Mark Rogers, Apple Computer’s UK managing director, “has good reason to be ebullient,” Graham Stewart reports for The Scotsman. “Apple has recently displaced the PC manufacturer Dell to take the No1 spot in western Europe, with a market share of 15.2%… ‘We’re very pleased with the progress we’re making in education,’ says Rogers. ‘It’s only in the last few years that we have emerged in Europe, and we’re seeing a similar increase in our share in the UK [which stands at 12.5%].’ Rogers says the iPod ‘halo effect’ is partly responsible for this upturn. ‘We’re seeing the iPod being used to deliver lectures to students and it’s also being used in podcasting.'”
“Apple’s success in education is particularly strong in Scotland, claims the dominant Apple dealer here, Scotsys, which recently merged with the Edinburgh-based IT company, the Adventi Group. ‘The uptake in further and higher education for courses based on Apple technologies has been increasing over the last few years,’ says Scotsys managing director John McAleenan… McAleenan says confidence in Apple is at an all-time high, but is nonetheless frustrated by the attitude of corporate IT departments. ‘There is a complete distrust of the Apple platform by IT professionals. I’m fed up with people saying they can’t have Apple in their networks. It’s not difficult, it’s just that they don’t want to understand the technology or they can’t be bothered,’ he says,” Stewart reports.
“Apple is clearly hoping that its recent decision to use Intel processors in its computers, in preference to IBM chips which are now targeted more towards games consoles such as the Xbox, will boost its fortunes in the corporate IT market, but it is likely to be a tough battle given Microsoft’s overwhelming dominance and the mistrust of Apple technology in this environment,” Stewart reports. “Apple is clearly hoping that its recent decision to use Intel processors in its computers, in preference to IBM chips which are now targeted more towards games consoles such as the Xbox, will boost its fortunes in the corporate IT market, but it is likely to be a tough battle given Microsoft’s overwhelming dominance and the mistrust of Apple technology in this environment. Apple’s decision to open its own worldwide network of retail stores is an attempt to change attitudes to its personal computers
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Corporate IT “pros” in general have hitched their wagons to Microsoft. Often in the name of vendor “choice,” they defend their decision, even though, in the end, it almost always results in ultimately depending on a sole vendor anyway: Microsoft. In our experience, IT “pros” will employ almost any convoluted logic to defend their choice, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that they made the wrong one. The Mac is more dependable, more secure, last longer, and the end user enjoys using the Mac more than Windows, which means they’re most likely to produce more since they are not fighting the user interface and Windows issues; this makes Mac users more productive than Windows users overall.
IT people have been given the role of “decision makers” when they should not have that power. If CEOs and upper management in many industries want the upper hand over their competitors, they’d be smart to learn about technology, investigate the Mac’s advantages, take back the decision-making power, and make the best technology decisions for their companies. If that means they’ll have to reduce their IT departments because Macs are less prone to trouble, so be it. Obviously, IT “pros” will not decide to move to the Mac platform if it means their staffing levels and power within the organization will be diminished. The open-minded IT person, one who will seriously consider the Apple Mac option, is a rarity in the extreme. Apple will have an uphill battle breaking into corporate environments unless and until the decisions are made by people focused on benefits to the entire company, not by those who are choosing technology that helps bolster their own job security and power.
Find out more about what Apple Macintosh can do for your business:
• The Apple Store for Business
• http://www.apple.com/business/
• http://www.apple.com/itpro/
• http://www.apple.com/business/mac_pc/
Mac OS X Business Software
Accounting & Finance
– Accounting & Bookkeeping
– Payroll & Customizable Finance
General Productivity
– Calendar & Contact Management
– Cross-Platform Compatibility
– Communication Tools
– Office Productivity Tools
– Office Suites & Word Processing
– Project Management
– Spreadsheets & Databases
Marketing & Sales
– Design, Layout & Publishing
– CRM & Direct Mail
Data & Network Management
– Remote Access
– Server Management
– Storage & Backup
Online Business
– Online Collaboration
– Content Creation & Selling
– Web Development
At an Apple Retail Store near you, special presentations and demos for business professionals are held every Wednesday. More info about Business Day here.
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Related MacDailyNews articles:
Apple Mac is #1 in European education market, pushes Dell down into second place – February 03, 2006
Apple Mac hits #1 in Western Europe Education market – February 02, 2006
Defending Windows over Mac a sign of mental illness – December 20, 2003here.
devnull, you don’t get it. Folks that don’t know how to config sendmail are quick to point the “shortcomings” of this mta. Yes, I know Tiger has Postfix instead, but my ponit is not the choice of the mta, but the fact that there are plenty of rock solid unix mtas that could do the job you describe with other unix tools to do what the mta on’t. The only solution for what you describe is not MS Exchange, that’s what I find laughable, that you belive such a thing.
The problem with the it world is not lack of such a solution but the fact that it is really dfficult to disregard legacy systems and the fact that nobody wants to loose their job using something cheaper and more secure…
Significant penetration in corporate IT market will be next to impossible for Apple. It will be hard enough for Microsoft just to get them to upgrade to Vista.
It’s very expensive to upgrade or replace thousands of desktops, and then you have all these custom VB apps that have been written for Windows.
The IT game is over…well that is unless some CEOs start buying stock in Apple, it might influence some decisions
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