Coverage of Gartner analysts at their ITxpo in Australia last week. This report specifically focuses on Apple in the enterprise -- both from an iPhone and a Mac perspective.
Moving beyond iPhones to notebooks and desktops, Apple could start generating big bucks by exploiting the 'halo effect', which has already been cited as the reason for booming Mac sales.I have been aggressively willing to bet on Apple as an enterprise player for the last 12-15 months. From the outside looking in, there are definitely people at Apple who understand the enterprise; it's a question of what's in their corporate DNA. You won't find Apple as an exhibitor at a conference like Lotusphere, targeting the enterprise -- by policy they don't have a corporate presence at anyone else's conferences. On the other hand, will they be there, and are they demonstrating, as in the case of Snow Leopard 10.6.2, an understanding of the need to be responsive to enterprise customers? Yes. Time will tell whether that continues; meanwhile, I'll keep shooting for that 58% using my MacBook (which is my way of saying I don't agree with that percentage at all).
"[iPhone owners] discover usability, they discover simplicity and they start to look at Mac," said Simpson.
This is unlikely to happen, claims Nick Jones, a Gartner UK analyst, specialising in mobile and wireless. According to Jones, Apple has no desire to sell into the enterprise and he believes that any enterprise considering Apple products should first consider the issues of cost and planning.
"If you start using Macs in your enterprise, you start having to play silly games like running two operating systems. So you are now paying to support two operating systems on one machine. It costs you 58 percent more to have a Macintosh in your company than it does to have a PC because of this.
"Tell me if you think you are going to get 58 percent more work out of your employees if you gave them a Mac rather than a PC," he asked. ...
Jones isn't convinced and highlights Apple's lack of a product roadmap as the final indication of the Mac's unsuitability for enterprise use.
"Enterprise vendors give you things like roadmaps - they tell you what is going to happen. If you want to find out what is going on with Apple you have to watch Steve Jobs at the next Mac conference. Not exactly a basis for solid planning, I would say.
"I don't believe Apple is an enterprise vendor, I don't think Apple has any financial incentive to become an enterprise vendor," added Jones.
Link: ITnews Australia: Analysis: Microsoft is helping Apple crack the enterprise >
Post a Comment
- 2
Carsten | 11/29/2009 4:06:27 AM
What products are Gartner really producing ?
They have to keep making headlines for companies to take notice of their presence, and it is my experience that many IT directors without IQ and balls are buying whatever comes out of these "consultant" companies.
- 3
Paul Pentony | 11/29/2009 6:19:56 AM
I have never understood why Gartner are as influential as they appear to be. Certainly the quote above would indicate that is not for their analytic ability. Even if you accept that supporting a Mac on a desktop costs 58% more than supporting a PC it doesn't follow that you need a 58% productivity gain to pay for it.
For instance suppose the cost of supporting a PC is $10,000 per year (so the Mac would presumably cost $15,800) and suppose the total cost (salary, office space, insurance, PC, HR admin etc etc) of employing the staff member is $100,000 per year. Then the productivity increase required to pay for the MAC would be 5.8 per cent not 58 per cent.
- 4
Kevin Pettitt http://www.lotusguru.com | 11/29/2009 7:59:52 AM
@3 Paul I'm right there with you on Gartner Analyst Nick Jones' flawed logic about needing to be 58% more productive to cover the 58% higher support cost of a Mac. By that logic, if Notes/Domino costs 58% more per user than Exchange/Outlook, your workers would need to be 58% more productive as well. At least in that case I can imagine it actually being the case.
If there is one central failing of enterprise IT it is the pervasive inability to understand users - how they think, what they care about, what frustrates them, what makes them happy and productive, etc. You don't need a complicated spreadsheet to figure out whether a $1000 tool or piece of equipment will pay for itself in measurable user productivity gains. If it clearly reduces the time spent on tedious tasks thus making the user more happy and productive, you only need to remember how much it costs to hire and train someone to replace an unhappy former employee to know it is a good deal.
The myopic view of IT that boils everything down to how much it costs THEM to "support" software regardless of the clear benefits to the overall business is only fed by nonsense analysis like this.
- 5
Peter Meuser | 11/29/2009 12:59:21 PM
Ed, does your willingness to promote MacOS in the enterprise also mean, that we get an "enterprise class" set of Notes functionality on the MacOS, too, in the near future?
For example, I am thinking about the Symphony automation from Notes, which is still missing. That could be a killer argument for some "enterprise" environments to not only use MacOS (native!), but also Lotus Notes!
Maybe a nice side effect for your business, too ... ;-)
- 6
Mike Brown http://www.browniesblog.com | 11/29/2009 1:37:39 PM
That 58% figure assumes that you are "paying to support two operating systems on one machine", which is a questionable assumption, at best.
If you're going to go Apple (or Linux) you have to go the whole way, I think. Expecting users to deal with two operating systems, when most of them have trouble with only one, isn't going to work.
- 7
Andy Steven http://www.hillclimbr.com | 11/30/2009 7:03:38 PM
@3, perhaps his figures are correct. Internal Gartner documents may indicate the Windows 7 cost $100,000 per year to maintain
58% is how productive I'm NOT using any touch pad on any laptop including my new 13" Mac Pro. As my Apple mouse supports right-click, I'm productive in either Lotus Notes on OS X or the Lotus Notes on my XP client running in Fusion within my Mac.
From my experience, Mac users are either more computer literate so they need less help, or they have less problems and need need less help. Either way, I think usage would be about the same on either operating system, one is just more fun.