“Soon after Michele Goins became chief information officer at Juniper Networks in February, she decided to respond to the growing chorus of Mac lovers among the networking company’s 6,100 employees. For years, many had used Apple’s computers at home and clamored for them in the office as well. So she launched a test, letting 600 Juniper staffers use Macs instead of the standard-issue PCs that run Microsoft’s Windows operating system. As long as the extra support costs aren’t too high, she plans to open the floodgates. ‘If we opened it up today, I think 25% of our employees would choose Macs,’ she says,” Peter Burrows reports for BusinessWeek.
“Funny thing is, she has never received a single sales call from Apple. While thousands of other companies scratch and claw for the tiniest sliver of the corporate computing market, Apple treats this vast market with utter indifference,” Burrows reports.
“Once an object of devotion for students and artists, the Mac is becoming the first choice of many. Surging demand for the machines led Apple to predict revenues will rise 33% in the second quarter, to $7.2 billion, even in the face of an economic slowdown,” Burrows reports.
“What’s less obvious is that the enthusiasm is starting to spill over into the corporate market. It’s a people’s revolution, of sorts, with workers increasingly pressing their employers to let them use Macs in the office. In a survey of 250 diverse companies that has yet to be released, the market research firm Yankee Group found that 87% now have at least some Apple computers in their offices, up from 48% two years ago,” Burrows reports.
“IBM and Cisco Systems are running similar tests on whether to let Macs into the office. Google ( has allowed employees pick their machine of choice for years,” Burrows reports. “Others are sure to follow suit.”
“Apple is getting help from an unlikely rival: Microsoft. Vista, the latest version of the software giant’s Windows operating system, looks like it could turn out to be one of the great missteps in tech history. Not only does it lack compelling new features, but analysts say Vista requires companies to buy more expensive PCs, incur hefty training costs, and to deal with maddening glitches,” Burrows reports. “Certainly, Apple’s ad team seems to smell blood. Most of the company’s ‘I’m a Mac’ [sic: “Get a Mac”] ads are aimed at taking Vista’s rep even lower, including one in which a yoga instructor gets stressed out about how Vista screwed up her billing system.”
MacDailyNews Take: Burrows then offers a highly perplexing assessment of Apple’s Mac prospects in large companies:
Apple will find it more difficult to gain ground in large companies…there are software limitations. Some industrial-grade programs won’t run on Macs, including the popular software from Germany’s SAP that companies use to run everything from operations to sales. Getting Microsoft’s Exchange e-mail to run on the Apple machines is often a huge hassle, which makes them a nonstarter in some offices.
MacDailyNews Take: Why are we highly perplexed? Because right in the previous paragraph Burrows just explained:
Since Apple adopted Intel’s microprocessors as the brains of its computers in 2006, Macs have been able to run Windows just like any Intel-based PC. In addition, Macs can run what’s known as “virtualization” software, which lets people use the Mac operating system and Windows at the same time and switch easily between them.
MacDailyNews Take: A Mac booted into Windows is just a nice-looking piece of hardware running Microsoft’s bloated, upside-down and backwards, bad copy of the Mac OS. Slumming it with Windows, it temporarily ceases to be a Mac; it is just an Apple-branded PC running an inferior OS. It runs SAP’s software, Microsoft’s Outlook, and anything else any other Windows PC runs just the same, thanks. And, by the way, Apple Inc. is a very large company, with approximately 21,600 full-time employees plus an additional 2,100 temporary employees located in offices all around the world, and they all use Macs; because Apple never shortsightedly shackled themselves to proprietary Microsoft “solutions” that always attempt to force the use of Windows. Macs can run large businesses. Here are a couple of other examples: Japan’s Aozora Bank dumps 2,300 Windows PCs for Apple Macs – April 03, 2006, Largest automobile processing company in North America dumps Windows PCs for Apple Macs – July 16, 2007
Burrows continues, “Demographic trends may be on Apple’s side. All those college kids wielding iPods have created a deep pool of potential Mac users. According to a survey of 1,200 undergrads by researcher Student Monitor this year, 43% of college students who intend to buy a laptop plan to buy a Mac, up from 8% in 2003. ‘Many of today’s technology decision-makers will ultimately be replaced by Mac users,’ says Eric Weil, managing partner of Student Monitor.”
There is much more in the full article – recommended – here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “qka” for the heads up.]