The Macalope’s going to be honest with you. He never thought he’d see the day when corporate IT shops would welcome Apple products.
But it was just over a year ago that he had to chastise himself for his knee-jerk assumption that IT managers would prefer to barricade the doors to the data center and die slowly of asphyxiation rather than allow Apple products in on their watch.
Because, really, that only happened in a couple of places. Well, 18.
Look around these days, though, and you can’t swing an iPhone 4S by its headphones without hitting some Apple products in the enterprise, and voiding the warranty on at least the iPhone.
Forrester analyst Frank Gillett describes how Apple’s broken Microsoft’s “lock” on the enterprise market:
“Before the iPhone, Apple in the enterprise was all about the Mac, but when the iPhone showed up [in 2007] it cracked the door open,” said Gillett. “But it was the [refreshed] MacBook Air, combined with the iPad, that really created a whole reshift of how to look at business use of devices.”
Now, remember that Windows XP was still, as of a month ago, the top OS, according to NetApplications. That’s a lot of machines—most of which, the Macalope assumes, are corporate—that still need upgrading. Microsoft needs to convince those people to sign on for another tour of duty in “it must be Vietnam because otherwise why is the CEO so sweaty?”
Now the company’s headed into Windows 8, and while some of what it’s shown is ambitious, the new OS presents a lot of challenges for Windows users.
As much as Microsoft might want to push a new user interface (and the associated app store, which could be a sweet little revenue generator) onto the masses, the company is also sensitive to the fact that another Vista-style foul-up could mean serious trouble for the company, if not the industry as a whole.
Well, not “as a whole.” Some vendors might do pretty well. Like, say, the ones that are fruit-themed.
What?
No, not BlackBerry.
What’s wrong with you?
[Editors’ Note: In addition to being a mythical beast, the Macalope is not an employee of Macworld. As a result, the Macalope is always free to criticize any media organization. Even ours.]