“When Dale Fuller was trying to resuscitate Apple’s PowerBook division in the late 1990s, he didn’t see eye-to-eye with Steve Jobs,” Caleb Garling reports for Wired.
“Fuller saw all those PC makers selling Windows laptops to big businesses, and as he struggled to inject new life into Apple’s moribund PowerBook division, he wanted to do the same,” Garling reports. “But Jobs said no.”
Garling reports, “According to Fuller, Jobs saw business IT departments as a barrier. In those days, CIOs believed in ‘JEDI,’ or Just Enough Desktop Infrastructure — meaning they only wanted to invest in the minimum amount of computing an employee needed to do his job, and nothing more. An IT department, Jobs argued, is about control — and not about empowering the user. Jobs’ central belief was that computers should be about the user, and that’s why he wouldn’t let Fuller sell PowerBooks to businesses. ‘I don’t think Steve ever cared about money,’ Fuller says. ‘He just wanted to do this stuff the right way.'”
“Fifteen years after he left Apple, Dale Fuller still thinks Macs are good for business. His new company, MokaFive, carries the tagline: ‘Finally, Apple for the Enterprise.’ But the world has changed, and his efforts to push Apple machines onto businesses are no longer at odds with the Jobsian vision — or least, not entirely,” Garling reports. “MokaFive offers a way of running a company’s official Windows environment on a Mac.”
Read more in the full article here.
Windows on Mac: Great hardware, horrible software.
Time and conditions change. Even Steve Jobs was known to change his mind wnen things changed.
More like Businesses didn’t believe in consumer oriented computers (Macs) but, now that iPads have demonstrated that a consumer device can do the job in a business environment, they do (and IT geeks be damned).
Jobs didn’t have to change his approach to computer design to fit business (IT induced) needs. He was right to believe that, as long as the IT people would be deciding for the uneducated users, Macs for business didn’t make sense. The iPad changed business perceptions and educated users on what they should expect from a computer. Check mate on IT.
I must be at the front of the wave at my company, entrenched as it is with Windows machines. Most corporates are entrenched in the Windows environment because of two factors: the dictates of the IT department and inertia on the part of employees refusing to learn a new computing paradigm. There is also little to no budgetary allowance in most corporates to train employees in anything other than Windwos as the primary drive is to standardize on a single platform to reduce administrative overheads.
You’ll find most of the Mac adopters in the enterprise are self motivated people who put in the extra work to learn a new computing interface, purchase their own equipment out of which the company reimburses a fixed amount and the bureaucratic sclerosis that needs to be negotiated just to get approved on a BYOD program.
But having made the switch last year to a Mac, my productivity has shot up by more than 200%. It literally takes half the time to complete an assigned task on a Mac than it does on a PC because the Mac allows you focus intensely on the task you’re working on rather than be distracted by Windows’ need to adapt your workflow around Windows’ idiosyncrasies. The Mac just gets out of your way.
It must be hard learning everything backwards and then having to relearn everything the right way.
Damn that Bill Gates doing everything in Windows backwards just to avoid an Apple lawsuit.
The iPhone was the device that kicked off my curiosity to explore the Mac. It seemed so elegant to use that a child could learn 90% of its functions in a day – it didn’t need a manual, although you could download one from the iBookstore if you wanted to.
Once you learned how to operate an iPhone, using OS X was a natural extension to the thought processes of that. It felt like I was returning to my natural computing roots.
I just found 2 things I had to “learn” when switching:
1. CMD = CNTL (now I count myself ambidextrous on a PC and a Mac)
2. By far the longest to manage — all my “muscle memory” for how to do things was according to the Windows way, and I had to actively, manually stop myyself doing things in 3-5 steps that Windows typically uses, and switch to 1-2 steps that Mac uses.
I was shocked how long that Windows-based muscle memory stuck around.
“An IT department …… is about control — and not about empowering the user.”
I totally agree. That’s consistently been my experience of Mac-hating IT departments. The bane of my working life.
Certainly the case here at Cornell University. They want less employees doing more work, but hobble productivity forcing Winduhz for everyone—unless you have the clout ( such as profs, VPs students, artists) to make the IT’s get you a Mac. Profs are rich enough to buy their own Mac and tell their IT staff: Deal with it. Rest not so lucky.
That’s so true. IT/CIO wants users to be dumb as a doorknob with computer use.
Imagine the surprise on the face of the head of IT at my work when he said it wasn’t possible to install the Citrix client on a Mac and VPN into our network. It took me all of 30 seconds to do. He couldn’t believe it. He said it takes 5 minutes minimum on Winblows – and that’s if things don’t act wonky for unknown (and never discovered) reasons.
I first used a Mac in 1989, when our Marketing, Training and Executive departments had Macs. The rest had an IT Department supported minicomputer based system, including WordStar … ugh. Since moving on from that company I have always owned a Mac for my personal use. I have also made a very good living as a computer systems project manager helping other companies stay in their MS-centric worlds. Please let MS continue another couple of years, at least until I retire.
Guess what, businesses have awakened to the fact that they need empowered employees. Business now expects everyone to be involved in making the business simpler, faster and more efficient. Even those in the trenches doing the job. Better tools are necessary if you want those employees to be motivated and empowered to develop better approaches to business problems.
As usual, Steve Jobs did it the hard way.
Look at it this way… Macs in schools = Hard way.
I used to say “wait until all these young people using Macs graduate and get out in the real world”. It’s starting to happen now, and it’s only going to compound from here.
The “Halo effect” of iPhone and iPad is taking effect in a bigger and bigger way now too.
It’s not about what’s going to happen next quarter, but what’s going to happen over the next decade and beyond.
I had a lot of fun introducing Macs into those sterile businesses that insisted on MS PoCs ( pieces of crap).
It was even more fun when I brought my own!
I finally got my MBP at work last year… The first Mac into the company parc ok 170 Windows computers. I must still run Win7 in a VM but I like it more in the VM with better hardware integration (like inertia scrolling, etc)
Macs used to in the offices of top executives of most large corporations. It was the ignorant ashhholes in the IT departments that pushed them eventually out and forced everbody to use the bastard caveman version of the Mac OS.
A major obstacle with any large enterprise purchasing Macs is the single supplier issue. This means no escape hatch if Apple raises prices or discontinues a product. Look at where video production is now with FCPX and the delayed and rumored EOL MacPro for a microcosm of exactly what IT depts fear could happen depending on Apple.