Can Apple Penetrate the Corporation?

coondoggie sends us a NetworkWorld story on the prospects for Apple gaining market share in the corporation. A number of factors are helping to catch the eye of those responsible for upgrading desktops and servers, the article claims: "Apple's shift to the Intel architecture; the inclusion of infrastructure and interoperability hooks, such as directory services, in the Mac OS X Server; dual-boot capabilities; clustering and storage technology; third-party virtualization software; and comparison shopping, which is being fostered by migration costs and hardware overhauls associated with Microsoft's Vista." On this last point, one network admin is quoted: "The changes in Vista are significant enough that we think we can absorb the change going to Macs just as easily as going to Vista."

why not?

Can Apple Penetrate the Corporation?

Why not? They're already penetrating consumers.

Re:Are you sure?

Fire this guy, before he talks to your boss. Jesus! I love Macs - but don't think for a minute that you can use them with smartcards and automatically deployed certificate infrastructures, or any form of distributed policy management, etc. Where is the corporate distribution of packaged software?

You might want to do your homework first... smartcards systems can be used on OS X, and "certificate infrastructures" Directory Services handles "distributed policy management", Apple Remote Desktop, ssh, NetBoot, can all be used with distribution of packaged software, what you have to remember is, some software doesn't like being distributed that way on Windows or Mac OS X (Adobe software is a good example of that).

Re:Are you sure?

For all of MAD's suckyness (Microsoft Active Directory ...MAD delivers functionality that OS X can't even dream of.

Example:
You can send your admin-monkey to the server, with a few manual procedure steps, ...from using a DOS command shell.

This configuration change will go out on the network with the next reboot. And poof! 500 nosy, troublesome Users are now a bit less able to shoot themselves in the foot, or work mischief on your systems.

First, I love the MAD acronym. :)

Secondly, here's a question for you: does OSX even require this functionality, or is it merely a consequence of the MS world-view that this functionality seems to be required?

Let's look at your example, and let me admit I've not used OSX in an enterprise setting, but I have used Solaris, HPUX, Linux, and AIX in enterprise settings and all are *nix variants like OSX. First, you have to image all your drives - that's standard across all systems. Next, you have central servers with user profile information on them on one variant or another (again, standard in this scenario). With the *nix variants, the user home directories can be NFS mounted, with every machine giving you the same view instantly, with the same performance as you'd experience on any other machine. Unless ADS has changed, I believe a new profile is downloaded/updated on every login/logoff, and is slower than molasses if your system is configured with or default/user stores large files on the desktop or in the profile. Also, should I want to change run perms, I change it on the server(s) and voila - INSTANT changes in what users can do - no logoff/login cycle required. Now, OSX being a *nix variant, can probably be setup exactly the same way (The only uncertainty remains because I haven't done it nor experienced it first hand).

Other examples: disable the IE address bar. (and prevent Trojans from hooking it). Disable the Tools menu so users can't mung with the security settings in IE. Disable control panels. Enforce a password-protected screen saver across the enterprise. Take the File-Open menu away from MS Excel. Whatever. I assure you, as draconian and capricious as these sound - some of them are ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY to operate computers in a secure environment.

These are all windows centric issues, however, given the above configuration with NFS mounts, applications can be controlled in exactly the same way. General users don't have access to system settings in network *nix environments without a super user password. Your strawmen don't exist in a standard *nix rollout.

...But the effort required to "roll your own" system to manage client configuration on this scale, with this ease of use, would be on a pretty much unimaginable level.

I'm afraid you're mistaken on that. See below:

I am an unashamed Mac fanboy. The bane of my life is when I have to go into work, and fix broken Domain Policies or MAD server. I have 4 Macs at home, and I try to manage them somewhat like an enterprise - and I'm telling you - the tools just are not there. There *is* a usable infrastructure, but you'd need to pump tens of thousands of man-hours from a very skilled scripting guru to pull off the equivalent thing on a Mac.

I think you'll find that with a half-way knowledgeable *nix system administrator that more than half your issues will go away, and a decent one will make 95% of your issues evaporate. You're still seeing the world through MS glasses. You expect systems to work like MS systems. MS systems are standalone systems that sort of communicate (badly) through networks, since networks were after thoughts. *nix systems were designed with networks (well, multiple terminals/multi-user systems which were much easier to convert to network centric systems) in mind and thus have a completely different view of networked systems.

I have actually used OSX OD

Man, organise a trial of OSX server with Open Directory before you start speaking your prejudices out loud. OD can do exactly that, since you can replicate a thusly configured configuration to all your users. OD is, on top of that, compatible with AD and NDS, and openLDAP, for that matter.

Re:You should keep looking...

Again, the cost is more for a card system, than a whole identity and policy management infrastructure on AD.

OTOH, the identity and policy management infrastructure on OS X comes gratis with the server OS. And the remote management and package distribution system costs a grand total of $500 for unlimited users. In my office the database needed to back the Windows remote/package management system cost more thatn 20 times that. There are no CALs for any services. I think this impact most corporate users a lot more than the cost of smartcard system.

Re:Are you sure?

My experience of .MIL is that, regarding cost control, they have a different reality than business.

What?

Yeah. The entire enterprise application base from Win32 to POSIX/Cocoa.

You don't need the entire application base of Win32, only the applications that you need. If the apps required for his company are available on OSX then, well, what's the problem.

Where is the corporate distribution of packaged software?

It's Unix, this's been trivial for decades. The hard part is the politics.

See, in the real world there's no such thing as perfect, it literally can't exist. There is only ever good enough and no two people stand at exactly the same point on the good enough continuum.

If you want badly managed client end-points, go ahead.

snort... Sorry, but Windows is the epitome... the very apotheosis of badly managed end points, even with all the bells and whistles of AD and SMS it's still ridiculously painful.

 

Re:What?

Ahem.

As a matter of fact there are fewer and fewer client side apps in an average corporation. Most IT departments do not have the competence and resources to support internal development. I no longer even get pissed off when I hear an IT boss wannabie speaking the "We are not software developers" mantra. In fact in many places, not using software "as shipped and specified by the vendor" has become a firing offence.

Most internal applications have long moved to various forms of portals/intranet servers which makes the end-client platform considerably less relevant. In fact moving from IE6 to IE7 and further to vista access controls have caused (and will cause) the same level of pain as moving to a different OS + browser.

As far as corporate readiness goes, Apple has everything it needs from a technological viewpoint to be ready. However, it is not currently showing the will and desire to go after that market. It does not have a corporation oriented sales channel. It does not have corporation oriented support channel either. Its entire model is geared towards end-users (alone or within an educational establishment).

Actually the situation is not entirely dissimilar from the early PC days.

In those days enterprises where terminal shops with terminals connected to a mainframe or minivax or a unix system. Few places were running Unix using early vintage X terminals. The PC went for the small business and personal market first and from there it displaces the terminals in the larger businesses.

Nowdays the situation is about the same. Microsoft has been paying too much attention to large business customers and ignoring the place it started - SMBs, small ISVs and personal use. At the same time most internal company applications are now server based and very few things run on the clients. This is roughly the position of mainframes of old and we very well know how they have been displaced by a product which was initially adopted by SMBs and for personal use.

So, Apple if they want to, can try to repeat the Microsoft of early days. Currently, they are not showing that they are willing to do so.

Re:Are you sure?

Ok ... first of all ... most enterprise applications are web based, have been for a while now, as for the rest, you're misinformed ...

Office ... available for Mac.
Smart Cards ... work as of Tiger
Certificates ... see Certificate Assistant added in Tiger

Distributed policy management ... it's UNIX underneath ... see NIS

Corporate distribution of packaged software ... see Software Update Server

Granted, most of this is newish since it was only added in 10.4 (04/2005) but it's all there.

Re:why not?

I am so glad this is Slashdot, you have no idea how pissed I was gonna be if the first comment on this page wasn't a penetration joke :-)

Re:why not?

But consumers don't wear chastity belts, are much looser and would easily accommodate an apple. Much harder to penetrate a corporation - have to try it with a thin client or something like that - an apple would just get crushed.

Re:why not?

Purposely missing the joke. The is a solid reason for Corporations not to use Macs. Sure right now they are the Hot Platform and arguably just as good if not better then most other Computer Platform of the same market, and the prices a competitive (Yes they are, I don't want to hear about some el-cheap-o Dell PC that just match one or 2 specs, If you match them up pound for pound spec for spec the prices are very close). But the issue is the same issue of why Microsoft got dominance early on. It is the fact that Apple primarily run OS X and OS X only runs on Apple. So in 2, 5, 10, 20 years when Apple Quality begins to drop and stink like it did in the early-mid 90's companies software are stuck with Apple. At least with Microsoft Windows if what ever PC brand they are using begins to loose it competitive edge they can switch quite easily. Just think about IBM when they sold their PC Unit to Lenovo. A lot of companies (especially government) when it came to upgrade their PC they just went with Dell, HP or whatever without much hassle, with little Major Software redesigns or intensive training classes. Now they may go with Macs but they will just put Windows only on them and not take advantage of Mac OS, which would be pointless because you have better selection with other PC distributers. Linux is getting better but still there is little effort in making a good Desktop Linux and the fact that MS Office has a huge dominance. For your own Personal PC go with a Mac it is great even if you use it for work. But for a wide scale company layout going with Apple would only be a short term gain with a huge long term risk.

I'd like to see

Some concrete numbers on admin costs between the two platforms. Whatever reasons you proscribe to the whole Windows vs Macs vs every electronic plague on the planet, I suspect there's some serious cost-benefits to making the switch at the corporate level.

If nothing else I'd love to see a larger market-share for Apple just to cut down on the number of spam-generating zombies out there.

Re:I'd like to see

They don't allow for corporate volume discounts

Yes they do. Ask any Apple sales rep about it.

-jcr

If you're going to get like that...

In Soviet Russia, BSD confirms it: Netcraft is dying.

Re:I'd like to see

The problem with Apple is that they do not consider the corporation to be a target audience. They don't allow for corporate volume discounts (that alone is a massive deal breaker, making them substantially more expensive than anything else); and they don't provide customer service packages that mid-to-large corporations expect.

This is not accruate. I am an Apple Authorized Business Agent, and Apple Enterprise sales group absolutely can and does offer corporate dicounts. Check your facts. Call Apple, ask for entrprise sales, and talk turkey. Evidently, you'll be surprised.

Re:I'd like to see

Similarly, I've worked as a software "consultant" developer at quite a number of companies over the years, and I've seen Macs everywhere. The pattern is interesting: Most of the non-IT management uses Macs, while the IT people have the usual ongoing war between the Microsoft and the linux (or Sun) fanboys. The attitude of the non-IT management folks is generally "Those IT geeks can keep their user-hostile PCs; we'll just stick with something that dummies like us can actually use without swearing and tearing our hair out twice a minute."

They approve purchases of Microsoft (and/or IBM) junk because they believe that the IT people will get all sulky and sabotage anything else foisted on them. They buy Macs out of their own department's budget. Either IT is willing to support Macs, or there's a separate Mac support group somewhere else. Not that the Macs (or linux or Sun) machines need much support, of course.

Now, this is just a string of personal anecdotes; I don't pretend to know what the rest of the world is doing. But I know of a number of companies where Apple can sell very easily, because the non-IT management already knows and loves them.

When someone asks "Can Apple penetrate the corporation?" they are really asking "Can Apple subvert IT departments' love of Microsoft and IBM?" This is going to be a much harder sell. The IT people who are amenable to weaning are also likely to know about Sun, Red Hat, and the others. So those are Apple's real competitors. If an IT department is Microsoft-only, chances are that nobody there will even listen to anyone trying to sell them something else, no matter how good it might be.

I got a Mac Powerbook a few years back, partly so that I could really learn what was so good (and bad ;-) about it. Now I can talk fairly knowledgably to the non-IT management types about the pros and cons of the topic. But I haven't found any way to talk to IT types about the topic at all. It's simply not open to discussion. Some of them already hate MS, but those already have a non-MS laptop of their own and don't need convincing. The rest aren't about to listen to someone like me.

I did have some fun a couple of years back, on a project where I'd been told that all the IT folks were dyed-in-the-wool IBM- and Microsoft-lover types. When I asked individuals, I actually found that almost all of them had linux on their home machine, and at least half had finagled a linux box at work, too. They worked on IBM/MS machines because that's what they were paid for, but they all wanted a good machine for their own use. Sometimes their work machine was dual-boot; sometimes they had two machines. And a few also had Macs.

The real problem is the intransigence of IT management, whose careers are married to IBM and/or Microsoft. In many corporations, everyone else is already convinced.

Of course, as a multi-computer sort of geek, I wouldn't have seen any corporation where everyone loves IBM and/or MS. I wouldn't even be invited inside the doors of such places. So take my comments with a big "FWIW".

Re:I'd like to see

"Can Apple subvert IT departments' love of Microsoft and IBM?"

I'm not sure it's even a love of Microsoft and IBM so much as a love of control and hostility to change, especially change not implemented by them.

I've seen a government office's IT department refuse to send a standard USB mouse to a team that needed one for a Mac they had purchased because "we don't know how to support a Mac." Even after the head of the team had calmly explained to them that all they need to know in this particular case is how to tell a USB connector from a PS/2 connector. I don't see anything there but the IT department trying to play power games - something that I see hints of every single time I go out to visit a client site.

Re:Indeed

It seems to me that if the IT department (Ok, the undergrad who has to act like an IT department) is leaving IE as the default browser on those machines, you're getting pretty much what you deserve. Get them to put Firefox on there and the general level of noise and hijacking will settle down quite a bit.

Or you can go Mac and it'll settle down to zero and stay there. :)

Re:Paradigm-shift.

There's no start menu, and this annoying blue apple up in the left corner.

Re:Ew.

Well, yes and no.

Steve Jobs spent a lot of time and money trying to get the fortune 500 to use NeXT computers, and I think he just doesn't care much about that market anymore. The Xserve and Xserve RAID are fine machines, and far less work to set up and operate than any other system I can name, but Apple's just not staffed to offer the kind of enterprise-level support that HP, and Sun are. I plan to use a lot of Xserves in my current venture, but I do so knowing that I'm going to have to provide the on-site rapid response service to our customers myself.

-jcr

Re:Ew.

You have some points but Xserves still aren't as capable as modern solutions from Sun, HP, and hell, even Dell. Think SAN management, it's not impossible but its quite a bit more difficult on the Mac side of the fence. Maybe in a few more years they'll gear it up but monitoring and management have always been the weak side for Apple as they generally prefer to give the power to the user. This is great for home users but very bad for corporate users.

The support you mention is probably the biggest stumbling block for Apple at the current time however.

Re:Ew.

Never having worked in a "Microsoft Shop," i wonder what kind of support the actual OS vendor really supplies. I mean, sure, they've got to have a really good online knowledge base, but do Windows admins really spend much, if any, time on the phone with Microsoft? As far as I know, companies just hire consultants to give them support when inhouse staff can't handle it.. even when using Windows. Why wouldn't your clients rely on your for on-site support if they went with Microsoft? Who else would they call?

I think it is about features and options. Xserves and XRAIDs are great and easy to manage because they're relatively simple. But because they are simple, they lack at lot of flexability and options that enterprise users need. I mean, seriously, there is basically just ONE external RAID option for Apple servers. There's hundreds for PCs/Windows. If Apple products just happen to fit what you want to do, great, but Windows will continue to be the default platform of choice just because there is so much choice out there. And it isn't just Microsoft. We're talking Dell, HP, IBM, etc.

-matthew

Re:I've always thought

Yes, but the challenge isn't so much the hardware, but the availability of applications that are actually used in corporations. I've tried using my Mac as a work computer, and I just couldn't do it, even with Virtual PC on it (not every application likes being virtualized).

Ironically, as a corporate desktop, Linux is probably better supported than OS X.

Re:I've always thought

The sad thing is Yes they do.
Often they use many client server/database programs written in shudder VisualBasic.
Often the company completely depends on them.
For example in my office we depend on Goldmine, USP Shipping software and a number of small programs what we developed in house using Java. We chose Java to make it easy to move to Linux or the Mac but we still depend on a few Windows programs for our day to day operation.

Yes and Maybe No

Yes I can see how switching to a Mac could absord the cost of Vista and it's hardware requirments but what about the cost of training a whole enterprise of users on MacOSX.

Re:Yes and Maybe No

The cost of training is crap. Stick any user on a Mac or Linux desktop that is setup well and there won't be much need for training.

The big cost is all the custom software that was written with an MS-Only IDE, to MS-Only API's and specs. That is the real killer.

I am a senior programmer with more than a decade of experience. During that time about 90% of my work has been MS-only stuff.

I have written C code for Win32
I have written C code for Solaris
I have written C code for Linux
I have written C++ code for Win32
I have written C++ code for Solaris
I have written C++ code for Linux
I have written Java code for Win32/Solaris/Linux
I have written VB code for Win32
I have written C# code for Win32


The funny thing, all the code I have written for non-MS OS'es has been pretty portable. The MS software, well, that has been MS-Only. MS designed their whole software "ecosystem" to lock you in.

So the real cost of switching from MS is not in training, but in re-writing custom apps. Notice I didn't say _porting_. Most MS-Only apps don't port very well. MS made it this way for a reason, to lock-in customers. The more MS software your company uses, the more locked-in you are.

Re:Yes and Maybe No

Vista is very foreign feeling compared to any windows release since Windows 95. OS X is not that hard to use. Most people can barely print documents and view websites. I think corporate users can be just as lost on OS X as they are in windows.

The real argument against a transition is software compatibility. However, its possible that even a vista deployment would require virtual pc + windows xp for some applications. Lets face it, many products just don't run on vista yet. Some will never be supported. I still know people using Lotus 123 in upper management in a hospital. IBM is not going to update smartsuite for vista compatibility. They claim it mostly works in 32 bit vista but not x64. This is one example. Since lotus is not available for the Mac, its an even transition. Of course the real problem is that corporate users think they need all the extra crap in office. There's always two or three people who just love access or infopath and can't get enough of it.

In the end, it all comes down to requirements. Its just as possible that Linux could "penetrate" the desktops.

This topic perenially arises

And people perenially point out the problems:

You can't get enterprise level support. I.e. next day overnight shipping for parts, 24-hour tech high-level support, etc. Getting a damn power supply should be easily done online a la the stuff Dell and HP offer. Speaking of that, it's also damn near impossible to get an online system apart from the basic Apple store.

No xMac. [arstechnica.com] The Mini helps in this regard, but Apple still doesn't offer a basic tower.

Exchange client/server. It's not good enough until it's perfect.

Uncertainty regarding OS X and hardware. The enterprise doesn't like not knowing what Steve Jobs is going to pull out of his hat in six weeks when you need new hardware today.

The first point is probably the most important, and the article doesn't really address how things have changed. Ever since 10.1 people have speculated Apple is finally pushing into the enterprise... maybe this time it will be. I'm skeptical given Apple's past intransigence. And I'm posting from a PowerBook.

Re:This topic perenially arises

You're missing some basic information here.
Apple does have an Enterprise sales division and they are quite different from the consumer division, you get dedicated Apple representatives for your account. Onsite service contracts are available for server systems. Apple has always had self-servicing programs for enterprises, although the investment in spares can be a bit high.

Another factor is your allegations that uncertainty over future products hampers enterprise planning. The switch to Intel changed this picture considerably. Apple's future products track rather closely to Intel's.

Re:This topic perenially arises

They do have an enterprise sales division that still doesn't do most of the things I'm describing and only *really* works well if you're deploying thousands of Macs at once. If you buy even a dozen a month, they're not much use.

I'm also not sure your generalizations fly. From the board I read -- Ars Technica's -- most people who *do* actually manage Macs in large environments haven't seen much Improvement. See, e.g., here [arstechnica.com] and here [arstechnica.com] and here [arstechnica.com] and here [arstechnica.com] for a variety of threads discussing the issue. Every time OS X.n+1 is about to arrive, so do threads wondering if this is the time for OS X in the enterprise. Look in particular for the posts of a guy named dhaveconfig, who manages a uni setup in Australia and is well-versed in Apple's various enterprise failings.

you get dedicated Apple representatives for your account. Onsite service contracts are available for server systems. Apple has always had self-servicing programs for enterprises, although the investment in spares can be a bit high.

This is true, but you STILL have to jump through Apple's hoops and you STILL don't get many of the things I cited in my original post. To be sure, Apple is looking better in the enterprise than they have in the past, but that's more an accident than anything else, and more a result of dividends from their other strategies. And "better" in this circumstance just means, "not as abysmal as they used to be," which is hardly an accolade.

Our Business

While our workstations are still Windows only, I've managed to make to make our office's server environment 100% OS X Server. Ironically, our MS Access database application is now served by a mySQL backend on an XServe.

However, corporations and businesses in general are prone to using a lot of custom-designed software built by Windows-only outfits. Until that changes, Apple will have a hard time penetrating the corporation.

Nope - Companies/Groups Have Innate Cultures

For Microsoft it is an inability to grasp and implement computer security concepts.

For Open Source it is an inability to make hard and reasonable choice in UI design.

For Apple, it is a complete lack of understanding of the corporate computing mindset. Also game development, but that's a whole other subject.

Re:Nope - Companies/Groups Have Innate Cultures

Understanding a customer and choosing to pursue that customer are two separate things. Apple's a Fortune-500 company themselves, and they use their own products not only on desktops, but in massive IT projects like the iTunes music store and the Apple Online Store. The fact of the matter is, Apple has to decide what to spend their time and money pursuing, and they can do a lot better selling iPods, iPhones, and iMacs than they can if they were to completely take over Sun's entire market.

-jcr

Admins maybe, large enterprise I am not so sure

As a developer and inhouse tech I use my MacBook Pro as my dailey machine, as I can run Mac OS X (Native OS), Windows XP, Vista etc, in virtualised environments where I can test each environment before deploying anything. So for the techs the new MacBook Pro laptops are especially in range for migrating to. However, the major hurdle I see in enterprise adopting Mac OS as their main OS and replacing workplace pc's with Macs is that there is no current Mac OS "Terminal Services" style server implementation. So no thin clients, no centralised licensing control etc. I will be the first to admit (as a huge Mac fan) that windows terminal services in enterprise where most users use solely MS Office, and the likes of FileMaker or Oricle etc works a treat. Unfortunately Apple does not have an answer to this yet on the market. Replacing laptops in enterprise with Macs is another thing altogether, as it can connect Windows Terminal Services (Via RDC Application) and be a great reliable work horse on the road. That is just my thoughts

Re:Not the network admins call

The fact is, that the corporate higher crust is literally in love with Bill and Microsoft, the poster boy of the Wall Street crowd.

More like, they're the battered wives of a megalomaniacal polygamist. It's not so much love as fear that keeps them where they are.

-jcr

Not a chance.

Honestly the osX product is far better in a corperation than windows but it's the apps that rule.

All the little expensive sales,marketing and billing apps are windows based. These companies that make this vertical market crap cant program for windows properly, porting to osx would be impossible for them

I am ignoring things like outlook and the other staples, Most businesses live for the vertical apps for their industry. Engineering needs Autocad, Marketing needs their apps, CableTv needs their special CableTv apps. etc...

Until you port all that, you cant get the "apple penetration".

Apple isn't appealing to Corporations

The executives who control the decisions are addicted to their Exchange-powered Blackberries (even if it does mean that all their corporate messaging goes through a company in Canada). At two companies that I've worked for, we used to be Linux/Mac based, but then one exec got a Blackberry. Within weeks we'd switched over to Windows XP/Exchange.

Until Apple offers a Mail/Calendaring system that's as functional as Exchange, I don't see Apple being adopted by corporations any time soon. Though perhaps the iPhone offers just enough functionality in a sexy enough package that the executives will be tripping over themselves to get the latest expensive status symbol.

It's already happening

But not the way you'd expect, top down from the IT department. Nope, it's happening from the ground up, as people start buying Macs on their own, bringing them into work (or working from home), and the IT guys are scrambling to integrate them. Then the IT guys start to like the hardware, they buy it for home use, they push it for work use. It creeps in. I've seen this happen at my own employer, as well as with some of my friends' employers.

Especially at small companies. The company I work at was 100% Windows just 2 years ago. Now we are 90% Mac (only holdouts being our servers, and the dev machines that work on the servers). The impetus was security -- get everyone using Macs since they're safer for browsing/email -- but in the end, people just liked them better, and they require less maintenance. I know, because I'm the guy maintaining them.

A friend today (new Mac convert) was groaning about getting help from his office IT guy for his MacBook, on a printing issue, because that IT worker was openly hostile to Macs. Only months ago, that IT worker was laughing when he heard my friend was considering a Mac, don't get it, it's not compatible with our stuff, you won't be able to do what you need to on there, etc. I just received an email, literally 10 minutes ago -- this same IT guy heard about his printing issue today and WANTS to help. Why? Because more of his other customers are moving to Macs, and now that he's had to use them, he actually PREFERS THEM! He's thinking about getting one for himself!

The vista people are looking at is increasingly filled with Macs... the Wow starts now for sure, but perhaps it wasn't what Microsoft was expecting... as in Wow, there are a lot of Macs in this office.

One show stopper

Microsoft pulling MSO ( and native exchange ) support for Apple.

Pretend as much as you want that there are 'alternatives and i dont need it', but MSO *is* the de-facto standard out there. Without it, Apple will continue to be a niche player in the business world for a long time to come ( if not forever, unless things radically change someday ).

But is being a ( rather large ) niche player really all that bad? They still make great products and make gobs of money. Do they *need* to attack Microsoft's stranglehold on the corporate market?

In the process

We're actually going through this currently at work. I work at a large government department which traditionally has locked down the environment very tightly. As we're a multimedia design/web development area outside IT we've been mandated to use Windows PCs up to now but recently we've been trialling a Macbook Pro to see how well it integrates with the standard environment.

It's been a surprisingly trouble free experience, even though the IT department are loath to become involved in an official capacity (though unofficially individuals are interested and have provided invaluable help). All the major applications are supported and with more of the departmental apps being web based and standards based (especially determined by accessibility requirements) looks to become easier over time.

With rumours of moving away from a common environment things could become easier still.

What problems we have encountered have been sorted by brief research on the net and we're currently establishing a business case to transition to Mac Pros in the near future for our business unit.

Not ready for "enterprise."

I like using OS X on the desktop and all, but I'll be the first to admit that OS X is not ready for the "enterprise." Things one might take for granted on Windows such as ODBC are very poorly implemented on OS X. Other examples where Apple is lagging behind is their supposed "directory services." Yeah, it is LDAP, so technically it is a directory (hierarchial), but for the most part it still acts like an NT domains. That is, it is basically a flat user/group space. Workgroup Manager does not work well with large user sets. It is not at all suited for larger corp environments where you might have a large directory with partitions and such that span WAN links. Although I have not personally used Active Directory much personally (I'm an old Netware/NDS/eDirectory guy), I get the feeling that is much more mature and featureful than OpenDirectory.

Heck, Apple has only just very recently adopted ACLs for filesystem permissions... and they are still pretty clunky to manage. Like you can't just go to a folder on a server and "Get Info" and check permissions inheritance and such. You have to go through Workgroup Manager or figure out how to use long chmod strings.

The list goes on and on. I think Apple is going to remain the "odd man out" in corporate environments. At least until Leopard. We'll see what Apple comes up with then, but Apple still seems to be focused on home/niche professional users. I don't see it becoming a general office platform for some time.

-matthew

Yes, already Considering this move!

Because of the shift to Intel processors, Apple has been suggesting the possibility to our University (~ 12,000 users so on par with a medium-sized corporation) of pitching Apple as a "hardware" solution NOT an operating system. The idea being to put Imacs and Macbooks in the hands of everyone and just have them boot to Windows by default. Throw in a windows style mouse and keyboard and voila, there is no difference except you are running on nicer looking hardware.

Many will say "Apple is more expensive". Totally not true. Based on educational pricing we have been comparing what we can get to get a 20" or 24" iMac with 2GB ram and 3-year APP etc. vs equivalent machines/warranty/features from Gateway and Dell and guess what, Apple is CHEAPER. The same holds true for laptops as well. We can't see any reason why not to move to a dual-boot or Parallels based platform (and no the new EULAs dont affect those of us using Vista enterprise - virtualization is allowed). Why not view a high-end Apple machine as your Vista upgrade path? We are seriously thinking of doing this as a method to not only get new machines that can run Vista well (have been running Vista on my Macbook Pro with full Aero support since last summer!), but also allows us to more easily support a mixed platform environment so whoever needs/wants to run Mac or Windows applications can. This helps us out tremendously with applications such as R-25 and Banner for compatibility issues we've had with our Mac users and lets everyone use Final Cut Pro to do their video editing etc for the departments that need it. I see this is as a win-win situation, so please enlighten me as to the downside i'm not seeing.

Also, we have an Apple-certified service center (as well as Gateway certified) so we do on-site hardware support already so the support isn't an issue in our organization.

Most corporate users don't need a whole computer

I'm a former Apple employee, my current job is primarily about supporting Macs, and I do independent Mac-related consulting on the side. And even I think most of the time, for most employees, it's dumb for large companies to shell out $$$ for individual computers. Remote terminals based on something like a Citrix server are so completely the way to go. The vast majority of corporate users do email, web, spreadsheets, and text documents. Most organizations already give users a network home for their documents rather than running backup software on every single desktop computer. It makes no sense to go through the headaches of software management, hardware maintenance, etc on hundreds/thousands of computers when you can do it all with a few servers.

I love it when Apple moves into a new space. But until you can do something like a Citrix session to a Mac OS server, I don't think their stuff has any role as a standard workstation in large businesses.

They need to break into some new markets ...

By way of example, I understand that the Vatican is evaluating the X-Serve group's latest content filtering product, the X-Communicator, as well as the ODBC (Open Deity-Base Converter) standard, used in a supernaturally-high-availability cloistering add-on. Also, to help fulfill the proselytizing requirements of most modern organized religions, a new bulk-email package code-named "Ad-Minister" is currently under development.

Sure! I'm game.

Absolutely yes. I'd buy Apple desktops - and cheerfully pay the premium to run Parallels/XP on some of 'em - if Apple made the right hardware product. I would buy seven next week. But right now, they don't make what I need.

The Mac Pro is grossly overpowered for what we need, which makes it much too expensive for us to consider. The Mac Mini's laptop-class hard drive is probably too unreliable (and not user-serviceable enough) for our 5-year desktop replacement cycle. And while the iMac is about right in many ways, I already have LCDs throughout so buying an all-in-one makes no sense for us.

What I'd need to buy Macs for the office is a headless machine that delivers a single Core 2 Duo, a gig of RAM, integrated graphics, and a basic desktop-class SATA drive in a user-serviceable chassis for around $1100.

But Apple does not seem to be interested in the low-end desktop market, so it's back to Dell for me.

Biggest Challenge for Apple in Corporate Market Is

...that corporate world is not going to wait every year until MacWorld to find out what the product roadmap is.
Apple will have to ditch the culture of secrecy (they can keep it for the consumer stuff) over their roadmaps. Corporate buyers need long lead times and intro and dicontinuance notices. And corporate IT wants plenty of notice on technology directions from all their key vendors (partially so they can warn off the ones that are about to make a mistake) so Apple's attitude about this would HAVE to change.

Sole Source Supplier

Many larger corporations and governments are loathe to go with sole-source suppliers. If Dell screws up, there are a dozen other suppliers to get computers from. If Apple screws up, then you're screwed. No one other than Apple sells those machines.

Smaller companies and schools may be able to get away with this, but I'd never recommended it for any large company I was working for.

Now, I'd have no problem recommending OS X if it ran properly and was supported on non-Apple hardware...

Apple makes it hard...

Apple's business practices make it difficult for a large corporation to widely adopt Apple computers. Notice how, to get maximum hype, Apple reveales nothing about their future plans. Then one magic day every few months Steve Jobs get's up on the podium and says "The new giga-flux apple server is now being manufactured and will be available in two months!" Crowd goes ga-ga. The computer, while great, has relativly limited configuration options. Because it has to work.

Large corporations need to plan out their PC purchases over time spans measured in years. What kind of commputers will Apple sell next year? Ask Steve, but he isn't talking. What if I need configuration option X and Apple doesn't support it? Well then, you are SOL.