“When I was selling Apple products to the Federal Government, I reaffirmed that it’s often difficult to get beyond the local heros who champion Apple products and get plugged into the business side of the customer. That’s because Microsoft understands how to cater to the entire spectrum of an organization’s needs. Of course, this was nothing new. I’ve been writing about that effect since 1998, but I bring it up to make a point,” John Martellaro writes for The Mac Observer.
“This broad spectrum of business needs is not something that’s understood by everyone. The home user, for example, has a rather limited system configuration. If she’s lucky, she has a firewall and a backup system. Some try to get along without even that,” Martellaro writes. “In contrast, corporations not only have a rich technical environment, with lots of things going on like Voice over IP, video conferencing, Exchange servers, SAN storage, Proxy servers, spam filtering, monitoring and security software, but also must comply with various regulations like “SOX,” the Sarbanes-Oxley act, and engage in various quality initiatives such as ‘Six Sigma.’ All this, of course, is what makes working in IT departments so miserable, but it also creates huge opportunities for Microsoft to succeed as a business partner.”
“So no matter how cool Apple products have been from a personal standpoint, there is always the IT department’s infamous list — the check boxes of features and functions that Apple products must comply with. If not all the boxes are checked, then Apple isn’t considered a full-fledged player in the enterprise. (Microsoft’s business products generally check all the boxes.) Along the way, learning from this stiff business competition, Apple learned something valuable about how to enter a market and maintain control,” Martellaro writes.
Full article, very interesting with much more, here.
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As VHS .vs. Beta has shown, as Microsoft .vs. the worldhas shown and as HDDV .vs. BlureRay are about to reiterate, marketing savy has more to due with large market pentration and retention than the technology.
When Apple chooses to market their technology into large enterprises vis-a-vie Microsoft, that will indeed be something to watch.
Ah….the IT checklist. How wonderful it is (I hope it dies and burns in hell).
Leave it to the canucks to “colour” their digs through spelling
“Blure-Ray”
Freaking Hilarious
Go Sens!!!!!
If Macs ‘Just Work’ as Steve claims, please explain why there are, as of today, more than 35,000 problems being discussed on Apple’s iMovie forum; more than 32,000 problems being discussed on Apple’s iPhoto forum; and more than 22,000 problems being discussed on Apple’s iDVD forum.
And, all these problems being discussed over just parts of Apple’s flagship iLife software.
Macs don’t ‘Just Work’ and the IT guys are never going to say to the bosses they should switch to Apple. Apple refuses to fix the problems so why would anyone wade into that quagmier?
Ah yes the IT checklist:
1. Does the entire system, software monitor and all cost less than $300?
2. Does it do all the IT things I was taught in school?
3. Does it make me look like I fit in with global business machines?
4. Is it as incompatible with everything that’s different as possible? (and still be legal?)
5. Does the entire system cost less than $300/desktop?
>Apple Doesn’t Work- wade into that quagmier?>
Is that a German quagmire?
AWESOME ARTICLE. The next few years are gonna be interesting. Interesting indeed.
ron:
yes
Yep, Apple is not an enterprise player. Not by a long shot.
So the “Halo Effect” is supposed to be about getting an iPod in a users hands, influencing them to purchase another, more expensive item (a computer) from the same brand.
Now compare that with the “Halo Effect” of Joe User working all day in corporate-land on a Windows box, and see what effect that has on his purchasing decision. With all that corporate IT support, Joe User thinks Windows works pretty well, and is not about to risk another platform. Which is why the vast majority of comsumer computers bought today are loaded with Windows.
Even with Microsoft messing up so badly lately.
This is why Jobs calls 5% market share a “glass ceiling.” And he’s right.
Sad, but true…
Any relationto Oscar M.?
Apple Doesn’t Work:
By that reasoning we really should no longer be using anything based on the Windows platform, in the work place, because of real-world, confirmed and documented, potential for very expensive and frequently repeated attacks by computer viruses in the work place. And we’re not talking vulnerabilities.
Its always so logical that Macintosh desktops systems cannot work in a professional environment, but apply the same logic as to why we should stil be using Windows desktop, and networking systems, and no one wants to fess up.
The real question is, why do we keep perpetuating Windows, because I honestly cannot come up with any real reasons. I can often come up with a book full of reasons to stop using and recommending Windows, however.
Apple Doesn’t Work, a ton of those problems are user confusion (not real bugs). Also, the Intel transition caused a large spike in them… new software before expected release.
I shudder to think what a corresponding Microsoft site would look like. Just think: even if every virus only got one mension (not going to happen) you’d be looking at 150K messages.
Apple Doesn’t Work:
I myself, have never had to use those discussion forums for a bug or other problem. Most of those “XXXXX thousands of issues” are people asking general questions, or people having “problems” because they are doing something blatently wrong. The articles about bugs (and yes, Apple software can have them too) are usually a whole bunch of people discussing the same few bugs. This is completely normal for any company with millions of customers.
I worked for Apple support for a while, and a microsoft-apologist friend of mine once said to me “The fact that you have that job is proof that Macs suck.”
That kind of mentality is going around right now all over the place, and it’s just plain stupid. If having support, be it online forums or telephone-based, means you have a horrible product that doesn’t work, then every major PC manufacturer falls into the same bucket.
MW: “When” will you people start using common sense?
Apple Doesn’t Work;
Implying that each, individual log entry in a public forum qualifies as a unique “bug” is so disingenuous it makes me want to retch.
Gee, how about I Google “Microsoft bugs”?
Wow! Fifty One Million, Six Hundred Thousand entries!
Man, if Microsoft doesn’t fix those problems, I guess no one will buy their products. Oh wait! An IT department would!
Troll
Heros should be heroes
“35,000 problems being discussed on Apple’s iMovie forum; more than 32,000 problems being discussed on Apple’s iPhoto forum; and more than 22,000 problems being discussed on Apple’s iDVD forum.”
Ever heard of “idiots?” They’re all the rage
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Seriously though, have you gone through and weeded out all the MEE TOO posts? People who think they’re having a different problem when they’re having the same problem, people who have deleted files because they didn’t look right there and want their data recovered, people who just don’t understand the idea of video or DVD editing or people who just have questions about “How to make sure the camera doesn’t shake a lot?”
No you haven’t but then again, being factual wasn’t the point, was it?
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Do a quick search of all the Windows problems on the web and you’ll find that less than 100,000 posts dwarfed by the MILLIONS and MILLIONS of Windows users problems.
“please explain why there are, as of today, more than 35,000 problems being discussed on Apple’s iMovie forum” etc, etc.
What a wanker. A quick glance shows that, yes, there are 35,000 posts on the iMovie forum, but they are in only about 5,000 discrete topics. And they include such unfixed “problems” as: “can I use still pictures in a movie?”; “how do I split up a movie without producing gaps in the sound?”; “how do I export a movie if my DVD burner is fried?”; and that old favorite, “what’s a good cheap camera?”
And if you were using OSX, you’d know how to spell quagmire…
Ok, “Apple Doesn’t Work” (and you’ve posted this same claim in slightly different form under another name)
I call FUD.
QUOTE: please explain why there are, as of today, more than 35,000 problems being discussed on Apple’s iMovie forum…
There are not, by any stretch of the imagination, 35,000 problems being discussed in the iMovie forum. There are, as of this moment, 6,750 topics posted in the entire forum, covering iMovie 6, iMovie 5, and iMovie 4 and earlier.
First off, even if EVERY SINGLE one of these topics was a “problem”, that’s only 20% of the figure you cite.
Second, these are not problems “currently being discussed” – these are a record of every problem discussed going back 9 months or more. So to imply that there are 35,000 problem discussions going on at this moment is falsehood of the exponential kind.
Third, many of these so-called “problems” are questions. How best to do this? Can I do that? Is there a way to do this? Could someone recommend a camcorder?
I didn’t bother to compile the same information for the iDVD forum, but I’m guessing the results would be the same.
So please, render unto me a f**ing break. Go take your axe and grind it somewhere else. Your input is worse than useless.
And apparently I type about 5 minutes slower than the rest of you lot! LOL.
This guy is a goober a real goober. Just because someone say Exchange Server, that validate them as knowing Enterprise IT.
Hey I said Exchange, I know Enterprise too…..
This knuckle head doesn’t know that there is a heap of ther crap written in open source that runs for ready….. weeee free on OSX.
I guess if you don’t pay for it is ain’t enterprise.
Must have the Enterprise Price to compete.
Ugh……..
jim –
Be careful with your ‘wheeee.’ There’s no feature-for-feature competitor to Exchange at this time. Zero. Not a single one. The ones that are close and might tempt you to hammer together a couple of different products for the same total wind up having dreadfully unusable client interfaces.
Nobody’s competing. I can’t say why, but they’re not.
If you are referencing the crap ‘Neutron’ Jack Welch championed at GE during his long tenure, it’s a bunch of tail-chasing.
The only true Microsoft Killer is an Office Suite, preferably Web 2.0 that can run on an inexpensive machine such as a Mac mini that the whole office can access.
iPods, iPhones, etc. a waste of time if Steve is trying to Kill Bill (bad pun, sorry.)
Apple is close to having the major components necessary but needs to work on integration.
Doesn’t Kotex already have a trademark on the name iPad? Does Apple really need another lawsuit?
Places where Microsoft has no real competition in the industry:
Exchange Server
Microsoft Access*
Visual Studio**
Visio
Project
I think Apple could certainly ready a real competitor to Microsoft Access, since they already own FileMaker. Throw some of your most talented developers on it (especially the web-creation stuff), bundle it with iWork, drop the price to compete with Access, and fix the ridiculous per-client licensing scheme.
I believe Apple would also stand a good chance of readying Visio and Project replacements. They’re useful products that don’t look that complicated, so I can’t believe nobody else is even trying to mimic/outdo them.
As far as competing with Visual Studio 2005 and Exchange Server, though, I really don’t see that happening. That would be like climbing Mt. Everest, when Microsoft has already built a little colony, a couple gas stations and set up a Starbucks at the top.
*Filemaker doesn’t do 10% of what Access does, and costs about 5x more
**XCode is not nearly “there” yet in terms of its usability for large projects, nor does it have anything for web-based database development comparable to ASP.NET