Apple in the Workplace

I recently heard about a company that was moving away from their Mac environment to a Windows based environment. Their IT staff argued against the idea but the CFO argued it was what all corporates are doing. The Board of this public company committed to spending several hundred thousand dollars to change platforms, but, without a single functional improvement, just a platform shift.

It turns out that the bean counter was wrong and the IT staff were right.

This article from the Sydney Morning Herald Cracks appear in Windows’ corporate dominance seems to bear out what the average person is seeing - Apple gear everywhere

The most interesting section of the article was:

Microsoft has traditionally dominated the corporate workplace and more than 85 per cent of corporate computers still run some version of Windows software. But products based on Apple operating systems - including Macintosh computers, iPads and iPhones - are increasing in demand.

Apple declined to comment on its hiring moves. But Forrester Research analyst Frank Gillett said a rash of recent job ads by Apple is “strong evidence that Apple is responding to the demands of companies for a direct, formal relationship” with the company rather than buying products from the Apple Store.

The growing appetite for Apple products in the workplace underscores the changing nature of the corporate market. Workers want lighter laptops, tablet computers with longer-lasting batteries and smartphones with apps in the office environment. And information technology departments and buyers are listening.

Last year, 46 per cent of companies in North America and Europe issued Macs to employees, according to a survey from Forrester Research.

More importantly the demographics were telling:

Younger workers and those near or at the top of the corporate ladder were more likely to use Apple products in the office, according to the survey. Forty-one per cent of Apple users were directors, 43 per cent earned more than $US150,000 a year, and 28 per cent were between the ages of 18 and 24.

In other words the future decision makers were packing Cupertino hardware as were company directors and corporate professionals.

This doesn’t bode at all well for Microsoft and their Windows platform.

In Australia the Commonwealth Bank has made the decision to jump platform from Dell to Apple for their laptops.

The battle for the hearts and minds of the current and future decision makers is being fought right now and Ballmer and his crew of happy Microsofties are not doing too well.

Will Apple Snatch Defeat from the Jaws of Victory?

Since the return of Steve Jobs to Apple they’ve just gone from strength to strength with a few missteps along the way.

iMac
iPod
iPhone
iPad
iTunes
MacBook
MacBook Pro
MacBook Air
Apple Stores
the upcoming iCloud that we hope launches better than MobileMe
the App Store

That’s a lot of winners.

Now Apple is making inroads into the corporate market, the potential to become a massively dominant player is within their grasp.

Will they ‘screw the pooch’? Sad to say that a very possible scenario.

If you look at the recent launch of Final Cut Pro X you’d have to say that was pretty comprehensively screwed up. Apple managed to piss off a vast majority of editors with that one. I know they’re saying just wait for the updates and all will be good, but people don’t want to wait for the updates. They want it to be good when they get it.

That’s kind of like buying a Porsche and discovering that the wheels are on a boat from Outer Mongolia so you’ll just have to wait until they arrive and THEN everything will be really good. Promise.

The truth of the matter is that Apple do not, and appear to never have, understood the corporate market. Sure they understand it better than the Gnomes of Mountain View, but they don’t get it like Microsoft do.

I talked about this some time back in this old blog entry at Anthill. Apple just don’t seem to get corporate customers, but, there is a chance that this may change with the Commonwealth Bank deploying 4000 MacBook Air laptops to replace their fleet of Dell laptops.

If they don’t screw things up at the Commonwealth and they can learn about what corporates want, they might, just might, figure out how to crack this market sector.

That being said if anyone can screw up a deal like this its Apple.

The best Tech Industry Analyst on the Planet.

Each morning people look to their inbox to read the latest piece of financial prognostication from the merchant bank employed augury.

With bated breath they wait to see what pearls of wisdom they’ve gleaned from reading the entrails of some dead animal, or the patterns of the clouds, flights of birds or even the alignment of the planets.

The readers of these inarticulate Nostradamus like ravings then trade their hard earned on the basis of these obscure prophecies. They also pay good money to get these ‘briefings’.

I’ve met the best Tech Industry Analyst on the planet. My 5 year old.

The other day I was in JB Hi-Fiand something struck me.

As I was walking through the computers I noticed that all the kids (and a lot of the adults) were happily playing with the iPads, iMacs and MacBooks. Most of the people in the store were also rocking an iPhone.

The Windows machines - and there were a lot of them (mostly from Dell) didn’t have a soul fiddling with them. JB Hi-Fi (at least at this store) were giving over about 20 meters of shelf space to these machines and I wasn’t seeing anyone show any interest.

In fact they had an Alienware laptop on display. I mean this is a rockstar of a gaming laptop with horsepower to spare, glowing lights, backlit keyboard, awesome performance and no one was giving it the time of day.

Now I don’t know how much Dell pay JB for the shelf space, if anything, but, I also noticed that JB had all Dell stock marked down. Still no one was buying, or even remotely interested.

Here’s why I’d be worried if I were Microsoft. All the kids, and I mean ALL the kids. Wanted to play with the Apple gear. They were waiting for a turn and I’ve seen this in other places too.

I remember many years back, kids would want to line up and play with Windows machines. Yeah. I know. Somebody’s going to talk about games and gaming. The demo XBox and Playstations weren’t being used either.

The kids wanted to play with the Apple gear. I even heard some kids complaining when their parents wanted to leave the store because they wanted to keep playing with the equipment.

If so many kids want to play with Apple equipment and not Windows - in a few years, when they’re making the buying decisions I think Microsoft will be in a pack of trouble.

They’re losing the battle for the hearts and minds of the next generation of buyers.

The Apple Double Play.

I just finished reading an article in PC Magazine that really got me thinking.

The piece was entitled ‘The Apple Product That Really Worries PC Vendors’.

It really got me thinking, especially in light of the fact that the Commonwealth Bank recently decided to arm their staff with MacBook Air laptops.

The interesting this about this was the following:

Branch visitors were free to use iMac, iPad, iPod and Asus touchscreen devices to browse foreign exchange rates, products, and to make appointments with CBA specialists – much like how Apple customers arranged to visit the vendor’s ‘Genius bar’.
The bank also planned to replace internal Dell desktops with MacBook Air notebooks nationwide, allowing employees to choose to operate on either Mac OS or Windows platforms.

Wow! I really mean WOW!

Think about this in terms of the the information from Canalys that I mentioned in this post ‘Wintel Market Share Slips’.

The Commonwealth Bank, the guys who hung on to OS/2 for years past its expiry date are doing a widespread deployment of Apple MacBook Air laptops. This is astounding news.

Here’s the really amazing potential - lets assume that they replace all 4000 Dell laptops with the MacBook Air. Here’s the really interesting maths:

4000 copies of Windows 7 Entreprise, even at the best possible price couldn’t be less that $175 a copy, lets call it $150 just to keep the calculations simple. Lion is $31.99.

That means a saving on OS upgrade costs of $472,040.

Half a Million Dollars saving on an Operating System upgrade!

Where would you want the half million, on your bottom line or on Microsoft’s?

Careful of your answer, your shareholders are watching.