I’m am indeed shocked!

You’re saying that Apple users actually install third-party applications, even though Apple has already provided them with an app “out-of-the-box”?

Not on the iPhone they don’t

I’m sure Eric Schmidt does prefer Macs to Wintel. It would be kinda amazing if he didn’t… given that he’s worked at Novell, Sun, and now Google.

Apple users aren’t all die hard Safari users you know, we do install and use Firefox when needed.

They do have an Enterprise team, but it isn’t up to the job of winning this battle. So, it would need more people, more money, and more management time etc.

And for what? Selling hardware for the corporate desktop is, on the whole, a low-margin business.

For example - IBM.. who obviously invented the business PC.. got out of the game because they couldn’t make any money out of it. That a Chinese company (Lenovo) bought the IBM PC business should tell you something about the margins here.

So, the opportunity cost is that if they deploy people and spend money, and use scarce management time to think about going after the corporate desktop… well these are all resources that aren’t being deployed going after high-margin opportunities.

Google Office apps are great - but they don’t meet the needs of the Enterprise. So, there is no way they can take market share from MS Office any time soon.

And, by the way, Google Office apps could cause some problems for people with Macs… for example, I believe the Google wordpressor and the Google spreadsheet don’t actually work on Safari. Yes, the Google CEO is on Apple’s Board, but that doesn’t mean Google has to focus on Apple all the time. The Genentech CEO is also on the Apple Board, but Genentech isn’t an exclusive Mac company. The Genentech CEO, as I understand it (I could be wrong here - it’s second-hand information), is pretty agnostic on the Apple/Windows debate as it applies to Genentech.

As for Google being a good partner for Enterprise sales… I don’t have any experience of Google’s Enterprise organisation. I’m actually speaking at a conference in a couple of weeks where the Head of Google’s European Enterprise stuff is also speaking. I’ll be interested to see what he has to say…

http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1814

Maybe I’m not understanding the opportunity cost here, the nature of the products means they cross consumer and enterprise markets, does Apple have to do anything else specifically only for the corporate desktop market? If Google Office is successful at taking market share from Microsoft, then the web browser it needs to run does not have to be on a Windows platform….

As for why Apple should ignore that “open door” of getting Mac OS X on the corporate desktop, I think the answer is what’s known as “opportunity cost”…

This is a timely discussion… see:

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/022707-mac-os-going-corporate.html?page=1

I just don’t see it though. I think there’s very little appetite for this. And, given that Apple has just changed its name from “Apple Computer Inc”, to “Apple Inc”, I’d guess that Steve Jobs agrees with me.

Their current focus on the consumer with iPods, iPhones, iMacs and Macbooks etc is going really well for them. If they crack the mobile phone thing, they’re gonna get even more successful than they are now (mobile phones much bigger business than MP3 players).

I don’t see why Apple would go after the corporate desktop anymore - it’s a pretty unattractive market for hardware vendors these days. What they’re currently doing for consumers seems to offer so much opportunity for growth, why wouldn’t they maintain focus on that?

http://www.cio.com/advice_opinion/infrastructure/operating_systems/halamka_os_review_print.html?return=1

“Although he has no immediate plans to replace any Windows desktops with Macs, Halamka says he’s going to watch the price and performance of Apple’s newest OS, Leopard, which Apple is scheduled to release in spring 2007. If Leopard offers better administration tools than OS X and is more tightly integrated both with Outlook and with Microsoft’s Exchange server, Halamka would be more inclined to initiate the broader use of Macs. He would want such improvements to ensure that Leopard users won’t encounter as many of the problems he ran into accessing his Outlook calendar and delegation functions.

Halamka says testing alternatives to XP has been a valuable exercise because it made him realize that the Mac can be a viable computing platform for enterprise users.”

CTOs/CIOs need to look at alternatives to XP, and in that respect Leopard would represent an easier move then say Vista. If for example a sales team uses laptops out on the road, they would need the same amount of training to move to Vista as they would need to move to Mac OS X. A small amount of training is needed for any large scale deployment of new software so change is always happening.

Yes I totally agree with you that most people are resistant to change, but are you saying that staying on Windows involves no change? Of course it does, so it’s not a good argument to use against large scale deployment of Macs in certain departments and for certain tasks.

My advise to any large organisation would be that if the productivity of your particular team depends on Office, then a move to Mac OS X would be simpler and more cost efficient in the long run then a move to Vista. Once users get the basic hang of Finder and learn the shortcuts, the learning curve for Mac applications is far shorter then equivalent Windows ones. Mac OS X wouldn’t need to be locked down as much as an equivalent Windows system, and that little extra bit of freedom and creativity is sure to be a positive addition to any team.