
Apple Poaching Enterprise Sales Staff From Research in Motion - davidedicillo
http://www.macrumors.com/2010/11/23/apple-poaching-enterprise-sales-staff-from-research-in-motion/
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boredguy8
Unless and until there's a fundamental philosophy change at Apple, I don't see
them being successful in the enterprise market. I'm in education, and we're a
fairly flexible-yet-enterprise-y place, and we've constantly been burnt by
Apple's lack of exposed forward planning (even when we spend literally
millions of dollars with them annually).

I'll believe Apple is seriously interested in the enterprise market when
there's a docking port on the MacBook. Either that, or they'll hoodwink
everyone into doing what we were told before: buy a laptop and a desktop for
people, and sync between the two.

~~~
ceejayoz
You can buy a docking port for your Macbook.

[http://www.bookendzdocks.com/Docking_Stations-
Docking_Statio...](http://www.bookendzdocks.com/Docking_Stations-
Docking_Station_for_13_MacBook_White.html)

~~~
boredguy8
Thanks for sharing the link. I'm familiar with all the major 3rd party
options. That's not the same as plopping an HP into a docking brick, and no
one I know that's used both thinks it's remotely comparable. Just getting the
ports lined up correctly each time led one of our techs to abandon the whole
effort.

------
zdw
Not surprising, as iOS is their major growth industry and Blackberry is the
entrenched (and soon to be former courtesy of Android/iOS) player in that
market.

On the Mac side of things, they're cutting back on enterprise sales (witness
the death of the Xserve) and pushing most of the contact information for
smaller customers to the retail business people.

~~~
thesethings
I have only seen + heard the opposite about Apple cutting back on enterprise
sales of any kind. (Up until two-ish years ago, they made very little outreach
to enterprise at all, just because they don't do roadmaps, don't have special
support for "enterprise," etc.) Your retail-business theory is what I thought
of as Apple's _old_ strategy.

They just engaged Unisys to support and infiltrate the enterprise
([http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-25/apple-enlists-
unisy...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-25/apple-enlists-unisys-to-
crack-nut-with-pc-based-corporate-u-s-agencies.html))

I'm not saying your interpretation of the Xserve discontinuation is wrong,
just that i hadn't seen anybody with that interpretation before, and i'd love
to hear more.

~~~
zdw
My sources are in Apple Retail, and from what I can piece together, Apple's
enterprise sales is truly becoming that - going after Fortune 500 companies,
when previously if you had more than 50-100 people and/or computers you were
fair game for the enterprise department. Thus, their enterprise department is
shrinking, but becoming more focused.

In the past, there was a lot of poaching of deals between departments within
Apple - retail would make a deal for >30 machines with an organization, only
to have Enterprise call the customer up (they share CRM) and offer the exact
same deal with a price below what Retail was allowed to discount.

It's an internal org chart change, as far as I can tell. Why have dedicated
enterprise reps in a phone center somewhere that can't have a face-to-face
interaction with the customer, when in a lot of areas there's a retail store
that can provide that, and get halo sales to employees, etc.

------
zyb09
Apple can't succeed in the Enterprise market the way RIM does unless they do
two things:

\- Make a cheap iPhone. Something companys can hand out to their employees for
$200 a piece.

\- Make a iPhone with a physical keyboard.

I can't really see them doing any of that, but who knows for sure.

~~~
boredguy8
I agree broadly with your point, but I fail to see why a physical keyboard is
important except to a very small subset of users. Swype handles all the text
input I need, and does so about 20%-30% faster than my physical keyboard.

Now, this is on a first generation Motorola Droid. I _have_ seen some students
that are pretty wicked fast on their Blackberry. We haven't 'raced' yet. Maybe
it's just a bad keyboard design on the Droid?

~~~
ergo98
Do you post HN comments using your touchscreen? If not, why not?

I've done the keyboard smartphone thing, and the touchscreen smartphone thing
(incl. swype with the latter). I prefer a real keyboard _overwhelmingly_ \--
even a miserable keyboard like on the HTC Dream -- and I know I'm far from
alone.

When someone sends me an email or a text requiring a response, honestly it is
a sad, defeated feeling when I have to respond on the touchscreen keyboard.

I know I'm hardly alone with this: iPhone toting friends and peers tend not to
author any content on their device beyond the occasional "lol" or "brb" type
response (you know instantly that they're hacking it on the screen), whereas
others with Blackberry devices or physical keyboards...I often can't tell from
their response whether they are at their desk or remote because they don't
artificially abbreviate their comments.

I'm sure there are non-typists or those of few words who are completely
satisfied without a keyboard. Most others simply accept it.

~~~
bbgm
Except that I do 50% of my emails and know many others who do exactly the same
or more (and these are not short emails) from their iPhones. People who lived
on their blackberries live on their iPhones or Android touchscreen phones.
While it might be a problem for some for most it hasn't been one.

~~~
ergo98
_While it might be a problem for some for most it hasn't been one._

iPhone users live on with a touchscreen keyboard because they have no choice.
Most Blackberry users never migrated to the iPhone for that reason. Android
users were caught in a temporary world where every Android maker tried to be
like the iPhone, with the terrible choice of the onscreen keyboard, but
thankfully that period is quickly passing, with great devices like the G2 /
Desire Z and the Galaxy S Pro.

~~~
danudey
I've talked to a lot of people who use iPhones, and none of them would switch
to a hardware keyboard if given the chance.

Touchscreen keyboards work better than physical ones (the keys are larger),
they're better for anyone typing more than one language (accents are easy,
different keyboard layouts are possible at all). The touch keyboard isn't
there when you don't need it, leading either to an increase in screen space
(vs. RIM's offerings) or a more practical physical design (without slider
mechanisms that tend to be awkward, get damaged, or make the phone bulkier).

I had no problem typing on an iPhone the first day I ever encountered one. The
first day I laid hands on a blackberry, it took me minutes to get a single
sentence out, because the keys are so tiny and packed close together.

The key to effective touchscreen typing is to trust the autocorrect (and to
have good autocorrect in the first place). My typing speed skyrocketed when I
learned that if I just kept typing, the iPhone would be right 90% of the time,
and the other 10% is easy to fix.

~~~
ergo98
Look, I don't mean to go all John Gruber here, but a good portion of iPhone
users wouldn't want anything changed...until it's actually changed at which
point it's the most obvious, most important thing in the world.

If Apple came out with a slider version of the iPhone tomorrow, I suspect
there would be a rapid, but remarkably quiet, appreciation of hardware
keyboards among many iPhone faithful.

Mileage will definitely vary. I know people who absolutely love their onscreen
keyboard. They do tend to be people who actually type very little though, so
it's perfect for them.

It's interesting that you mentioned onscreen keyboards giving you a increase
in screen space -- yeah, when you don't need to type anything. When you do,
suddenly 80% of your screen is all keyboard.

------
nradov
IBM added iPhone support to Lotus Notes Traveller in the last release. It
provides mobile access to Lotus Notes/Domino mail, calendar, and directory.
That removed a barrier to adoption for many enterprises. Several of our
executives are using it now with good results.
[http://www-01.ibm.com/software/lotus/products/notes/traveler...](http://www-01.ibm.com/software/lotus/products/notes/traveler.html)

