Apple to open up for the enterprise?

While on vacation in San Francisco last week, my family and I happened to stop by the Apple Store in Union Square. The buzz within was overwhelming--foreign tourists looking for cheap iPods, college students grabbing MacBooks, and business folks lining up for the 3G iPhones.

All of this activity isn't lost on large organizations. It seems that Apple is sitting pretty, ready for a backdoor entrance into the enterprise market with Macs and iPhones over the next few years.

The market certainly appears headed in this direction, but ironically, Apple may be its own worst enemy. Why? With its culture of secrecy, the company isn't willing to work with open standards, or lots of systems and security management companies, preferring instead to cut one-off deals and ignore the masses.

In a recent tour through Silicon Valley, I ran into a few examples of Apple's top-secret culture. The OpenSEA Alliance, an industry standards body focused on building an open 802.1X supplicant, reached out to Apple to work on a Mac-compatible version. With little communication, Apple declined, in spite of the fact that the academic community (one of Apple's biggest markets) is wholeheartedly supporting the open-source effort.

In another case, Apple has yet to announce a strategy for encrypting the data on its iPhones. Why is this important? Because confidential data needs to be protected at endpoints like iPhones, and many enterprise organizations use tools from Check Point Software Technologies (PointSec), McAfee (SafeBoot), PGP, and Utimaco Safeware to do so. Regardless of how Apple decides to encrypt iPhones, it will need to work with these management vendors.

My little post won't have much impact on Steve Jobs and Co., but enterprise CIOs certainly will. These guys demand this type of openness and cooperation. Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle have their own private agendas, yet they have to work with competitors, standards, and management vendors to service their customers. Despite its newfound market panache, I don't see Apple getting a pass here.

Jon Oltsik is a senior analyst at the Enterprise Strategy Group.

[sextondmd]

This article falls along the same thinking as many of apple's critics. "Apple is stubborn, ignores obvious opportunities for growth, and does things there own way . . . . if they would just do like so and so, they would be so much better off". Apple is not attempting to appeal to the masses. The group of people that are willing to pay 1500 for a laptop when you can reasonably buy an equivalent laptop for 800 are not going to pay that premium if there isn't some distinction between the two. Is a BMW 15,000 better than a Honda? Probably not, unless you consider the element of status. Apple understands that their product has the same appeal you see in many other luxury markets.

[Mr. Dee]

The question, is Apple even interested? You are assuming they must go this direction, but they have ignored since their beginning and have seemed fared through it all. Especially in last 11 years, they have strictly ignored the Enterprise and their products are selling like there is no tomorrow. Apple will support the Enterprise, but they are not gonna go out of their way to do it. The consumer and pro design areas is Apples forte and will continue to go after that market and dominate it.

[drpp55]

I don't usually write in the comments but your statement that Apple isn't willing to work with "open standards" is so wrong. Apple has a long history of using open standards all of its software and hardware. I will be happy to start a list but that will easily come from other comments. Better yet as a senior analyst for the Enterprise Strategy Group you should use your own research team to identify all of the open standards Apple employs in software alone.
You should clearly look at your your post and say Apple sometimes has issues with security vendors.

[Constable Odo]

Apple would be missing a healthy chunk of the smartphone market by not taking advantage of the iPhone in all aspects of the enterprise. It wouldn't be that difficult to do since Apple certainly has the money in the bank to tackle any project. We don't know what strategies Apple is working on for the iPhone in using it for high security businesses. But right now, I'd prefer Apple to concentrate on the average end user before tackling the enterprise. Another six months should allow the iPhone and OSX Mobile to mature enough and then try to make the iPhone completely enterprise ready. As far as I'm concerned Apple only has to get past RIM and the BlackBerry and then it's home free.

I don't want to sound greedy, but if Apple can really move 55 million iPhones by 2010, they'll probably own the smartphone market not including the enterprise. That should be more than enough to make any investor happy.

[Thomas, David]

Wow Tom, a little off-base in one of your comments.

"The market certainly appears headed in this direction, but ironically, Apple may be its own worst enemy. Why? With its culture of secrecy, the company isn't willing to work with open standards, or lots of systems and security management companies, preferring instead to cut one-off deals and ignore the masses."

Apple is more than willing to work with open standards, in fact that is what they do in contrast to their counterpart. They also have a tendency to work with other systems as well, barring any "updates" or changes to a system from their counter part. Well, that last part might be the real nut of your argument ... "Security Management Companies" ... these same cats that have been trying to grow/expand their market.

[flintwall]

Security.
This hoary old chestnut keeps comin' around and around. Why don't Apple act like MS? Well, because they have every right not to follow the same path and probably believe(rightly in my opinion) that the work to make MS Windows secure is irrelevant in the Mac OSphere. These same security advisors have been proclaiming 'the sky is falling ever since OSX was released. The reality?? - not even close to the widespread security nightmare that is Windows.
I'm sure Apple is well aware of it's responsibilities and will respond in timely fashion, but not to the drumbeat of vested interest security firms.
No complacency here, we have 350 Macs on site and two XServes with no concerns in the last two years. AND no dedicated security layer either despite continuous pressure and dire warnings from said security companies.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating.