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OSX Cries out for Enterprise Applications
The enterprise world is still driven by applications, this is a proven fact that not many will dispute. Look at Microsoft, they have built a fortune on this alone. With things like Exchange Server and their Back Office styled product lines, they made huge leaps in the business world and solidly made themselves to be the staple of the business community. Apple, if they want to survive must also start to make these inroads. The hardware is there, but the software offerings are not quite ready for this once you get past the operating system itself.
After having recently read Kevin Legister's article on iCal that was discussing what it would really need to be in the enterprise world it started me thinking. The first thought that came to mind is "Why not?" Apple has long given it's customers the ease of use that all computers should have, and if they could apply this to their application suite it would make a lot of waves in the heavily tied to Windows sector of the computing world.
It's a fact that there are not enough business applications out there for Mac users, and it has always been like this. This is likely due to the fact that Apple really never did a big focus on business users, instead catering to alternative markets, such as graphics, education, audio and video, and other things that Macs are now known to hold a solid market in. Well, Apple, I think it's time to expand.
One thing that would do wonders for this area would be an Exchange type or compatible server side component. If they could harness that type of power (and by power I mean the functionality side of the power, not specifically Exchange server's power) into OSX Server, I think they could win over quite a lot of IT departments. More so if they could make it as simple to use as the rest of the operating system, and best if they could make it compatible with Exchange server. A drop in replacement would win a lot of coveted seats on largish corporate networks.
Right now Apple focuses much of it's attention on the consumer market. Why you ask? That answer is simple, it is what they are good at. Ease of use and administration of the machines goes pretty far, but if there are no applications that serve other communities it puts you at a standstill quickly. The consumer market is vast, but all in all it is not where the majority of the money is within the computer world. It has never been there and it never will; It is a niche market, where business is a mainstream market.
Lastly, I wanted to mention that quite a lot of long time, die hard windows users in the IT world are starting to slowly come around to see Macs as viable hardware. This acceptance will be slow without a doubt, but it is happening from the reading I do and the people that I know. Even the most hardcore windows geeks are jealous of my 1Ghz TiBook. But the place I'd love to be at is when they are jealous of my simple to use Exchange compatible server and my free iCal clients that let users share calenders and publish in read and write mode (allowing multiple users to edit calendar events is essential). If things get there I believe that Apple has a great chance of pushing into a new market, and not a niche market for a change, but they could stand a chance at becoming real players in the mainstream business computing market.
| Discussions? --- Interact with the writers and other readers... |
| Re: Real List of Enterprise Apps | Matt |
| Enterprise sales can lead to consumer sales | |
| Where is Oracle? | Sanford Barton |
| Re: The consumer market ... a niche market ? | Mark Guertin |
| Real List of Enterprise Apps | Mark Guertin |
| Re: "Real" Enterprise apps - partial listing | Ted Thibodeau Jr |
| The consumer market ... a niche market ? | |
| The consumer market ... | |
| Re: Enterprise apps are more than web services and java | Stingerman |
| Enterprise apps are more than web services and java | AC |
| Make the Mac difficult to use | Anonymous Coward |
| "Real" Enterprise apps - partial listing | steve reinders |
| Enterprise Apps and development tools! | Stingerman |