Business Week: Companies Embrace the Mac--Slowly

January 7 2007

Business Week writes on the opening day of Macworld....

Apple's share of the U.S. PC market jumped to 5.8% in the quarter that ended in September, when it sold 935,000 Macs, according to research firm Interactive Data (IDC). That's 30% higher than the same period in 2005, when Apple sold 737,000 Macs, and compares with a global growth rate of 7.9%. The share performance placed Apple only slightly behind Gateway (GTW) in the U.S.--though it's still well behind Dell (DELL) and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ).

Lotus Notes, Bisconti says, is second only to Microsoft Office as the most widely used software in big corporations. The software is used by 127 million people at 62,000 sites globally. And at 80% of those sites, a portion of Lotus users are running the Mac version, he says.  "It tracks pretty closely to the Mac's overall PC market share, at about 4% to 5%," he says. "But that's still a lot of Macs."
Not just talk...I had a good meeting with Apple last week, and the release of Notes 7.0.2 for the Mac has certainly gotten a lot of attention in the last few weeks.

Link: Business Week: Companies Embrace the Mac--Slowly >

Ed Brill | Highland Park, IL USA Category:  Machead  Add/View Comments [25]

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  1. 1  Julian Woodward http://www.axiot.com | 1/8/2007 1:48:38 AM

    Not a Mac person myself, yet, but this is clearly big news. And great coverage too.

    127M / 62000 = roughly 2000

    This is where some of the disconnect between IBM's thinking and business partner thinking comes in, that leads to a lot of conflict on this site and else where in blogland.

    IBM seems to work with the assumption that Notes users = big corporates. But these stats hide the fact that there are a lot of 5, 10, 100, 200, 500 seat deployments out there, and these people generally aren't (yet) interested in SOA or portals or 'composite applications' - they just want Notes to be prettier and easier to use, and to fit properly with their other stuff (Windows and Office).

    So I'm looking forward to

    a) talking to those Mac deviants and extolling the wonders of Notes applications (Notes vs FileMakerPro anyone?),

    and

    b) getting my sweaty hands on a beta copy of Notes 8 as soon as humanly possible!

    PS Ed - you're working too late ... go to bed! ;-)

  1. 2  Mike Brown  | 1/8/2007 2:50:49 AM

    "I had a good meeting with Apple last week"

    Do tell, mate!

    Cheers,

    - Mike

  1. 3  Mike Brown  | 1/8/2007 2:53:35 AM

    ... and I've got my beady eyes on a new Macbook Pro, a snip at 4400 Oz Dollars! But the ability to dual-boot to Win XP, or even run Mac OS and XP in parallel with ... erm ... Parallels, is just too good to miss.

    I'm just holding on to see if Jobs announces any price cuts at his big shindig tomorrow. (Although it will be Wednesday before I find out here).

    Cheers,

    - Mike

  1. 4  Lars Berntrop-Bos  | 1/8/2007 3:12:51 AM

    Still, I would love to see Java in the Mac version of Lotus Notes.

  1. 5  Matt White http://www.11tmr.com | 1/8/2007 8:01:37 AM

    @4 - Same here, Although I've had the 7.0.2 beta and then gold installed for some time I don't really use it as most of my custom databases have some element of Java in them. Still using Parallels or BootCamp for the foreseeable future unfortunately.

    Matt

  1. 6  Henry Ferlauto http://www.geniusinside.com | 1/8/2007 9:40:47 AM

    You can definitely count me in among the Mac happy crowd. I had always followed the Mac on an off in the periphery since about 1988; but never really got interested. Then along came the iPod and all those Apple Stores. Bought an iMac for my wife's birthday about a year and a half ago since her PC was getting pretty dated. It's simply awesome. There are a few little things that take getting used to from using Windows for so many years, but I can't see buying another "PC" again for my own personal use. (Sorry John Hodgman.)

    Worthy of note: The Taking Notes Podcast, Episode #35, November 9, 2006 (the Mike Rhodin interview). He's uses a Mac too.

    { Link }

  1. 7  Norm Van Bergen  | 1/8/2007 10:51:00 AM

    Just deployed the updated Notes client for Mac last week - our handful of Mac users are very happy with it.

  1. 8  Chris  | 1/8/2007 10:59:55 AM

    Macs are great machines, I use one as my home PC. I wish Lotus would add the ability to use Java in their Mac port of Notes. I'm not sure I understand why it is so difficult to do this considering Java's greatest feature of being cross-platform.

  1. 9  Sean Burgess http://www.phigsaidwhat.com/ | 1/8/2007 12:12:45 PM

    @Chris - If you still believe Java is a write once, run anywhere, then have I got a bridge to sell you. Still, there must be some significant hurdle for Lotus to not put support for it in there. Is there any one that can shed light on this?

    Sean---

  1. 10  Kerr  | 1/8/2007 12:41:14 PM

    My *guess* is that it has something to do with some incompatibility with jvms. Notes ships with an IBM jvm and I don't think IBM has a (public / production ready) jvm for Mac. This would mean integrating the Apple jvm, which could be tricky, even if there were no licensing issues that would have to be sorted, which I'm sure there would be.

  1. 11  John Head http://www.johndavidhead.com | 1/8/2007 1:59:30 PM

    @8 could this not be an Apple/MacOSX issue vs an IBM one? Or maybe it was more IBM deciding that they didn't want to spend that level of resources in 7.0.2 just to lose much of that when we get the Eclipse-based 8 client. Who knows. It would be nice to have a statement on it, but I can tell you that IBM has heard it .. via blogs and other discussions :)

  1. 12  Ben Poole http://benpoole.com | 1/8/2007 2:50:43 PM

    @11: It's not an Apple / OS X issue. JVMs exist for the Mac, so it's not like it can't be done. It's just that IBM simply haven't ported their JVM to OS X. Simple as that. Why? Dunno. Finances I expect.

    It's not like an IBM JVM on OS X won't have a shelf life -- presumably one will be required to support the IBM-specific stuff in all Expeditor-derived clients from here on in.

  1. 13  John Head http://www.johndavidhead.com | 1/8/2007 4:47:10 PM

    @12 Ben - yes, OSX has a JVM of course ... but I have listened to conversations between IBM and Apple when talking about the JVM and let me tell you, it is mostly a list of issues going from one company to another ... and that list hasn't change in a couple of years :)

    And your correct, Expeditor needs a Mac JVM at some point, which might have been the reason 7.0.2 got passed over ... they did not have time/budget to do it twice. So it got delayed for the long term effect.

    Personally, it would be great if someone from IBM or Apple made a public comment on this before Lotusphere ... because if they do not, I imagine its on the short list of things asked at the Mac BOF and Meet/Beat the Developers

  1. 14  axel  | 1/8/2007 4:52:49 PM

    I guess that the forces of market will drive IBM to fade out this "relying on IBM VM-attitude". Whats it good for anyway?

    Expeditor will have to compete with other Rich Client alternatives and there are plenty good out there (Netbeans Platform, Eclipse RCP without expeditor, Microsoft stuff, Ajax, Macromedia stuff, etc).

  1. 15  Dave Madison  | 1/8/2007 11:32:40 PM

    127MM "used" i.e., in production? or 127MM licensed? There is, as I'm sure you know, a difference. How do you track production usage?

  1. 16  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 1/9/2007 6:58:44 AM

    @15 you're right, it's licenses sold. Since it's not a direct quote from Bisconti, I'm not sure how it was explained.

  1. 17  david racicot  | 1/9/2007 9:09:15 AM

    @16. Annually renewed or cummulative?

  1. 18  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 1/9/2007 9:43:06 AM

    Cumulative licenses sold for Notes over its lifetime. Most customers buy annual subscription contracts. Unlike Microsoft, there is no "core CAL" or other shelfware bundling opportunity.

  1. 19  David Bell  | 1/9/2007 12:37:11 PM

    Sametime 7.5 on the Mac must be using a JVM already.

  1. 20  Charles http://www.charlesarthur.com/blog/ | 1/12/2007 4:31:14 PM

    >>

    the release of Notes 7.0.2 for the Mac has certainly gotten a lot of attention in the last few weeks.

    >>

    Is that because your people have finally, finally figured out how to use the inbuilt scroll wheel functionality that's been in OSX since 2001, but only in Notes Mac since, um, 7.0.2?

    Not to be antsy, but as a mail client, IMAP Mail puts the Notes client into a box and leaves it shut, locked, barred, bolted, poured in concrete and dumped in a river.

    Love and kisses as ever, of course.

  1. 21  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 1/12/2007 7:14:24 PM

    Charles, we've missed you! Have you had a chance to run Notes 7.0.2 yet?

  1. 22  Henry Ferlauto http://www.geniusinside.com | 1/12/2007 11:03:10 PM

    Some interesting Apple trivia for everyone.

    You may recall that the recently opened Apple Store on 5th Avenue in NYC is open 24/7/365. ({ Link } )

    You know when their day winds down for a bit everyday? 3:00 a.m. The place is pretty much humming along about 20 hours or so a day. They actually have a shift called the "Twilight Shift." 7:00 p.m. - 3:00 a.m.

    You have to see to believe it.

    Where else in the middle of the night can you go for a ride in horse & buggy then get dropped off at place with clean restrooms and free internet access?

    Only in New York.

  1. 23  Charles http://www.charlesarthur.com/blog/ | 1/26/2007 5:11:43 PM

    @21: Hi Ed (I know, it's been a while).

    run Notes 7.0.2? Nope - an elf in the IT department gave me IMAP access to my email, and so I use Apple's Mail.

    It's heaven. Smart mailboxes, tagging (with MailTags - indev.ca), autosorting, multiple accounts, rapid searching, autofiltering, all the sorts of things I expect on a mail client.

    To be honest, I count it a failed day if I start Notes up.

  1. 24  Mike Brown  | 11/7/2007 3:54:12 PM

    Apple Mail and IMAP not so heavenly now, Charles?

    { Link }

    Cheers,

    - Mike