Why Apple Doesn't Market Squarely To Businesses 510
snydeq writes "Despite feature enhancements that suggest otherwise, Apple remains lukewarm to any Mac and iPhone success in business environments. 'Apple has intentionally created a glass ceiling it has no intention of shattering. My conversations with Apple employees over the past decade have always been off the record when it comes to the topic of Macs in the enterprise. The company has had no intention of signaling any active plans to serve the enterprise,' InfoWorld's Galen Gruman writes. 'In a sense, Apple views enterprise sales as "collateral success" — a nice-to-have byproduct of its real focus: individuals, developers, and very small businesses ... likely because to do otherwise would greatly increase the complexity Apple would have to deal with.'"
Macs are great for small business though (Score:1, Informative)
Seriously, if you have a couple of people in an office and no full time admin Macs save you a small fortune.
So, fit for business? Yes.
Ready for the enterprise?
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
XServe, OS X Server, XSan? (Score:4, Informative)
If you ignore the products that they market to businesses, then it probably does look like they don't market to businesses.
Re:Of course not (Score:4, Informative)
There are some things that are not enterprise ready - I would like to see a more robust printing system and their group policy replacement (Managed Preferences) could be fleshed out a bit more - but the idea that the tools are very limited is indicative of either a lack of training, or the Apple Tech you have needs to be re-trained severely.
Enterprise Mac = War with Microsoft (Score:5, Informative)
on managagement apps (Score:2, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
canards (Score:2, Informative)
It tried in the '80s (Score:5, Informative)
Those with unusually long memories will remember that, in the '80s, the Macintosh (and while it lasted, the Lisa) were Apple's Serious Business Computers. The Apple II was the home/education line.
The Mac had networking built-in from the beginning. (Not very useful for home users, essential for offices.) It had a black-and-white screen. (Not very useful for games or creative work.) Advertising almost exclusively focused on how a Mac could make businesses more efficient by reducing training and support costs. Watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MaDXt30xSo [youtube.com]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dqLT0UBPx0 [youtube.com]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwcuSOfjR6w [youtube.com]
Print ads, too:
http://www.macmothership.com/gallery/newads10/Macad1.jpg [macmothership.com] and http://www.macmothership.com/gallery/newads10/Macad2.jpg [macmothership.com]
For about fifteen years, Apple desperately wanted to be taken seriously by business users, who dismissed Macs as incompatible and expensive (with good reason.) Apple lost loads of money during this period. Meanwhile, Apple's sales were coming entirely from home users, artists, and education sales.
One of the first things Steve Jobs did when he returned was shit-can that approach and release the cute, cuddly, home-student oriented iMac. And whaddya know, the company suddenly started making money.
Re:Macs are great for small business though (Score:4, Informative)
and Apple uses open directory instead, which is a much more open system. But it too can become something of a tangle. But having worked with both, Apple's use of OD is a good deal more sane than Windows AD.
I can never use Apple in the enterprise (Score:2, Informative)
Because their service level agreements are just not good enough.
I standard "business" laptop from Dell comes with next business day on-site service, wherever you are in the world (well, within reason.)
i don't care how attractive Apple's laptops are, unless they can give me that sort of coverage for USD$1500, I'm not interested. I continually hear horror stories from my friends with Apple laptops about what they need to go through for it to get fixed.
When you travel, and travel a lot, you discover that stuff does have a finite lifetime - especially hard drives. There's only so many bumps from being wheeled around or bouncing through air pockets that they will take.
Re:No Enterprise Offerings (Score:4, Informative)
$33/seat is not an unreasonable price for system management. If you've spent enough to have 500 Macs, $16K for system-wide admin is peanuts. If your company is in dire enough straits that they can't afford that, you might want to start looking for a more stable outfit to work for.
Re:Macs are great for small business though (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, they have a services hosted on Mac OS X Server called NetBoot, NetInstall and NetRestore that do system imaging functions. You can read some marketing speak about it here [apple.com] and here [apple.com]. I've been using it since OS 10.4, it's easy to set up and works pretty well.
Re:No Enterprise Offerings (Score:5, Informative)
Apple Remote Desktop (http://www.apple.com/remotedesktop/) is $499 for unlimited clients.
But if your company doesn't have $500, you can use any VNC client, as the macs support it natively (In the sharing settings is where you set up VNC access).
Re:Because they'd have to become like their custom (Score:4, Informative)
Case in point, Microsoft started losing its juice when it got serious about enterprise
Microsoft has always been serious about the enterprise market.
In July of 76 Microsoft was selling its microcomputer BASIC to corporate clients like General Electric.
In April of 79: Microsoft 8080 BASIC was the first microprocessor product to win the ICP Million Dollar Award, "traditionally dominated by software for mainframe computers."
The single most important decision Microsoft ever made was to negotiate a non-exclusive license for MS-DOS. That would permanently alter the landscape. Apple is the lone survivor of the era when hardware and software was tightly bundled.
In 1983 Microsoft Multiplan spreadsheet the company's first application product, was ported across many platforms. "While Lotus 1-2-3 surpassed Multiplan in domestic markets, Multiplan was the winner in almost every other country in which it appeared."
In September of 83 Microsoft introduced Word for MS-DOs 1.0. Microsoft Timeline [thocp.net]
Re:Maybe Businesses Don't Want Macs (Score:2, Informative)
Re:No Enterprise Offerings (Score:3, Informative)
Screen sharing is also included so you don't even need a third party VNC client.
Re:I'd like to see Apple make a move, but... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Of course not (Score:5, Informative)
The enterprise license is what an organization would buy to deploy an application to their workers.
We sell to organizations - not our workers. The enterprise license doesn't let you do that.
What we *wanted* to do was give our customer organizations our source code so that *they* could use the enterprise license and so that we could avoid the App Store.
Our lawyers, and Apple's lawyers, had agreed on this model, as well as various people at Apple. Then, someone high-up at Apple came down and said that route wasn't possible anymore and against their terms. Because their terms are so damn broad, we didn't have any recourse and certainly didn't want to get into a spat with Apple.
But thanks for your suggestion!!! I hope you feel smug now for calling us cheap, asshole.
Re:Macs are great for small business though (Score:3, Informative)
Just out of curiosity... what's your take on Xserve with Mac OS X Server?
An uninspiring low-end dual-socket server with a big pricetag.
Re:XServe, OS X Server, XSan? (Score:3, Informative)
They have a few products for small businesses, and mostly web-centric ones at that. TFA was about the enterprise market, competing with Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, etc.
Re:I'd like to see Apple make a move, but... (Score:1, Informative)
The PPC laptop I bought in 1992 crashed several times a day - I went back to Windows 98 for its stability!
The impossibility of this timeline invalidates your entire post.
Re:Macs are great for small business though (Score:2, Informative)
So that's about $1270 difference..... let's say $1000 to keep the math easy. Times 30 office workers (small office) yields $30,000 more money spent on the Macs.
And if the Apples can indeed save you having to employ a $50,000 per year full-time admin, how would that *not* result in significant savings?
That said, I've rarely ever even touch a Mac, and have no idea whether or not what the GP claims is true. But I have enough IT experience to know that if you only look at sticker prices and don't consider implementation costs for your business systems, whether hardware or software, you can be in for a world of unexpected hurt.
And just as an aside, I just had my first appointment with a new doctor today, and was surprised to see all their desktops were Macs. I'd never seen that in a healthcare provider's office before, so maybe Apple is gaining some ground there.
Re:Macs are great for small business though (Score:5, Informative)
Because it ONLY supports certain versions of exchange and if you are not running the EXACT versions that Apple tells you are compatible you are pretty much screwed.
Re:Macs are great for small business though (Score:4, Informative)
You'd also sink your business.
/. really needs to get over the myth that you could have a Mac and not need to support it, it's the same as any other machine.
Contrary to popular opinion Mac's suffer problems. I've had to support Mac's in mixed enviroments and I spent more time per machine just getting things to work on a Mac. The whole "just works" fallacy only works when you dont do anything with it.
Further more, 99% of business software runs on Windows, I may not like it but I have to deal with it.
Finally, Mac's do not perform well in any Domain, I've tried Windows AD and Linux domains and Mac's seem to reject the whole idea of centralised services.
Mac's are not ready for business, they are not designed to work in business. Given the fact that if I buy 10 of anything from Dell, Lenovo et al. I instantly get 10% off the top and Apple does not do volume deals you have to be certifiably mad to buy Apple.
Re:I can think of two reasons (Score:3, Informative)
What? Apple's monitors are identical to everyone else's, afaik. I know the displays themselves are all produce by the same people, Apple's just uses nicer glass and cabling. Also, Apple's multi-touch mouse does not well fit the human hand, just like all their previous mice.
Re:Macs are great for small business though (Score:5, Informative)
Pardon the uninitiated, but with 10.6 supporting Exchange Mail and Calendar with setup time of about 2 seconds (to enter your email and password), why does one need Outlook?
The incredible thing is that is true. I brought my Mac to work, then specified my company e-mail address and password and it simply asked me to specify my account name, since this was not the same as my e-mail address prefix. In doing so it discovered the mail server (internal and external), the calendar server and the contact directory. With this configuration in place I can even read my work e-mail from home, which is something I can't fathom how to do with the Outlook 2007. BTW for anyone with an iPhone or iPod Touch, this approach works there too.
Re:canards (Score:3, Informative)
They aren't docking stations. Those are awkward things that require you to line up ports on two sides and try not to break something. A docking station is something you can just snap your laptop into and out of in one action.
Re:Not worth it for them (Score:2, Informative)
By the way, AppleSOS was VERY sophisticated for its time (1980), and AppleWorks integrated office software was pretty cool as well...