Next stop for Apple marketing? The enterprise

Goldman Sachs recently surveyed enterprises and found 20 percent plan to support the iPhone, and Apple's Macs are among the biggest share gainers among computer manufacturers in the enterprise.

On Thursday, however, I saw the clearest sign yet that Apple wants a bite out of the enterprise: a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal. While some vendors like Cisco are looking for growth in emerging markets like the Middle East, Apple's biggest emerging market may well be the Fortune 500:

Apple gets serious about enterprise marketing

(Credit: Apple/Wall Street Journal)

I apologize for the quality of the image, and that I wasn't able to get the entire page into the scanner. It was a full-page ad, after all.

[Penguinisto]

Why not? There's clearly a move towards the iPhone in the enterprise - may as well capitalize on it and make the fruits juicier...

/P

[catch23]

Yes, they said the same thing about XServers. And OSX, and just about every other thing Apple has done.
Guess what? Hasn't amounted to anything, and won't this time.

Is it the year of the Linux desktop again?

See how much wishful thinking gets you?

[rucknrun]

I know their MobileMe launch went so well. A foray into enterprise solutions would be a great idea.

[Jon Eiche]

Ah, Daniel-san, you much humor.

It seems every few months there's a new article along these lines. It's been that way since at least early 2003, when my employer migrated to a Mac OS X file server, running on an Xserve and Xserve RAID. "Apple in the Enterprise" was the Next Big Thing at the time. In the years since, there's been less and less news about success in this market, though just as much speculation about what's surely just around the corner. In the meantime, Apple deep-sixed the Xserve RAID in favor of a third-party unit, and talk of the "corporate push" has morphed from servers to Windows-on-a-Mac ("quietly invading the enterprise," "no longer just for graphics snobs") to, now, the iPhone.

You'll forgive me if I'm skeptical.

[Galaxy5]

Apple's marketing stance has come a long way since the C:\ONGTLNS.W95 ad in the Wall Street Journal. It's better to sing your own praises than to make fun of the products your audience is using.

[Kev_Orng]

iPhone maybe, but I don't see this being a signal for Mac marketing in the enterprise.

I support Macs in the enterprise, but I also know that if it was MY business, I'd probably lean towards a bunch of cheap generic PCs as well.

At the company I work for we have about half and half. PCs for general office use, Macs for production, because in spite of popular myths, an 8-core Mac Pro tricked out for video editing and loaded with Final Cut Studio, a Matrox i/o box, and the requisite assorted doo-dads came out a lot cheaper ($cdn) than a 4-core Windows workstation similarly tricked out for editing and loaded with Avid and related gear.

But we have special needs, we don't seem to fit into that mysterious "Enterprise" suit. Your mileage may vary.

[SUHAIL3]

Apple has some excellent products, and many of you who claim that you're familiar with the mac enterprise product line but yet can't seem to remember their names, it is Xraid not Xserve RAID, and it's Xserve not X-Servers. But it is true that Apple does not seem or want to understand enterprise customers, they treat enterprise like they treat a home user which does not work.

Apple's Xraid was by far the best and easiest RAID system I've ever installed, but Apple decided to can it and is mow recommending the inferior pos Promise system, which I also had the "pleasure" of installing.

As for OS X Leopard Server, it has some of the best features I could hope for in a mixed environment and at a very reasonable price too, yet with Apple's track record of giving their IT customers the silent treatment or dropping a crucial piece of technology all together like a hot potato, makes it hard in making the move. It's always been a risk to put your IT balls in Apples hands, and unfortunately for this reason and this reason only I recommend Linux or the ridiculously more expensive Windows Server over the feature full OS X Server.

However, I still highly recommend the Xserve, if you're not going to use OS X Server, you can use Linux or Windows Server on the same box. The hardware is rock solid, runs flawlessly, looks awesome, and is high quality in every way.

[Seaspray0]

Compete in the enterprise? They're going to have to do alot more than "I'm a mac/pc". CIO's are interested in what a network of computers can do, not what an individual computer can do. Companies use custom applications and enterprise services to get the job done. That means more than "I can read my email and browse the internet"... Apple hasn't even scratched the surface on what enterprise needs. What has apple provided that will compare with a microsoft network providing DNS, DHCP, Routing services, Domain controller services, group policy management, file and print sharing, exchange, office communications services, sharepoint, system center, automated software distribution, automated OS deployment, distributed file systems, terminal services, webhosting, ftp hosting, visual studio to build custom applications, easy , plus much much more? <silence>. Microsoft has been doing all this for years. In the corporate enterprise, microsoft IS the inovation. Apple? They haven't even scratched the surface.