Apple's Macworld Looking To Corporate Users

coondoggie writes to mention a Network World article about a focus on corporate users at the upcoming MacWorld Expo. Along with the consumer announcements (iTV, iPod stuff), there will be several elements dedicated to introducing IT pros to Apple hardware. From the article: "The show has really evolved. For a long time it was a consumer-oriented show and those of us who are from the enterprise space - there weren't very many of us - would use it as a place to meet and compare notes ... Now Macintosh in the enterprise is becoming more recognized and there are tracks that are specifically for us enterprise people. We don't have to sneak off anymore."

Comments

Re:It's hopeless

[drinkypoo]

Unless those apples cost less to keep up / maintain / their software is cheaper / they use less power. By far the largest cost in IT is man hours. If you drop those by a little, you can save more than an apple will cost you.

It doesn't matter at all because the vast majority of business applications are not available for the mac. Period. If macs fill your needs, well, that's great; if not then you either have to choose windows or have a mix of machines which complicates your environment and raises the cost of support because you either need people who know both platforms and are thus ostensibly worth more money (especially if there actually were any real demand for people with mac skills, which we all know there is not) or you more people.

The single biggest cost in the typical windows shops I've seen has been dealing with viruses and malware. But if you lock the systems down a bit, then you can protect them from most of that. Meanwhile the mac simply doesn't serve all your business needs, so you will need something else, and homogeneity makes life MUCH simpler in IT.

Apple needs to catch back up

[JoeCommodore]

Apple needs to catch back up to the business software base they had with OS 7-9, There were tons of cool apps for earlier macs that for one reason or another are not available/usable anymore (largly because the transition to OS 10 proabaly was not worth the developer's efforts to go do a re-wite.)

Here are some of the many great business app casualties:
- MS Project
- MS Outlook
- Dragon Power Secretary
- Omniform
- FoxPro
- AppleWorks
- Virtual PC (Intel) (though Crossover Office has promise)
- Classic (on intel)
- Hypercard

Some that did or are making the transition are hobbled versions compared to earlier versions:
- MS Office 2007 (or whatever they will call it it - will be hobbled- no VBA)
- Noton Utilities (if only it had the features of ver 3)
- Apple iWork (read: AppleWorks beyond 6) where is the Spreadsheet and DB?

Then there are others that offer a new better version but no form of backwards compatibility (such as to convert the old files to new):
- PrintShop
- iWork (AppleWorks->Pages)