The enterprise opportunity Apple is hiding from

There probably isn't a week that goes by without an enterprise IT manager hearing one of their users lament "why can't I have one of those cool iMacs instead of this boring, grey PC?" It's enough to make even the strongest IT manager run for the hills.

The power of the Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) marketing machine is strong -- the machines are just cool -- and while Apple is focused squarely on the consumer segment, with products such as the iPhone, Apple products are coming onto the radar of the IT department more and more. It's called the halo effect; Apple's consumer success is causing users to agitate to have the same cool tools that they use at home available at the office as well.

While IT had a list of tried and true answers to bar Apple for many years -- cost of support, compatibility with Windows networks, cost of acquisition -- those barriers have been coming down, one by one. New management tools make managing mixed networks simple. Apple's move to the Intel chipset makes managing mixed environments easy -- you can even run Windows on a Mac device. And the increased reliability of an Apple machine can net-out the marginal difference in acquisition cost.

To continue reading, register here and become an Insider. You'll get free access to premium content from CIO, Computerworld, CSO, InfoWorld, and Network World. See more Insider content or sign in.

There probably isn't a week that goes by without an enterprise IT manager hearing one of their users lament "why can't I have one of those cool iMacs instead of this boring, grey PC?" It's enough to make even the strongest IT manager run for the hills.

The power of the Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) marketing machine is strong -- the machines are just cool -- and while Apple is focused squarely on the consumer segment, with products such as the iPhone, Apple products are coming onto the radar of the IT department more and more. It's called the halo effect; Apple's consumer success is causing users to agitate to have the same cool tools that they use at home available at the office as well.

While IT had a list of tried and true answers to bar Apple for many years -- cost of support, compatibility with Windows networks, cost of acquisition -- those barriers have been coming down, one by one. New management tools make managing mixed networks simple. Apple's move to the Intel chipset makes managing mixed environments easy -- you can even run Windows on a Mac device. And the increased reliability of an Apple machine can net-out the marginal difference in acquisition cost.

So, increasingly, there is a stronger and stronger case to be made for bringing Apple into the enterprise market. The question is, is the enterprise a market that the fiercely consumer-focused company even wants to go after?

Apple stays silent

On that question, the jury is out. Apple Canada declined several requests to be interviewed for this feature, and Apple has also declined requests from several U.S. publications on the same topic in recent years. In Asia, however, Apple executives seem more willing to discuss the business case for the Mac.

In an October, 2009 interview with Network World Asia, Angeline Tan, Apple Asia's marketing manager for portable products, said some of the factors that make the Mac attractive to businesses include simplicity, ease of use, design aesthetics and robustness.

"Macs are designed with user needs and requirements in mind. We develop not just the hardware but the software to cater to the needs of consumers, businesses as well as the education segment," said Tan. "A lot of thought, attention to detail and R&D goes into the minute details and features of the product -- right from a simple application icon, to the insides of the Macs and even the packaging."

The enterprise is certainly an untapped market for Apple. According to a November, 2009 report from Forrester Research on Enterprise Platform Trends, enterprise Mac OS use was at just four per cent in June 2009, up from one per cent when Forrester first began tracking the statistic in 2006.

"While still a small figure, imagine the success if Apple decided to actually pay attention to enterprises and address their concerns: When IT does the buying, in lieu of end users, it looks for standardization, compatibility, low cost to benefit, and ease of administration and servicing," wrote Forrester. "But for now Apple's numbers and growth are not significant enough for any but the most all-encompassing enterprise vendors to devote development time to."