of course keep new apps a secret.
IBM Global Services is the worlds largest consulting firm and solutions provider.
I have not once heard a story of them promoting apple computers with their powerpc chips in them…they would make money on the sale of cpus and the services and support contracts.
maybe they do promote it, but it surely isn’t much or we would all hear about it from the marketing machine in cupertino.
both motorola and ibm are predominantly windows based and yet they have been in partnership with apple for the powerpc for a over a decade. they have an intimate knowledge of apple, their hardware, and their software, yet they choose windows.
wouldnt we also love to know how many windows based desktops and servers apple runs in house as well?
go to any of the well known mac oriented bulletin boards or do a search on google and see how many people were affected by this poor testing. maybe if apple didnt live in secrecy and just hope for the biggest bang from its grand announcements, they could provide real road maps for its users and get out some beta tests and this sort of thing could be better avoided. seeding betas to a few thousand adc developers just doesn’t cut the mustard.
No, I have seen data corruption bugs on standard PC grade devices that have been in the market for years, on southbridge, IDE chipset and Harddrive firmware. Many of these bugs are very difficult to hit in a lab environment. It is almost impossible to test every possible configuration and every possible combination of loads and stress in a lab or controlled environment.
If you have no experience working with device drivers and devices or testing any of the above, stop this discussion now. You can’t just pick a hardware bug that apple happend to expose and claim it was apples fault for not adequately testing thier OS. What about the many drive manufactures and also oxford semiconductor, they have a larger installed base than Apple, they could should have easily found the bug according to yournaive notion of bugs and complex system interactions.
“There weren’t even a few thousand FW 800 drives being used at the time. It was almost brand new.”
panther released oct 25, 2003
firewire 800 started shipping in macs jan 28, 2003
10 months of shipping macs with the ports and only a few thousand use them for external hard drives?
you say the funniest things.
i guess firewire 800 is a miserable failure then.
too funny.
“What about the many drive manufactures and also oxford semiconductor, they have a larger installed base than Apple, they could should have easily found the bug according to yournaive notion of bugs and complex system interactions.”
but as panther was kept so secret, neither makers or oxford probably ever saw a beta release. that is apples fault.
and its not a complex matter to plug in an external firewire 800 drive that is the currently shipping model from several vendors.
get over it. apple dropped the ball. it wasnt tested with a drive plugged in at install or they would have seen the failure. the fix was clearly easy as it came out in a very short time.
“and that is exactly why for over ten years they have made no progress with their servers and server oses.”
They haven’t had a server worthy OS until 10.2.
“business wants more than an online shopping site. they want more than a chic mall shop with a weekly meet and greet with small biz owners.”
Those small business owners are exactly the enterprise they would start with. Your first enterprise sales aren’t to gigantic corporations, they are to smaller businesses…you work your way up.
“they want more than the on again off again sales they see at retailers like circuit city, sears, montgomery wards, etc. they want more than what compusa can provide.”
Apple is cutting them out as we speak. Not a one of those has done a decent job, and I hope they get cut out quickly.
“they want to go to a third party specialist that provides them with many different technology solutions”
It’s called shopping around.
“and will give them honest answers that serve their needs, not steve jobs wishes.”
Go into any Apple store, and a promise you the employees won’t lie about what they offer. If you think they are, call them on it. They will surely prove you wrong as they know more about it than you. They are consistently well trained, and there are overly-strict requirements for working the Genius Bar.
“hell even long time third party solution providers for apple are fed up with them and are now sueing over the treatment apple doles out to trusted partners.”
Did you even read what the suit was about? They admit that all they have is speculation.
“undercutting them on costs when they “sell” to apple stores,”
They didn’t undercut them. They sold to their own retail stores at the same prices they sell to any other major chain. You get price cuts when you purchase in bulk. Notice CompUSA and Best Buy and MicroCenter aren’t listed in the lawsuit, only smaller no-name shops.
“heavy handed selling policies and price controls,”
The resellers agreed to that when they started. It’s been that way since the beginning.
“holding back inventory on them to suit their own needs,”
They give the largest movers the first shipments. How else would you do it efficiently?
not communicating future plans”
They don’t do that with their own retail stores either.
“and leaving them high and dry with excess stock as new products get surprise announcements…..”
If they can’t sell what they ordered that’s their problem.
“few care to partner with apple based on a long history of screwing the channel over.”
Few small resellers care to partner with Apple because they Apple Retail Stores are outselling them. The larger chains seem to be doing fine.
“so when biz and large enterprise needs solutions, they talk to their technology providers and they overwhelmingly tell them apple is not a viable option.”
Their IT guys tell them Apple isn’t a viable option. If you had a choice to make your job obsolete, you of course wouldn’t do it.
“that is why apple doesn’t stand a chance in enterprise.”
They are just getting started.
“CIOs dont buy 1000 desktops or 500 servers because they saw some overhyped g5 flying through walls.”
No, but they do buy them when they see that the hardware rarely breaks, the server OS has an extremely cheap unlimited client license, it’s virus free, and the hardware price on that level competes with the market leader.
“IBM Global Services is the worlds largest consulting firm and solutions provider.
I have not once heard a story of them promoting apple computers with their powerpc chips in them…they would make money on the sale of cpus and the services and support contracts.”
First of all, IBM isn’t Apples marketing firm. Second, in almost every PowerPC related article I read they refer the the G5.
“maybe they do promote it, but it surely isn’t much or we would all hear about it from the marketing machine in cupertino.”
So you expect IBM to promote Apple more than Apple?
“both motorola and ibm are predominantly windows based and yet they have been in partnership with apple for the powerpc for a over a decade. they have an intimate knowledge of apple, their hardware, and their software, yet they choose windows.”
Choose Windows? They don’t get the option to run OS X on their hardware. The choice is between Windows and Linux for them, and they both use both.
“wouldnt we also love to know how many windows based desktops and servers apple runs in house as well?”
They do develop software for Windows. Just as MS develops Mac software. They vast majority of their servers are OS X Server, which is obvious because most of their servers are for media streaming and content delivery…ie- iTMS and the worlds largest movie trailer site. A few of their overseas sites are hosted on Linux because they aren’t allowed to sell hardware to those countries. US law prohibits the sale of ‘supercomputers’ to certain countries, and that cuts out most modern servers, including Apples.
“10 months of shipping macs with the ports and only a few thousand use them for external hard drives?
you say the funniest things.
i guess firewire 800 is a miserable failure then.”
FW 800 has very limited uses, so it isn’t used much. There’s no point in spending the money on a FW 800 drive when you can get a FW 400 drive that works just as well for less money.
“but as panther was kept so secret, neither makers or oxford probably ever saw a beta release. that is apples fault.”
Panther wasn’t a secret from developers at all. From the day it was previewed the devs go download it. Part of the ADC.
“the fix was clearly easy as it came out in a very short time.”
So what’s your huge deal with it?
Personally in my part of the country some kind of partnership with IBM & Novell would be in order. I know lots of companies in my area still using IBM iSeries [AS400} and pSeries [AIX] machines and the IT staff has no intention of “going quitely” into the windows world!
The way I look at it, IBM sells BIG hardware. AS400 and AIX are great boxes…they achive their intended tasks very well, but are precived as non-pretty…and that needs to be changed. IBM shops have always had a networking deficency because IBM has left that to other people…. Novel still has quite the following in many shops that fear the MS creep! But again, they’re precived as older and un-pretty even though most of the AD stuff was developed by them 5 years ago. If they would both partner with Apple they could let Jobs do his magic on making the stuff pretty while keeping their core business skills for the techs.
What I’ve seen of small-medium businesses is that they typically have mixed server rooms already. But the “Windows Creep” is killing them. For a 500 person business with 250 machines they should only NEED their AS400, domain controller and perhaps 2-3 auxillary servers….but the typical business of that size has at least 2 dozen of various types of MS windows…often “dedicated” to a particular vendor’s application! Remember, SMBs don’t EVER INTEND to spend what MS tells them on IT staff…it’s a waste of money to them! What’s needed is for somebody to realize that businesses are cheap and get with the program. Apple’s Xserver is definately cost comptetitive with any Enterprise server from Dell [note add in SCSI drives and controllers + Windows Enterprise Server + cals and THEN figure the price!] Not to mention the reduced hassle of removing the core of your business from the Scourge of the windows worms out there!
A spokesman for Oxford Semiconductor told Macworld: “This problem was fixed; now it’s come back again.”
“We are not in the business of blame. As a business, we aim to make the best, fastest and most cross-platform compatible product. We’ll take a deep breath and get on with the business of delivering the best product we can. What is important is that we work together in order to resolve the problem for our end users.”
hmm that sounds familiar, drive manufactures fix a firmware problem incompletely and then find an OS update further demonstrates the bug. I have seen this many times in the industry, it takes some manifacturers a few rounds of finding bugs and fixing thier firmware to get things right.
Wiebetech CEO James Wiebe said: “It has been determined that this problem between Panther and FireWire 800 drives usually occurs in circumstances involving older, slower Macintosh computers where the FireWire 800 drive is attached to a FireWire 400 port on the computer, and the firmware level of the FireWire drive is 1.02.” The company recommends that users of its products install the patch.
That is not a straight forward process. Also apple might have just bought drives that just so happened to have an uprev firmware.
“Go into any Apple store, and a promise you the employees won’t lie about what they offer. If you think they are, call
them on it. They will surely prove you wrong as they know more about it than you. They are consistently well trained,
and there are overly-strict requirements for working the Genius Bar. ”
Very likely not. There’s an old saw:
“What’s the difference between a used car salesman and a computer salesman? The used car salesman knows he’s lying.”
“the fix was clearly easy as it came out in a very short time.”
Any bug is easy to root cause an fix once you can reproduce it on demand. If apple’s drivers in panther change the timing of events and the bug is easy to reporduce it shouldn’t take that long to fix.
There is not issue here that the bug was a firmware issue, also by the manufacturers own admission it was fixed once but reoccured, Indicating that the fix was not complete.
The question of wether Apple or anyone would have found it in a lab environment is anybody’s guess. Also experience tells me that it is always the one test case you forgot to test, out of the hundreds you did test, that will blow up. Testing and developing software is not easy.
Hindsight is always 20/20. But how anyone can garuntee that you would test a fW800 drive in a FW400 port on an old mac that to with a particular firmware level. If you made test matrices with so many varibales your test matrix would easily go into a thousand different configurations, If your test suite takes a day to complete, it would that a few thousand days to go through that many configs, You would then never get a product out on time.
You can only put reasonable configs in a test case, you can’t take every firmware revision level of every drive that you might support and test it.
Well if you had any real world experience we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
“Very likely not. There’s an old saw:
“What’s the difference between a used car salesman and a computer salesman? The used car salesman knows he’s lying.””
Typically I’d agree with that completely, as I can’t stand salemen of any kind, especially computer salesmen. But seriously go talk to these guys, they aren’t the run of the mill Gateway (err, ex-Gateway) in store sales team. Most of them are certified in many areas of software and hardware, and working behind that bar requires at least a few years (forgot the actual number, but it seems like it was 3) in the fields they are trained in.
mid to large size third party solution providers in many cases have certified pros on staff for solutions from
apple, though again this is a small number and shrinking
ms
novell
more with linux but it is still a low number like apples
cisco
checkpoint
symantec
several hardware vendors for many of the hardware categories
hp/compaq for computers and printers
ibm….
sun….
sony or acer or ……
and finally they will have relationships with more than one white box pc/server maker that they can also rely on
apple sells only apple solutions and they are sold by poorly paid part timers in general. each store has a few well trained people that work the genius bar. though apple stores are better staffed than the average retail outlet, they cannot compare with a full blown solutions provider.
biz of anthing other than the smallest size works with consultants and solutions providers to get things done…and they usually come on site to evaluate the needs of the company. there are exceptions of course—look at dell’s sales model (they also have people in the field though), but you have to be tripping to think CIOs go to apple stores to chat up genius bar workers.
the apple stores at best will appeal to small lawyers offices etc….and that only in select cities in a few select countries.
apple will just spin some marketing blah blah that they have sessions with small biz owners and a few years from now we will all marvel that they made no progress with biz sales. apple will go nowhere in the biz and enterprise space until they wholeheartedly support a real sales and support channel.
mid to large size third party solution providers in many cases have certified pros on staff for solutions from
apple sells only apple solutions and they are sold by poorly paid part timers in general. each store has a few well trained people that work the genius bar. though apple stores are better staffed than the average retail outlet, they cannot compare with a full blown solutions provider.
Hmm you mean like dell only sells dell solutions and HP only HP solutions, and gateway only gateway solutions.
You just mentioned that apple ws sold by third party suppliers, then you say that Apple retail stores only sell apple solutions.
Yeah, so. What does this whole post of yours mean, your are trying to say something, but after a lot of drivel end-up saying nothing, just like most of your other posts.
Duh, Apple sells Apple stuff in thier store, how on earth did you figure that out, genius. By the way apples sells third party hardware (peripherals) and software in thier retail store as well. I don’t see IBM laptops at the Sony Factory out let store.
The Seeker will you ever buy a Mac? Or do you already own a G5? Forget about windows for a time and switch to a Apple.
Heck if you think that the new enterprise hardware/software is not going to sell cool. I happen to think it actually will if APPLE themselves put a real effort into it. the xserve has had very good reviews from what i have read. And I know of people that are implenting them over descent size networks( a few hundred workstations). they seem to think the xserve is a pretty good piece of equipment.
Now I dont know the specifics about what they use them for. I do know they have a windows box for specific purpose , but they plan to migrate all the servers they can to the xserve where feesable.
Apple like any real small fish in a sector needs to have some sort of hook to have them get a foothold. And I think Apple can provide if they really cowboy up.
“Typically I’d agree with that completely, as I can’t stand salemen of any kind, especially computer salesmen. But
seriously go talk to these guys, they aren’t the run of the mill Gateway (err, ex-Gateway) in store sales team. Most
of them are certified in many areas of software and hardware, and working behind that bar requires at least a few
years (forgot the actual number, but it seems like it was 3) in the fields they are trained in.”
It would be a bit difficult to talk to them, since there isn’t an Apple store anywhere near here. Frankly, an expert in this field wouldn’t be a support tech in a retail store.
Of course, calling the support desk a “Genius Bar” may make the customers feel better, but it’s just an example of Apple’s overblown self image.
“It would be a bit difficult to talk to them, since there isn’t an Apple store anywhere near here. Frankly, an expert in this field wouldn’t be a support tech in a retail store.”
Well of course not. I didn’t mean this field specifically, but in general, and in Apples main markets, ie- content creation and the associated applications and hardware.
“Of course, calling the support desk a “Genius Bar” may make the customers feel better, but it’s just an example of Apple’s overblown self image.”
Yes. Exactly. It seems to fit better when you are in the store though, as it’s devided into sections, all with names.