

Why Apple doesn't sell to the enterprise market - nostrademons
http://arstechnica.com/staff/fatbits.ars/2007/08/09/stuck-on-the-enterprise
via Raganwald's submission on Programming Reddit
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martin
Another consideration is the availability of software. There aren't _that_
many things the average home user does on the computer -- word processing, web
browsing, music, digital photography -- and all of those needs are served
quite well on the Mac platform right now.

In the enterprise, sure, everybody does word processing, web browsing, etc.,
but beyond that, all bets are off. When I worked in a banking environment, I
supported dozens of business-critical Windows apps, from third-party market
data software to nasty, internally-hacked-together VB apps. Abandoning those
apps wasn't even close to being an option. Even all the web apps in that
environment worked only in IE on Windows. Any other enterprise of significant
size is almost guaranteed to have dozens of critical apps of its own. I
suppose if you _really_ wanted to get a Mac into such an environment, you
could access the Windows apps over Citrix or something, but that'd be a pain.

Even if app support wasn't an issue, most enterprises are already quite tied
into the Microsoft stack -- Active Directory, Exchange, SharePoint -- which
makes supporting Macs even as a secondary platform challenging at best.

And even if you consider that surmountable, it's still no wonder that Apple is
more interested in home users -- they are (if you'll pardon the expression)
the low-hanging fruit.

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pg
Maybe the reason is that the enterprise market is downstream. They're not the
trendsetters. If you get all the individual users using Macs, eventually big
cos will have to switch. Just as happened with desktop computers, in fact.

So maybe Apple ignores this market because they know they'll get it
automatically (but only when) they're the default for individual users.

~~~
omouse
>but only when

Easy answer. When they allow OS X to run on regular x86 hardware.
Unfortunately they seem to think they're tied to the hardware business when
their software is really impressive.

~~~
Goladus
Apple seems to enjoy a reputation of making stuff that "just works." They are
probably not prepared to guarantee that OS X will "just work" on anything but
Apple hardware, and don't want to risk damaging that reputation.

~~~
omouse
If it's based on FreeBSD then I'm am very sure that there are drivers for
most, if not all, of the hardware that a typical PC user runs. If not, the
Linux drivers shouldn't be a complete pain in the ass to port?

~~~
Goladus
I suspect you're right, but the issue is not how much of a pain they would be
to port, it's how much of a pain they would be to support and what would
happen to the typical end-user experience.

For example, I've never _not_ been able to install Linux or Windows on an x86
machine, assuming the hardware actually works, but it's rare when two
installations on different sets of hardware turn out exactly the same. An
obvious example would be on windows, go to Control
Panel:Display:Settings:Advanced and you get a whole bunch of options that are
specific to your actual video card and monitor. A less obvious example would
be an intermittently crashing program, because there is a bug related to
memory addressing in the firmware of the motherboard.

The result is less consistency in the use of a Windows or Linux machine. By
sticking with their own hardware, Apple can better establish a reputation for
consistently satisfying their target audience.

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chaostheory
"To the extent that Apple products have actually infiltrated big businesses,
it's been through small groups of enthusiasts--the canonical example being the
art department that somehow manages to get themselves Macs"

It's not just the art department anymore, it's now the software engineering
department now too. (I'm talking large 10,000+ employee corporations.) This is
mainly due to OS X's BSD upbringing. Deployment and general development on
Windows is just a bitch when your production servers are nix based. Besides
why have a Windows box when Macs themselves can run both Windows and MS Office
easily (not to mention IWork is now a viable alternative).

~~~
mattculbreth
iWork08 is nice isn't it? I've been using it for a week or so and I'll
probably buy it. NeoOffice has done ok but it's time for something a bit
nicer.

~~~
omouse
A bit nicer? iWork08 blows everything out of the friggin water :D

~~~
mattculbreth
Ok, I was trying to be nice to the poor NeoOffice guys. :)

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sbraford
Luckily PC snobbery has been on a steep decline for some time now.

Intel/MS people still love to deride osx/apple market share, missing the point
entirely.

Does BMW try to be the Ford Taurus of the automobile market? No, that would of
course be ridiculous. /end speaking to the choir =)/

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electric
Because none of the leading-edge engineering design tools will work on the
mac.

