Corporate Mac Sales Surge 66%

syngularyx writes "Mac sales in the enterprise during Apple's last fiscal quarter grew a whopping 66 percent, significantly outpacing the rest of the PC market, which grew just 4.5 percent in the enterprise. The data from Apple's previous fiscal quarter was highlighted on Friday by analyst Charlie Wolf with Needham & Company. He said though he originally viewed success in the enterprise as a "one-quarter blip," it now appears to be a "durable platform" for Apple." What makes this especially interesting is that Apple apparently isn't looking for corporate sales, and considers them "collateral success" rather than an indication that they should market specifically to corporate buyers.

Comments

Re:Corporate sales?

[Anonymous Coward]

No dummy.

Obviously the growth from 2 to 3 Macs would be an increase of 50%.

The only logical answer is Apple sold 5 Macs to business as opposed to 3 last quarter.

Re:Collateral success vs indication of support nee

[beelsebob]

Actually, I would bet heavily that the increase is tied strongly to one simple thing – everyone wants to develop an iOS app.

Re:Collateral success vs indication of support nee

[TheRaven64]

Here's an example of the different levels of support that we got from Apple and from Dell when a machine failed in the university lab where I used to work:

Dell sent out a technician to fix it. He brought spare parts with him, and fixed it on the spot. We weren't paying for an expensive support contract - just the standard support Dell gives to large customers - so it sometimes took a day or two before they sent someone out. The machine was out of action for a day or two, and a technician had to spend about 10 minutes on the phone to get it repaired.

Apple kept us on hold or about half an hour, before telling us that we had to take the machine to the nearest Apple Authorised Reseller. The nearest one to Swansea was in Cardiff, which is about an hour and a half's drive away (city centre to city centre), plus a little walk at each end since you couldn't park near the shop in Cardiff. The would then send it to their repair centre, who would take up to three weeks to fix it. Once it was fixed, it had to be collected from there. Machine was out of action for three weeks, and it effectively took an entire day of technician time (two round trips to another city with the machine) to get it fixed.

Somewhat strangely, Mac owned by individuals bought through the Higher Education store got much better support. They sent out a box the next day, you put the broken machine in it, and a day or two later it returned working (normally - I had one experience where it took them a month to admit that they'd lost it, then two attempts to send me a working replacement). For some parts, they send the replacement out, and you put the old one in the box and send it back with the courier when it arrives.

IT hates apple

[EreIamJH]

My comany's new CTO (a total MS drone) came in 18 months ago and the first thing he did was launch a jihad against all the Linux boxen that had been quietly sitting there doing their thing for years. Massive IT pain resulted followed by a major blow out in the IT budget as he busily wrote cheques to MS and Dell. He thought he'd won. Then along came the iPad. First the Board of Directors started asking why they couldn't read the board papers on their iPads, then the CEO wanted one and asked why he couldn't get his email working, then all the executives wanted one. Now iPads have spread down four levels of management. Then people started asking about integrating iPhone because they didn't like having to carry a blackberry just for work. The CTO kept talking about how insecure apples were compared to MS and that it'll take months of careful study to integrate. Last week the CEO sacked him.

Re:Corporate sales?

[petermgreen]

but generally the prices are close once you start matching spec for spec.

The thing is that isn't how one normally buys computers, normally one starts with a set of requirements and then looks for a computer to meet those specs.

And when looked at in this way for many sets of requirements the cheapest mac that meets them is a LOT more expensive than the cheapest PC that meets them.