Mac shipments to businesses grew 43.8 percent in the second quarter of this year, according to Needham & Company analyst Charlie Wolf, who’s been watching Apple’s PC business for years. Compare that to the sales growth rate of all brands of computers to businesses, which was 4.8 percent during the same quarter,” Erica Ogg reports for GigaOM. “‘The Mac’s share of the business market went from 1.2 percent to 3 percent over the course of five or so quarters,’ Wolf said in a recent interview. ‘It was a dramatic change, since the Mac was really targeted at the consumer and education market and not the business market.'”
“This sudden growth, particularly when it comes to the enterprise, isn’t due to changes to the machine itself or drastic cuts in price,” Ogg reports. “Rather, this shift towards the enterprise can be explained in terms of the trends happening around the machine: Changes within the core of Apple’s business, the consumer takeover of IT and the changing nature of how we work.”
“This ‘consumerization of IT’ is happening at companies of all sizes, according to a recent report from Good Technology,” Ogg reports. “As Forrester’s report says, workers who want to and are allowed to use MacBooks on the company network classify as ‘power laptop users.’ To Forrester, that means those employees work longer and are more productive… Apple said in October that 93 percent of the world’s Fortune 500 companies are ‘testing or deploying the iPad.’ …And the good news for Apple is that however it’s making its way inside these companies, the iPad seems to be a gateway for other Apple products.”
Much more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple means business™.
Again, IT doofuses, we told ya so — 10 days before Apple sold their first iPhone:
The IT guys are in for a rude awakening and the iPhone is only the beginning. They will have to accommodate the iPhone. Too many important employees will demand it and IT won’t be able to stem the tide. The fact is that business people will decide which device they want to carry and their businesses will adapt to it. Just as they did with “Microsoft-incompatible” Research In Motion’s Blackberry. Apple’s iPhone will be a success with business users whether the IT guy wants it or even whether AT&T and Apple tailor marketing to businesses or not.
Note to CEOs: Who runs the company, you or the IT guy? It’s your job to make the decisions and it’s the IT guy’s job to implement your decisions that relate to technology. Just as with Macs, you need to educate yourself instead of relying on someone with their own, possibly hidden, agendas to make extremely important technology decisions for your company. Most of you could be saving a LOT of money right now, but you aren’t because you’ve delegated an important part of your company’s decision-making to people who, frankly, in our experience, aren’t capable of making good, sound, strategic, long-term decisions. Most IT guys (and we know many) are not open-minded enough to be able to consider new, better, more efficient, more effective options that would benefit your company. In fact, most IT guys we’ve met will throw up road blocks and repeat myths until they’re blue in the face in order to avoid change. Especially change that might make their department less critical or smaller. Bottom line: most of you CEOs have given the IT guy way, way, way too much power. It’s time to take it back. — MacDailyNews, June 19, 2007
SEE ALSO:
10 reasons why Apple is winning the enterprise – September 29, 2016
Apple and Deloitte team up to accelerate business transformation on iPhone and iPad – September 28, 2016
Apple has made notable progress in the enterprise – August 11, 2016
Apple’s enterprise iPad plan is coming together in a big way – August 9, 2016
Apple+IBM enterprise alliance scores major retail win; iPad ‘sales assist’ app rolls out across 2,300 Boots stores – June 23, 2016
Cisco announces plans to plug Apple iPhone and iPad into the enterprise on massive scale – June 14, 2016
Apple’s amazing iPad Pro, your new enterprise PC – April 25, 2016
Apple wins the battle for enterprise hearts and minds – April 13, 2016
Adobe data hints Apple has won the PC wars – March 18, 2016
SAP: Apple’s Macintosh is key for any modern enterprise – February 4, 2016
Apple blew past Microsoft in personal computer shipments in 2015 – January 12, 2016
Apple Inc., the enterprise IT company – December 15, 2015
Tim Bajarin: Within three to five years, Windows will be an afterthought – November 24, 2015
IBM: Every Mac we buy is making and saving us money – October 28, 2015
Now we know why IT support hates Macs (hint: Windows PCs = job security) – October 19, 2015
IBM: Corporate Mac users need less IT support than those stuck on Windows – October 18, 2015
Just 5% of Mac users at IBM need help desk support vs. 40% of Windows PC sufferers – October 15, 2015
Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ ultimate goal: ‘to take back the computer business from Microsoft’ – June 16, 2005
iPhone, killer – May 13, 2015
In the last five years, Microsoft’s share of personal computing plummeted from 90% to 32% – October 10, 2013
Apple has destroyed the Windows hegemony – July 5, 2012
As companies start adopting Macs in their business, they discover that the true total cost of ownership is very advantageous compared to Windows. In the past it was commonplace for IT departments to safeguard their career prospects by hoodwinking managers into believing that the only practical solution was to use Windows exclusively, but now that so many companies are incorporating iPhones, iPads and Macs, it’s no longer possible to claim that they’re not up to the job.
If your company doesn’t use Macs, you’re offering a competitive advantage for your rivals who do choose to use them.
It’s difficult to see the writing on the wall when you can’t look up from those fixed buttons in the ” lower 40″.
Just ask Galileo.
So basically, you are asking CEO’s to spend a shit-ton of money to convert PC’s to Mac and all associated (if it exists) software, and to completely rewrite any custom applications, not to mention maintaining compatibility with other companies, customers, etc (read MS Office). Maybe for an extremely small business with a few system, but for large enterprise companies (read defense) that would be CEO suicide. Could you imagine explained to shareholders, will we spend millions to do this and for what? You guys are loonies.
Well, it is only the problem you describe because all this should have (and could have) been done years ago.
The best time to rectify a mistake is as soon as possible. Otherwise, you are just throwing good money after bad. The first switchers to Mac can start “funding” additional switchers (due to cost savings), in a virtuous cost-saving cycle. May not be easy — certainly not as easy as getting it right in the first place — but it seems to make a lot of sense to do for those businesses that can see the benefits. Otherwise you may be leaving money, productivity, and employee satisfaction on the table.
On the other hand, I honestly no longer care what brand of computers, smart phones, cars, cigarettes, or liquor people buy; I really just don’t care anymore. But I know what brand I will buy. The devil take the laggards.
✓✓✓
_YOU_ talk too much.
For most businesses, it is still cheaper to buy a Win10 box. That is why most don’t have iMacs, of Mac Pro’s.
Speaking of that, how old is the Mac Pro and iMac again, hmmm…….????
Totally agree, dude. It is cheaper…
But most business people try to look at “what-you-get-for-what-you-pay”. Juice-per-squeeze, so to speak.
True, and that could also be an argument for ‘rightsizing’ with PCs over Macs. There is a new company in Hawaii called “Carousel” that is doing auto leasing where you buy a membership and that pays for you to get a car and change it out every 3 years or so. If a company that does the same get started for PC/Mac it may change the face of how Businesses purchase/lease their equipment.
CIO.COM:
“Until last spring, IBM, a company with roughly 400,000 employees and 130,000 external contractors, was a just-say-no-to-Apple shop. Now the company is eating crow like so many other organizations that once supported the status quo and avoided Macs.
…. IT organization didn’t start officially supporting Macs until a year later. Since then, more than 30,000 Macs have been deployed at IBM in just five months, and the company says it is currently bringing 1,900 Macs to employees each week.
IBM is already benefiting from the change of heart and organizational process, according to Previn. The team of 24 IT staffers and specialists who support Macs at IBM is much smaller than what was required for PC support, and it spends less time fixing technical problems, Previn says. “You just have fewer problems coming in.”
While 40 percent of IBM’s PC users call the helpdesk for troubleshooting, on average only 5 percent of the company’s Mac user do the same, according to Previn.”
DIGITAL TRENDS:
“After letting its workforce choose between a PC or a Mac starting in 2014, many chose the Mac. Now, with nearly 90,000 Macs in use, IBM says it’s actually saving money…
..Macs in the company’s deployment require less technical support or repair. Windows PCs were on average driving twice the amount of support calls, but at three times the cost, he commented.
…. In dollars, this amounts to anywhere between a $273 to $543 savings per unit over their projected four-year lifespan. The success has even prompted IBM to purchase even more Macs, and by the end of 2016 it expects to have over 100,000 Macs in service,
“
That sounds like a lot of Macs just being bought by IBM. At 1,900 over a quarter they would have purchased close to 25K Macs. I’m curious how much of the 43.8% increase in sales to businesses is due solely to IBM purchases.
Well, no, that’s not what is happening.
Firstly, for legacy Windows applications there is Parallels – I run this on my Mac Pro for a specific application and it runs very well under Windows 10 on Parallels.
Secondly, a lot of commercial applications run via Citrix or another thin software client – this runs exactly the same way in a Mac as it does on a PC.
Thirdly, most corporates run MS Office – this works much the same way on the Mac – no retraining required.
Fourthly, for new apps, the Apple development environment, with Swift, is much easier to use than the ageing Windows development environment – and you can front-end the same databases.
Fifthly, Apple Mail, though long in the tooth, is till more functional than Outlook and plugs straight in to the existing Windows mail servers.
IBM made the move and decided it saved a fortune – you can google that.
Macs just run better with less tech intervention. The major savings come in reduced support costs – and they are significant.
Many businesses are now writing apps for iPad – the Mac is a little different but not much different – and iPad/iPhone development teams can easily migrate to the Mac.
I used to run 7 Windows servers in my own business and support clients with quite complex Microsoft environments. I was a bit wary of buying a Mac but I was astonished at how easy it was to integrate with my Windows environment and how nice it was to use. That was in 2002. I don’t have that business any more but I still have my Macs.
There may be some retraining still needed with those that switch needing to learn how to use the new ‘right’ click and new swipe functions of the mouse. As well as the layout of the non-qwerty keys on the keyboard. Overall though I agree that tech services will be greatly reduced due to non-IT workers having fewer help desk calls.
Hate Apple much?
Macs run windows ,,,, if you have to.
Pages and numbers read and write word and excel files.
There is NO down side, only upsides. Ps you do not dump PCs, when you replace you replace with macs.
Simple. 😄🤠👽
Numbers doesn’t work with MS Excel macros.
If it was so simple, all businesses and the US govt. would be running Macs and OSX now, right? So how come they haven’t made the switch?
The problem is: some simpletons just don’t get it.
The us government can’t pave fucken roads and you are foolish enough to believe those idiots have the sense or the money to use Macs?
I work for a large “Fortune 500” company with offices throughout the US and in over 100 countries. We have over 500,000 business clients that use services provided from our 50,000+ employees.
When I started there, it was all Windows NT and 2000 using Token Ring networking. We moved to Ethernet with Windows XP and then Windows 7 workstations. Now Macs are moving in. Our data centers are a mix of Unix, Linux and Windows servers.
All developers have access to/or are issued Macs. Managers in my division (I do not know about other divisions) have the option to use Macs. People like myself are issued a PC, but each team has a shared access Mac at this time. Our products are supported on Windows and Mac desktops with Android and iOS supported on mobile devices.
Internally, we have moved from several custom desktop applications to largely web based applications. All offices are on a WAN and home users access via VPN. For my role, I have two remaining “Windows only” applications (following a new product release, it will be down to one this summer) and for those applications we use a Citrix environment.
Our experience largely duplicates that of IBM. The Macs cost more up front, but cost less to support.
Personally, I cannot wait to get rid of my crappy work issued HP laptop
Now all we need is for Tim Cook to realise that, without his thousands if minions doing the hard work, he can’t really run Apple on an iPad. FFS – how would he manage his inbox if he didn’t have a swarm of people filtering everything first?
That was the most damaging comment he could have made. It pissed off the core believers no end. We’re still waiting for a sign that he realises what he did – and does something to reassure the rest of us that he actually understands what real people so with their computers when they don’t have a cast iof thousands doing everything for them…
Too many people just keep taking shit just because they have been taking shit in the past. Know it guys that too much Shit is bad for health and will cost you.
When starting from nothing, any tiny blip in sales looks like impressive percentage gain.
3% market share in enterprise computing is about as much share as Windows Phones in the smartphone market. Think about that for a while.
Apple Mac enterprise share grew from 1.2% to 3% over 5 quarters. A growth of 250% over 15 months. A huge increase over a relatively short time period. And you are not satisfied? Well, anyway, for most people it is not bad business …if you can get it.
Trends are important. Let’s give it another 15 months and see where we are. Then another 15 months more after that. Sooner rather than later, we might see a tipping point.
A large portion of the current increase may be due to IBM’s current ramp up of Macs. IBM will reach a saturation point eventually, then we’ll be able to see a clearer picture of what the overall trend is.
Companies are buying Macs as a programming environment for iOS. Look at the numbers of corporations rolling out iOS apps and devices and you see this is the Mac following iOS.
At a small organizational leadership meeting last week I counted fourteen laptop computers…eleven were MBPs and one was an MBA.
A ratio of >>50% Mac laptops is typical of meetings in my organization of ~20K employees, and has been since the mid-2000s. Other companies are simply late to the game.
… So if Macs are eating their way into the historically Mac-hating Enterprise, then why-the-F is Apple sitting on their asses regarding Mac hardware upgrades?
Perhaps electroshock therapy would help. Two cattle prods…
So true! On the other hand Business application are not known for ‘pushing the envelope’ like games or AV processing so Macs as they are, are ‘good’ enough for now.
I have seen some of the top network security experts in the US, exclusively use Macs. For one a Mac does not hinder the support of Windows or Linux/Unix systems, whereas if you are on Windows alone, you are pretty much handycapped. I use Windows every day. Linux more and more, and my desktop client/host, is a Mac.
A hibrid environement is inherently more secure.