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Mac OS bigger in business (but still small)
- TAGS:AAPL, Apple, Ben Gray, forrester, Market Share
- IT TOPICS:Hardware, Linux, Macintosh & Apple, Operating Systems, Windows & Microsoft
In Wednesday's IT Blogwatch, we watch Apple's enterprise market share grow. Not to mention Error'd Error'd Everywhere...
Gregg Keizer reports:
Even without a strategy to push its computers into corporations, Apple Inc. has managed to nearly quadruple its share of the enterprise market in the last 19 months, an analyst said today.Apple's Mac OS X currently accounts for 4.5% of the business operating system market, said Ben Gray, analyst at Forrester Research Inc. As recently as January 2007, Apple held just 1.2% of the enterprise market, according to data collected from Forrester clients who visited the research firm's Web site.
And that has all happened without Apple lifting much of a finger. "I haven't seen anything from Apple that seems to show that it's attack[ing] the enterprise market" ... [He] expects that Apple will continue to post small, steady gains during the next 18 months, a period when he predicts PC refreshes and operating system migrations, which stalled last year and in the first half of this year, will pick up.
David Dahlquist adds:
While PCs have traditionally reigned supreme in the enterprise market, the Mac is steadily gaining a foothold in the corporate world—without even trying!Benjamin Gray of Forrester Research reports that Mac adoption among business users has not doubled, not tripled, but has quadrupled since 2006. That’s “epic win x 4”, for the mathematically challenged.
...
So what’s the cause of Mac’s sudden quadrupalage of enterprise market share? Gray attributes it to the overwhelming success of the iPod.
Allison Selene expands:
The way the process has worked is that consumers buy iPods, iPods lead to growth in Mac adoption for personal use, the adoption of Macs for personal use has made them more palatable for a sector of the enterprise IT world ... Apple, if it chooses to market to the enterprise, has two trojan horses, assuming Forrester is correct. The iPod and the iPhone. Of the two, the iPhone is the ultimate killer app for enterprise penetration, if Apple can get IT concerns addressed.
...
Whether you love or hate Apple, you have to admit that their story this decade has been impressive, and it continues to impress.
But Seth Weintraub can't resist a dig at Joe Wilcox:
Forrester ... seems to say that Apple is making slow but positive progress in the Enterprise. Unfortunately, the published numbers don't reflect that.
...
Eweek picked it up as did some of my other favorite blogs who followed the Eweek author's take on the report. I am not sure anyone really read the report (including the author!) because over the last month, Apple's enterprise numbers fell 10% from 5% to 4.5% marketshare. Meanwhile Windows was at its second highest point since 2007.
...
How does this get spun into positive Macintosh news? I am not sure. One could look at the long term numbers -- which are available two months ago. Apple has gained .3% marketshare since Dec 2007. That's better than Linux. Linux went from 1.8% marketshare in January to 3.5% in February then down to .5% in March. This roller coaster ride makes the data sources seem a bit questionable.
David Zeiler is "compelled against his will" to use Windows:
While 4.5 percent of the enterprise market may appear puny next to the nearly 95 percent held by Microsoft’s Windows, it is nevertheless startling that the Mac has made any headway at all in a market in which it had languished for years. An array of stubborn perceptions made the Mac a pariah platform in the enterprise.
...
Today’s students are tomorrow’s young workers, and ever-higher numbers of them are Apple customers ... another reason why it could enjoy year-over year Mac sales growth of 30 to 40 percent for quite a few quarters to come.Imagine what would happen if Apple actually put some effort into selling Macs to the enterprise. Yep.
But Kurt Mackie has a different spin on Forrester data, m'kay:
Businesses may have been slow to adopt Microsoft Windows Vista, but expect that to change by late 2008 to 2009, according to a Forrester Research report led by Benjamin Gray ... [who] suggested that foot dragging on Vista by businesses had come about from factors such as the economy, "Vista's perception problems" and past incompatibilities. Those issues will diminish with time, making 2009 "a big year for change."
...
Conversions from Windows XP to Windows Vista are on the rise, from five percent in 4Q 2007 to 8.8 percent in 2Q 2008. The study called that finding "a new trend." Previously, Vista upgrades were associated mostly with "Windows 2000 shops."
...
It found Mac OS use rising from a 3.6 percent in Oct. 2007 to 4.5 percent in June 2008 ... That said, Microsoft Windows still held 94.9 percent of the market, and Linux tanked at just 0.5 percent.
Robert Palmer's addicted to stats:
Windows' overall share of the corporate market dipped slightly from 95.6 to 94.9 percent for the same time period.
And finally...
Buffer overflow:
Other Computerworld bloggers:
- Seth Weintraub: Microsoft trying to spoil Apple's September 9th party with new Surface technology?
- Mike Elgan: Twitter times 20
- Don Tennant: Taiwan's blame game
- Mitch Betts: Online travel sites lack personal touch
- SJVN: Why does Apple get a break?
- Robert L. Mitchell: Groundhog Day: A Windows Briefcase nightmare
- John Brandon: Pandora is dying or already dead
- Shark Tank: Details, details
- Shark Bait: Classic
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Richi Jennings is an independent analyst/adviser/consultant, specializing in blogging, email, and spam. A 22 year, cross-functional IT veteran, he is also an analyst at Ferris Research. You can follow him on Twitter, pretend to be Richi's friend on Facebook, or just use boring old email: blogwatch@richi.co.uk.
Previously in IT Blogwatch:
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