Workers want Macs

Consumers driving demand for Macs at work

Excerpt:

Soon after Michele Goins became chief information officer at Juniper Networks in February, she decided to respond to the growing chorus of Mac lovers among the networking company's 6,100 employees. For years, many had used Apple's computers at home and clamored for them in the office as well. So she launched a test, letting 600 Juniper staffers use Macs instead of the standard-issue PCs that run Microsoft's Windows operating system. As long as the extra support costs aren't too high, she plans to open the floodgates. "If we opened it up today, I think 25 percent of our employees would choose Macs," she says.

Funny thing is, she has never received a single sales call from Apple. While thousands of other companies scratch and claw for the tiniest sliver of the corporate computing market, Apple treats this vast market with utter indifference. After a series of failed offensives by the company in the 1980s and 1990s, Chief Executive Steve Jobs decided to focus squarely on consumers and education customers when he returned to Apple in 1997. As a result, the company doesn't have ranks of corporate salespeople or armies of repairmen waiting to respond every time a hard drive fails. Nothing that could divert his minions from staying focused on Apple's core calling: creating the next cool thing for the world's consumers.


Comment: What's holding Macs back? In my opinion:

1. The existing support structure inside large corporations is Windows based: Engineers, technicians, desktop support help desks. There is a large base of workers that would need to be cross trained.
   
2. Support for multiple platforms grows exponentially not linearly. Eg: 2 platforms takes 4 times as much support. This holds the Mac back and Linux.
   
3. The interoperability issues (particularly around office documents and email) make the hybrid Mac / Windows office problematic.
   
4. Outlook (Windows) is stronger than the native Mac "Mail". And Outlook is more robust that the Entourage (Microsoft/MAC) mail client.
   
5. Office 2008 (Mac) does not have an Access counterpart (Office 2007). Many don't use Access, but in my company everyone (at least in technology) has it.
   
6. While on can run Windows on a Mac ... if you want to run Windows, it is less expensive to buy a native Windows (Dell, Lenovo, HP, etc) machine.
   
7. Windows workstations are heavily discounted in the corporate environment. Even an ordinary consumer can buy a Windows PC for perhaps half of what a Mac will cost.
   

If I were a small businessman outfitting a new office, I would go with Mac!