“When Microsoft wanted to show off its midmarket affinity, the software giant would do a promotional video with Lifetime Products, a manufacturer of polyethylene folding tables, chairs and sports equipment,” Tom Kaneshige reports for CIO. “Until about two years ago, Lifetime was Microsoft’s midmarket darling.”
“So what’s changed? ‘We love Apple,’ says Lifetime CIO John Bowden, who began adopting iPhones and iPads recently. ‘The bottom line is that Apple makes great products,'” Kaneshige reports. “To truly understand how monumental his decision was – ‘Wow, John is really doing this!’ said employees – a little background is in order. When it comes to technology enabling people, Lifetime is one of the most conservative companies out there.”
Kaneshige reports, “Bowden’s decision to adopt consumer-aimed iPhones and iPads is simply stunning. The thinking goes, if Apple can break Microsoft’s grip on a place like Lifetime, then no company is safe from Apple in the enterprise.”
Read more in the full article here.
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Apple ousts beleaguered RIM’s BlackBerry as top business smartphone – November 16, 2011
Hell freezes over: Forrester urges IT to support the Mac – October 27, 2011
Corporate Mac sales surge 66% as Apple makes huge enterprise gains – May 20, 2011
This is why Steve Balmer tosses those chairs around!?! I guess he was upset because this company switched! 😀
No, this was a R&D exchange program.
Anyone else remember the old Samsonite luggage commercials where they had the ape throwing around the suitcases?
That ape is no longer available. Monkey boy will work for stock options – about the same as peanuts. So Ballmer was testing the chairs (maybe even the tables) for Lifteime.
BTW, Mity-Lite tables are better than Lifetime’s. No connection, just a satisfied customer.
I think he’s losing his hair. Oh wait he don’t have any. 😛
… “Enterprise” (Big Business) or “Midmarket” (Small and Medium Sized Businesses)? I realize this is a modest “nit”, I’m picking here. But … seriously. Apple either doesn’t HAVE a department devoted to selling to “Business”, or that department is – at best – modest. Still … the sales are coming!
an IT person on a company-wide Mac based network is like the Maytag repairman, nothing to do and “the loneliest man on earth.”..corporate America is finally pulling their collective heads out of their collective asses.
Now I know why US IT men have mostly brown hair.
Yep that is right. There is nothing to do. No file servers , no networking infrastructure, no supply side databases, access controls, security procedures, line of business applications or anything else…. lol
Just some dude playing angry birds collecting a paycheck
Dude,
none of the tasks you describe are specifically related supporting Macs on the desktop. While the statement above was obvious exaggeration, it was clear to me what it meant (much less work resolving desktop issues).
Does anyone hire a person for just desktop support these days? We have not done that in years.
We expect someone in IT to be multi-talented and desktop support is one part of the job.
Been in that position. Even with Macs, users do the darndest things. There is still work to be done, but it is less battling the computers.
There’s the quote of the week: “no company is safe from Apple in the enterprise.”
Dude needs an attitude adjustment.
I’m sorry to say this but today Microsoft seems as secure in the enterprise as it ever was. If it were up to the top executives, Apple could probably take over the enterprise immediately for all they care, but it’s those mid-level tech people that hate change. I doubt that any company will be pulling Microsoft Windows Server off their computers to put on Apple OSX Lion Server. Those corporations are filled with very loyal Microsoft-certified tech support people. They’re not going anywhere nor will they be anxious to give up their Microsoft Windows lifestyle. I think a few people are just getting carried away because one company out of a hundred are starting to use Apple products. Realistically speaking, all of Wall Street is waiting for a resurgence of Microsoft when Windows 8 is available.
Apple bulls need to get it through their thick skulls that there are a billion copies of Windows on computers all over the planet. It would take ten years to get rid of all that Windows love. I’m afraid this story will not help boost Apple’s share price a penny. Wall Street is betting that Apple fails in the enterprise. Ka-thunk goes Apple stock.
The back room will remain a Windows stronghold with Exchange, but the office itself is changing.
We are web-enabling all software so we are not forced by MS to upgrade our computers, only when they break or we get new staff. More Web software means less crashes, less OS slowdowns, less system-rebuilds, less RAM/HDD upgrades, etc.
The off-shoot of this strategy is that we can have choice of OS on our desktops and mobile devices. Choice is always good.
If big companies don’t like change, they’re going to hate Windows 8. And they probably were not thrilled with Vista or 7 either.
Mac’s in the enterprise is still a niche but there’s plenty of room for growth in the near future. Windows + Mac can coexist in the enterprise as long executives allows them.
If their current stock price is nearly 100% due to consumer business, and considering that they still have tremendous head-room above for consumer growth in nearly all their product lines (and, depending on the product line, they’re the only ones both growing and have margins worth speaking about), a share price collapse isn’t the direction I’d be looking in.
“…all of Wall Street is waiting for a resurgence of Microsoft when Windows 8 is available.”
This is the most baffling thing about Windows sufferers to me – they’re always saying, yeah the current system has problems, but the next one will fix ’em.
With a Mac it’s more like, I love the system I have – don’t know how they’ll improve it. Can’t wait to see the improvements, but I’m happy now.
And as someone else mentioned – if enterprise hates change, they’re going to really hate Windows 8.
“I’m afraid this story will not help boost Apple’s share price a penny.”
Irony defined: as you wrote your comment, AAPL resurged to $373 a share after hovering around $360 for days.
I don’t think your efforts to drive AAPL down are having any effect. Seriously, I think any investor who comes across your comment will very quickly realize that you’re full of shit.
Ka-thunk goes the fomenter.
I have two thoughts on this. But first the context. I work in a public agency with a little less than 8,000 employees. Let’s assume about 5,000 of these employees have dedicated work stations. Of the latter number, I would say about 50 use Macs.
This Mac deployment began about two years ago when I persuaded our IT people to give it consideration. In short, they love it. My entire office is 100% Mac. We have less support needs than when we were a Dell only shop. And we certainly have less support needs than our Windows counterpart.
That said, here are the two main issues. First, our Enterprise agreement with MS is still an expensive proposition. What MS has done is simply added Office for Mac to the agreement. Even though many of us are beginning to use iWork more and more, the real cost tied to that agreement is the same or increasing incrementally. Second, though are large public agency, it has been like pulling teeth to get Apple to deal with us as an enterprise entity as opposed to a consumer. Right now, many of our larger departments are considering migrating to Macs. So, we are looking at a possible deployment of thousands of machines in the future. Yet, Apple has shifted us over to a company called CDW (CDW-G for their government division) to handle all sales. The company is inept and is nothing like Apple when it comes to service and responsiveness. We feel like we’re dealing with Dell all over agin.
I think Apple will continue to make massive inroads into the Enterprise environment. But it will require some adjustments on their part in terms of how they deal with large corporations.
David, you must email your comment to the new Apple CEO.
Microsoft is slowly but agonizingly fading into irrelevance. Sure they’re still raking in billions but Microsoft is no longer at the front-and-center of tech anymore. Microsoft’s future is in the backend systems (the plumbing, so to speak) of the enterprise and internet infrastructures and will compete more and more vigorously against the likes of IBM, Oracle, HP, etc.
Apple has absolutely no interest in the backend of large enterprises. Heck, Apple doesn’t use any of their own stuff for their corporate backend systems or data centers: it’s all IBM, Oracle/Sun, SAP and even stuff from rivals such as HP and Microsoft. Apple is all about the front-end client and that’s where Apple is winning big-time against Microsoft. Yes, even in the enterprise space when you think about the mass adoption of the iPhone, iPad and, to a smaller degree, Macs.
What compelling value does Windows/Office really provide to large corporations anymore? When large companies upgrade to a new version of Windows/Office, it’s almost as though the employees are having to start from scratch again anyway. I saw this at a recent visit to Bank of America and my banker continued to fumble around on her computer saying that they just upgraded to the new Windows/Office and she didn’t know how to get around on it yet. She actually seemed bewildered and I was twiddling my thumb and thinking, “So, this is what Windows/Office upgrade cycle is like…”
Microsoft’s resurgence? How has Microsoft’s stock price done over the past decade? What makes people or Wall Street think that Microsoft will “change” all of a sudden and try to move beyond Windows/Office? Microsoft is a prisoner and victim of its own success: the cash cow of the Windows/Office franchise from which they reap easy billions for really not doing anything innovative at all. They’ve become a big fat dinosaur living off ample vegetation in its vicinity but that land of forage is shrinking and changing. And they can’t maneuver like the nimble mammals like Apple and Google.
Yes, Windows/Office is so entrenched that lowly workers in large enterprises will continue doing their data entry work and stuff like that but look forward to going home to use their Mac or iPad. But now more and more workers are bringing their own Mac laptops to work and demanding that they be able to access the corporate networks with their own computers both in the office and at home or on the move. Large corporations are willing to listen to and grant those requests.
Apple has no interest in providing $300 computers either. That’s left up to the likes of Acer, Asus, Dell, and Lenovo you see at banks, hotels, airports, hospitals, government offices, etc. Let those PC makers fight for the scraps to provide to the masses who really have no choice. Windows/Office really isn’t a choice at work. It’s what was given to you to work with. And most just got used to it. And when a new Windows/Office version comes out they all go through major loss of productivity and a period of frustrations.
Apple is gaining major market share in the PC market and that has been plainly evident for a long time now. And Macs are what the kids and the younger generation wants as well and using in larger and larger numbers in schools and colleges. The tide has certainly changed and Microsoft has no one to blame but themselves because they were sure sitting pretty when they came out with Windows 95 some 17 years ago. Of course, they then got blindsided by the whole internet phenomenon. By then, it was too late. Now, Microsoft is in a perpetual catchup mode against Apple and Google as well as many other smaller and more nimble internet-based startups.
Microsoft’s future is in the backend. That’s where they’re entrenched and that’s where their focus should be. The front-end is all about mobility except for cheap terminal-like PC’s in large institutions for clerks to use. Apple is and will remain happy to cede that low-end segment of the PC market to the bottom-feeding Chinese-brand PC makers.
Well said. But I question if Microsoft really has a firm stance in the backend. The server market is split between Windows Server and Linux/Apache, and the Linux side seems to have better software and more dedicated developers. And backend is becoming less and less relevant to companies who turn to cloud and web based solutions, because of their low cost and platform agnostic functionality. What new product or services could Microsoft possibly offer that would make companies still want Windows Servers in the future?
We’ve been an Apple shop since about 1986 and in the last 15 years or so have used our Macs as terminals on our IBM AS/400. It’s been the best of both worlds. We dump our invoicing data from the Macs every afternoon and the AS/400 does all the heavy lifting into our accounting system.
And yes, I’m like the Maytag repairman.
Ever since Apple canned the xServe, they have no enterprise server offerings. The Mac mini doesn’t offer component redundancy, and is a poor substitute.
Recent rumors of an EOL Mac Pro line have got me thinking that perhaps Apple’s next step is to promote cluster computing. Several load-balanced Mac mini’s operating in parallel could provide a solution for professional Mac users and enterprise, alike.
“Component Redundancy”?
Clearly, you aren’t up to date. Listen to this 5by5 Podcast, The Critical Path, with Horace Dediu and Randy Bias.
There really are alternatives to spending twice as much as necessary on hardware… how do you think Amazon and Google have scaled and gotten ahead? It’s in the software and organic, distributed models they use.
…Sorry, here’s the link:
http://5by5.tv/criticalpath/14