“Apple yesterday conceded corporate IT workers are ‘always’ complaining about its secretive product roadmap — but warned the only way to get up to speed is to invest thousands of dollars and a full working week attending its annual US-based developer conference,” Renai LeMay reports for ZDNet Australia.
“‘People always complain that Apple doesn’t give systems admins or systems architects enough of a roadmap of where our technologies are going,’ the vendor’s Asia-Pacific head of developer relations, Craig Bradley, told an audience of third-party developers in Sydney yesterday,” LeMay reports. “Bradley was referring to Apple’s notorious culture of corporate secrecy that sees very little information released about the vendor’s products before they actually hit the market.”
There is “one way out of the Apple dilemma: go to Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), held annually and approaching in August,” LeMay reports. “Those attending the conference get a clear roadmap of Apple’s software development plans up to 18 months ahead.”
“Apple’s internal engineers also attend, solving problems and demonstrating technology. And that’s not all — Apple’s Cupertino campus also plays host to what Bradley described as ‘pretty much a beer-bash.’ These privileges don’t come cheap though, with attendees paying up to US$1595 for the five day event and being required to comply with non-disclosure provisions about confidential information available there,” LeMay reports.
LeMay reports, “Bradley said Apple would ‘definitely’ be demonstrating its new Leopard operating system at this year’s conference, although he declined to reveal any details ahead of time.”
Full article with more about the challenges of providing Macintosh-based solutions to businesses here.
MacDailyNews Take: Better to be secretive than stagnant.
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Related article:
Apple confirms ‘sneak peek preview’ of Mac OS X Leopard at WWDC 2006 this August – April 18, 2006
Like I said – Geek Squad.
Intel’s new chips due this fall – hey, around the same time Apple is rumored to release new towers!
Educate yourself, B&W VW boy!
And I don’t buy ANY PCs – corporate IT does.
My ROI is great with Macs – which is why I use and support them.
As for “no IT on Macs” that’s hilarious – what do you mean? I’m sure the grandmas that bring them into Best Buy need your help configuring AOL.
“As an Apple admin and support person in a very big entertainment company, I can tell you that being secretive is NOT good for people like me and my users.”
Understandably, in the PC world, they can predict, that the hardware will SUCK and the software NEVER works as desired and will be infested with thousands of malware problems.
I guess, they are somewhat spoiled in this regard.
Mac7,
You won’t get arguments from me.
I’m merely backing up Apple’s finally recognizing this as an issue.
I don’t deal with the PCs, but I deal with the IT infrastructure, and that’s the way it is.
As the saying goes – “Nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft” and it’s true.
Corporate IT is a different beast altogether. I used to work for a major LA university, and IT was a blast there.
uhm,
Apple server and Workstations are STILL going to run OSX.
They are going to have x86 cpus
wtf else do you need to know??
these guys are pussyfarts.
Why do so many people assume that Apple needs to win over the business world in order to succeed? Does BMW have to get its cars into all the rent-a-car fleets in order to be a successful car company? I don’t think so.
Must Apple aspire to become the next Microsoft in order to build superior products? I don’t think so.
Again and again, small minds confuse size with quality. Too bad for them.
Some of you Mac heads are amazing!
You bash Microsoft and then trip over each other having contests to create software to allow you to use Windows and taking up collections to pay the developers all so you can run XP Pro on your Mac and of course all of those really bad and worthless PC programs. If everything about the Mac is so good, why do you want windows so bad? I was considering getting a Mac but now I’m not so sure. Do I really want…overheating problems, fan noise, cases changing color, plastic over the fan, I guess that was to make the fan quieter. O’ and when you use a wireless connection the whole thing may crash because some stray RF gets in somewhere it shouldn’t be.
By the way I hope Apple won’t be too disappointed but they aren’t going to be the first to use BlueRay DVD burners. Sony has a laptop available now…It would have cost too much in the Mac anyway.
By the way I hear that you’ll have a hard time using the MacPro on an Airplane, seems most airplane power for laptops is 75 watts max, what’s the MacPro, 85 watts, good luck. Another well thought out plan. And as long as I’m writing this you guys seem to think Microsoft is so evil…”a big powerful unethical opponent” Apple is not even on the screen over at MS. And I don’t see MS using child slave labor….maybe I will stay with my PC, so far it just works!
Undecided: You are a doosh who is undeserving of a Mac, let alone a PC.
You see, numbnuts, there’s software that some of us HAVE to use because of the organizations we work for.
Trust me, my life is 99% Mac, and I laugh at you guys who say your OS/hardware is just as good – it’s not.
It’s Hyundai vs Lexus, and you’re the Korean Limo.
Me in LA
Snappy comeback….
Didn’t have much to do with what I said but you tried.
Take your little white purse and keep believing the crap you talk.
BTY
I don’t see you denying any of what I said.