So here is the problem, the AIOs are severely underpowered and unexpandable. So why pay 2x the money, and limit your self. Sure "technically" the emacs are a great value, but even people purchasing entry level computers want room to grow. On an imac/emac you don't have room to grow into a better monitor or a larger hard drive easily. And this is a huge drawback for many consumers, even if they do not take advantage of the expansion. Personally, we have 2 PC that have been in use since 1997/8. Each machine has had processor, RAM, optical drive, hard drive and monitor upgrades. Based on how these machines are used, the will be in use for 2 more years easily. If it was an all-in-one machine, we would have had to trash them once we needed these upgrades.
RAM and HD upgrades are possible in the AIOs - you'll want a tech to do them, but most consumers will ask techs to do any upgrade anyway. Also, most consumers never, ever upgrade computers, regardless of how easy it would be to do so, so greater potential expansion mostly addresses the geek market.
Or, rather, it addresses that part of the geek market that expects to have to do a lot of fiddling to get things done. One big reason why Linux conferences are full of PowerBooks: You buy the machine; 5 minutes later you're using it; you never worry about it. Part of the Mac gestalt - and part of what sells Macs - is precisely that you don't have to worry about all that. You can hop off the treadmill and enjoy what you have.
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At my company we have a mac we use to run compatibility testing with our hardware. In most cases there are no problems, but our tech support guys have seen a few issues with Apple users. One key challenge for CIOs is integration and support, but Apple's support offering are not on par with the EMCs, IBMs, HPs and Dells. Apple need a knowledgeable service to go on-site to integrate Apple hardware, as well as offer support for multi-vendor environments. When the enterprises can depend on Apple, and not worry about abandonment, they can seriously consider Apple solutions .
This is all true, and it appears to be something that Apple is working on in earnest. You don't build a robust support structure overnight.
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With people running OS X Jaguar intermittently receiving security patches and updates, and people with older OSes are just out of luck, This doesn't mate well with the typical enterprise environment where they waits for 12-18 months to ensure all of the bugs are removed before implementing new software or adding unproven updates. Apple is eager to push constant updates onto its users, and we have to trust they will work out fine. Enterprise organizations do not have the blind faith Apple relies on in the consumer markets.
To be fair, MS is even worse these days, and they have a long habit of discontinuing support for old software to drive upgrades. The only reason they haven't discontinued support for some older OS' is because of howls of outrage from their customers. And as for "adding unproven updates" - MS is unparalleled in this department, because you now have to choose between applying brand-new patches everywhere immediately or falling prey to this week's viral epidemic. If anything, Apple would be an improvement here. There is generally very little urgency in applying their system updates, so you can regression test them to your heart's content before pushing them out. Apple is still more patch-happy than, say, FreeBSD, but they're hardly worse than Linux and much better than MS.
As for migration from Exchange, MS still seems to get a bye: Nobody thinks twice about the difficulty of migrating from, say, Notes to Exchange, but if you advocate migrating from Exchange to Notes then all of a sudden the walls go up and you're being unrealistic and do you know how much trouble that would be?!
One thing about enterprise: Fred Anderson pointed out that the enterprise market is 30% of the overall market. The consumer market dwarfs it. The appeal of enterprise lies in two areas: First, it's what the Wintel market is geared for anyway - their consumer offerings are basically funny-looking enterprise configurations; and second, you only sell one machine to one consumer customer, but you can sell 10,000 to one enterprise customer, so there are significant economies of scale associated with enterprise sales. People will also tend to buy for home what they use at work; but you can also sell them on a machine that they won't have to put up with, unlike their machine at work.
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My 2 cents. Apple has a ways to go, and even the speediest hardware won't solve all of Apple's key marketshare problems.
In this we agree. Apple's had the fastest hardware several times before, and it's never really mattered. They'll have to have made a great deal of progress before price/performance is their biggest issue.
RAM and HD upgrades are possible in the AIOs - you'll want a tech to do them, but most consumers will ask techs to do any upgrade anyway. Also, most consumers never, ever upgrade computers, regardless of how easy it would be to do so, so greater potential expansion mostly addresses the geek market.
One thing about enterprise: Fred Anderson pointed out that the enterprise market is 30% of the overall market. The consumer market dwarfs it. The appeal of enterprise lies in two areas: First, it's what the Wintel market is geared for anyway - their consumer offerings are basically funny-looking enterprise configurations; and second, you only sell one machine to one consumer customer, but you can sell 10,000 to one enterprise customer, so there are significant economies of scale associated with enterprise sales. People will also tend to buy for home what they use at work; but you can also sell them on a machine that they won't have to put up with, unlike their machine at work.
Well there is one important thing about the geek market. The consumers ask their geek friends to help them choose a computer. And those geeks are most likely to do the updates for them. So the average person...who doesn't need or do the upgrades....is listening to the type of person who will. And that is why the consumer machines need expansion, every "expert" tells them that is what they need. So I disagree. I'll admit, we took our PCs to our tech for upgrades too. And then you get to the last piece of the puzzle, mac techs. If you can't take it to Best Buy, and no one you know can upgrade it, well...you just won't get one. The all-in-ones are too weird for the PC techs. A tower (even small form factor) would be much less challenging for techs, and more attractive for consumers venturing to the unknown world of apple.
Going after the enterprise, even though it is a smaller market than the consumer is the whole work/home thing. People want to be able to "communicate" with people at work...so their choices mirror the work environment. Until there is prooof that Apple plays well in corporate environments, people will keep getting PCs (even though they don't have tha trusty IT guy on site at home to help them)
Apple needs to work with current hardware and software infrastructure, whether it is exchange, lotus notes, office, iSCSI, whatever. Sure we wish people could just ditch exchange, so we do not have to work about entourage's sub-par exchange support..but that is foolhardy.
The largest problem with Apple and the enterprise is NO ONE knows where Apple wants or plans to go. At least you know with Microsoft, if enough people complain and refuse to upgrade they will change their policy. Microsofts OS support contunies for a long time, including updates (Windows 2000 still has current security updates...but if you are back on 10.1 you don't get jack), WE aren't talking about not supporting Office 95 here, if Apple drops support for itunes 1.0, it isn't a deal breaker, but Early OS X adopters have been forced to move up if they want a secure, stable OS thats works with software packages. Apple might decide on a whim "a screw you cheap people policy" and abandon the project altogether.
Well there is one important thing about the geek market. The consumers ask their geek friends to help them choose a computer. And those geeks are most likely to do the updates for them. So the average person...who doesn't need or do the upgrades....is listening to the type of person who will. And that is why the consumer machines need expansion, every "expert" tells them that is what they need. So I disagree. I'll admit, we took our PCs to our tech for upgrades too. And then you get to the last piece of the puzzle, mac techs. If you can't take it to Best Buy, and no one you know can upgrade it, well...you just won't get one. The all-in-ones are too weird for the PC techs. A tower (even small form factor) would be much less challenging for techs, and more attractive for consumers venturing to the unknown world of apple.
And Apple's solution to the failure of imagination of most geeks (who recommend what they'd like rather than trying to figure out what non-geeks would want) is the Apple Store. Need your computer fixed? There's the Genius Bar. They're working on moving all your data over for you, and on all of the various other tasks that a local "computer person" would normally handle, right there in the store. AIOs are nothing unusual for Apple techs. The point of putting Apple Stores in very high-traffic shopping locations is to attract walk-in traffic and bypass the local geek altogether.
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Going after the enterprise, even though it is a smaller market than the consumer is the whole work/home thing. People want to be able to "communicate" with people at work...so their choices mirror the work environment. Until there is prooof that Apple plays well in corporate environments, people will keep getting PCs (even though they don't have tha trusty IT guy on site at home to help them)
Actually, I think it has less to do with "communication" - except for the fear that they won't be able to communicate with anyone, which is still a perceived problem with Macs - and more to do with the fact that whatever they use at work is a known quantity. Unless it really sucks, you're likely to get it just because you already know what it is. This is why enterprise is so important to Dell, in particular - you can't walk into a store and look at a Dell, so their best chance to get you comfortable enough to hit their web site is to target your employer. Apple, again, is going directly for consumers. Their (rough) equivalent for enterprise is education.
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Apple needs to work with current hardware and software infrastructure, whether it is exchange, lotus notes, office, iSCSI, whatever. Sure we wish people could just ditch exchange, so we do not have to work about entourage's sub-par exchange support..but that is foolhardy.
And that's why MS is a monopoly. They've got everyone trapped in 1992, as if the internet had never gone mainstream, with proprietary mail and contact software (remember that?). And they've done everything they can to make it as difficult as possible to be compatible to lock people in. Apple can work with Lotus, and they can work with a number of other solutions, but the infuriating thing about the way everyone assumes that a transition to Microsoft is always unambiguously better is that they buy into a closed and locked system. It's not in MS' interest to ever open it, and I wouldn't be surprised if MS declared open war on Apple for successfully reverse-engineering MAPI. This is up to MS, and the only way it will change is if MS changes it. Ditto Office file format compatibility - again, MS deliberately made it nearly impossible to reverse engineer, even to the extent of compromising the stability of Office itself, and somehow this is supposed to be everyone else's problem to fix. MS gets a free pass, again.
When people pull their heads out of the sand, we can make real progress.
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The largest problem with Apple and the enterprise is NO ONE knows where Apple wants or plans to go. At least you know with Microsoft, if enough people complain and refuse to upgrade they will change their policy.
So then, if enough people complain and refuse to upgrade Exchange, will MS open up MAPI? If they refuse to upgrade Office (which is a problem for MS right now, actually) will MS open up .DOC? I think you'll find that there are issues where MS will absolutely refuse to budge. But since MS always gets a free pass, everyone will pretend not to notice this.
Their solution to slow upgrades sofar has been to send armed marshals into businesses to extort money from them - or else they'll get audited on ridiculous terms, and billed for their trouble.
Apple has as well, many times. OS X had teething problems, but so did Windows. You mention Win 2000, but XP is only an upgrade to 2000. Where's the support NT3? NT 4? Those are the equivalents of the early builds of OS X.
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Early OS X adopters have been forced to move up if they want a secure, stable OS thats works with software packages. Apple might decide on a whim "a screw you cheap people policy" and abandon the project altogether.
Well, again, how do you think the early adopters of NT are doing? The only saving grace in MS' case is their relatively glacial progress in releasing operating systems, but this is matched by enterprises' glacial pace of updating systems. Installations of Windows versions older than 2000 are still fairly common. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. But don't expect to run anything other than what you're running now, either.
And Apple's solution to the failure of imagination of most geeks (who recommend what they'd like rather than trying to figure out what non-geeks would want) is the Apple Store. Need your computer fixed? There's the Genius Bar. They're working on moving all your data over for you, and on all of the various other tasks that a local "computer person" would normally handle, right there in the store. AIOs are nothing unusual for Apple techs. The point of putting Apple Stores in very high-traffic shopping locations is to attract walk-in traffic and bypass the local geek altogether.
Apple stores aren't everywhere, and when it comes down to it, you will still trust your friends computer advice over the sales guy at the local computer store.
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Actually, I think it has less to do with "communication" - except for the fear that they won't be able to communicate with anyone, which is still a perceived problem with Macs - and more to do with the fact that whatever they use at work is a known quantity. Unless it really sucks, you're likely to get it just because you already know what it is. This is why enterprise is so important to Dell, in particular - you can't walk into a store and look at a Dell, so their best chance to get you comfortable enough to hit their web site is to target your employer. Apple, again, is going directly for consumers. Their (rough) equivalent for enterprise is education.
I agree, but it is still up to Apple to talk to these people about their fears.
Apple shouldn'a abandon the enterprise, because people think what happens at work is more important than school. Work is the "real world," schools can do what they like.
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And that's why MS is a monopoly. They've got everyone trapped in 1992, as if the internet had never gone mainstream, with proprietary mail and contact software (remember that?). And they've done everything they can to make it as difficult as possible to be compatible to lock people in. Apple can work with Lotus, and they can work with a number of other solutions, but the infuriating thing about the way everyone assumes that a transition to Microsoft is always unambiguously better is that they buy into a closed and locked system. It's not in MS' interest to ever open it, and I wouldn't be surprised if MS declared open war on Apple for successfully reverse-engineering MAPI. This is up to MS, and the only way it will change is if MS changes it. Ditto Office file format compatibility - again, MS deliberately made it nearly impossible to reverse engineer, even to the extent of compromising the stability of Office itself, and somehow this is supposed to be everyone else's problem to fix. MS gets a free pass, again.
When people pull their heads out of the sand, we can make real progress.
Shoud Microsoft get a free pass? No. But that doesn't change reality. Microsoft won the game, and everyone else has to play by their rules to compete in the next round. End of story
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So then, if enough people complain and refuse to upgrade Exchange, will MS open up MAPI? If they refuse to upgrade Office (which is a problem for MS right now, actually) will MS open up .DOC? I think you'll find that there are issues where MS will absolutely refuse to budge. But since MS always gets a free pass, everyone will pretend not to notice this.
Their solution to slow upgrades sofar has been to send armed marshals into businesses to extort money from them - or else they'll get audited on ridiculous terms, and billed for their trouble. [/quotes]
And Microsoft customer's should speak with their wallets, and well the customer are still buying, no matter how jacked up the policies are.
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Apple has as well, many times. OS X had teething problems, but so did Windows. You mention Win 2000, but XP is only an upgrade to 2000. Where's the support NT3? NT 4? Those are the equivalents of the early builds of OS X.
Yes and no, but the key point here is, if you have a two year old Apple OS right now, you arre out of luck in terms of upgrades. Even if you purchased OS X a year ago you won't get updates. NT 3 and 4 were out 10 years ago, it doesn't matter. But mass customer complaints on Win 95/8 caused Microsoft to continue the upgrades for the 5 more years for these old school OSes.
Early versions of OS X were unpolished, but if you aren't running 10.2 you can hardly get your printer to work, forget about fixing security flaws, that is ridiculous. And for get about software...most new stuff won't even run on anything lower than 10.2...and that has barely been out for 24 months.
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Well, again, how do you think the early adopters of NT are doing? The only saving grace in MS' case is their relatively glacial progress in releasing operating systems, but this is matched by enterprises' glacial pace of updating systems. Installations of Windows versions older than 2000 are still fairly common. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. But don't expect to run anything other than what you're running now, either.
Running old versions of windows will still get you new software, just about every Windows title out there (except games and office 2003 which everyone agrees is a waste) will run on at least Win98 and in most cases Win95. That is pretty good for longevity seeing Win98 came out 6 years ago.
Apple engineering is on speed, but Apple developers do not have time to keep up, and this hurts developers, enterprises and consumers. When you upgrade to 10.3 and can't use your printer or scanner that worked fine under 10.2, that is a problem. When you do not get security updates because you are on 10.2, that is a problem. Using Apple means paying for constant updates and innovations, but this breakneck speed isn't good for average users. And this is why many people rule Apple out.
The whole point of people buying an iMac is because it is not headless, it is one complete package that needs only some simple plug in steps (that are clear) to get moving. An iMac that is headless is not an iMac.
An Xstation? Well, why that might be nice to sell, it would be insane because Apple could never garner the chips to produce them at great quantities while still meeting requests for the new PowerMacs that will be (presumption) at WWDC.
I would love to see some new PowerBook G5s, but my heart does not yield the power to create computers.....
Early versions of OS X were unpolished, but if you aren't running 10.2 you can hardly get your printer to work, forget about fixing security flaws, that is ridiculous. And for get about software...most new stuff won't even run on anything lower than 10.2...and that has barely been out for 24 months.
I think that has become a side-affect of the transition to OS X. People either took the leap, and upgraded as released, or they stuck with OS 9. Think about it, the last time Steve mentioned something about the transition it was around (maybe just under) 50% of Mac users. There are still a great number of OS 9 users out there, and that is because they did not want to roll through the tough times of early OS X adoption.
Longhorn will be a key time for Apple in this way too. If they can come up with a solid Enterprise division, excellent sales and support staff and come up with a way to transition a business just plain tired of the MS licensing/upgrade rapings, then they have a good shot at gaining a chunk of that marketshare. I think that is what Steve meant all along when he was saying that "people will migrate when they are fed up enough with MS" or something to that affect. Longhorn and being robbed blind by ridiculous licensing practices. Time will tell.
Running old versions of windows will still get you new software, just about every Windows title out there (except games and office 2003 which everyone agrees is a waste) will run on at least Win98 and in most cases Win95. That is pretty good for longevity seeing Win98 came out 6 years ago.
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Sort of...yea the new stuff will run on 98 but beleive me you dont want to do it, it is a miserble nightmere, the software is BUILT for 2k/xp but is also compiled and tested on 98 as a CYA for the venders, and any system that runs 98 doesnt have the horsepower to run moddern apps reasonabley and useabley.
this is bigger than the 98 to xp upograde, going from mac classic to X is comparabe to the migration from win 3.1 to 95 or NT4 back in the day
Sort of...yea the new stuff will run on 98 but beleive me you dont want to do it, it is a miserble nightmere, the software is BUILT for 2k/xp but is also compiled and tested on 98 as a CYA for the venders, and any system that runs 98 doesnt have the horsepower to run moddern apps reasonabley and useabley.
this is bigger than the 98 to xp upograde, going from mac classic to X is comparabe to the migration from win 3.1 to 95 or NT4 back in the day
True, but my beef if is with the fairly small jump from 10.1 to 10.3....and the fac that running 10.1 is like software purgatory. Damned if you do and damned if you don't. I understand if a developer wants to dump classic, that makes sense. But 10.1 was dumped to. And that was only from 2 years ago.
But I still vote for a cheaper headless mac. It can be called whatever.
True, but my beef if is with the fairly small jump from 10.1 to 10.3....and the fac that running 10.1 is like software purgatory. Damned if you do and damned if you don't. I understand if a developer wants to dump classic, that makes sense. But 10.1 was dumped to. And that was only from 2 years ago.
I can see your point, but who would want to live with the sluggishness of 10.1? Jaguar saw great speed improvements and Panther too a good degree as well.
I remember the Public Beta days and thought, man this is cool. Hopefully the 10.0 release will be faster though. It was slower and 10.1 was about on par with the Public Beta, although more stable.
Apple stores aren't everywhere, and when it comes down to it, you will still trust your friends computer advice over the sales guy at the local computer store.
Apple Stores cover over 80% of the market, and there are more coming. Maybe your friend's advice got you a fiddly computer that became a virus attractor? Or maybe your friend actually recommended a Mac? OS X has brought a lot of geek cred to the platform, and the gorgeous hardware hasn't hurt. Geeks might like internal expandability, but they're still buying iBooks and PowerBooks in droves.
Failing that, though, the odds are very good that you'll find yourself near an Apple Store, and if the numbers are any indication, the numbers are pretty good that you'll find yourself in one, and then you'll find yourself walking out with a Mac.
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I agree, but it is still up to Apple to talk to these people about their fears.
Apple shouldn'a abandon the enterprise, because people think what happens at work is more important than school. Work is the "real world," schools can do what they like.
Apple didn't abandon the enterprise. The enterprise abandoned Apple. Apple is currently working very hard to gain enterprise sales, so the problem is not Apple's lack of attention.
My point, however, was that enterprise is not as crucial to Apple as it is to, say, Dell. There are larger markets that Apple is better suited for.
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Shoud Microsoft get a free pass? No. But that doesn't change reality. Microsoft won the game, and everyone else has to play by their rules to compete in the next round. End of story
Their rules are that you can't compete. End of story.
The problem lies 100% with Microsoft. End of story.
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Yes and no, but the key point here is, if you have a two year old Apple OS right now, you arre out of luck in terms of upgrades. Even if you purchased OS X a year ago you won't get updates. NT 3 and 4 were out 10 years ago, it doesn't matter. But mass customer complaints on Win 95/8 caused Microsoft to continue the upgrades for the 5 more years for these old school OSes.
Your point is transient; OS X matured quickly, and there are certain basic things the immature versions aren't capable of. The flip side of that is that early adopters of NT (like my shop) floundered along with incomplete and poorly supported OS's for 10 years. And MS' support is purely maintenance. You still can't plug a USB keyboard into a Win2000 box and expect it to work (we've tried). You have to upgrade.
Time will solve this problem.
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Running old versions of windows will still get you new software, just about every Windows title out there (except games and office 2003 which everyone agrees is a waste) will run on at least Win98 and in most cases Win95. That is pretty good for longevity seeing Win98 came out 6 years ago.
Mileage definitely varies here. Our shop has had one compatibility nightmare after another; $50K/year apps breaking and working between service pack releases, never mind OS releases. And good luck trying to get 95/98 and NT/2000/XP machines talking on the same network.
Win32 is a notorious minefield, and application compatibility is marginal. On the OS X side, you have Classic, which does a remarkable job of running applications developed for a totally different OS, and pretty decent compatibility with older OS X apps given that OS X was thoroughly replumbed multiple times, and the printing architecture was completely replaced twice.
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Apple engineering is on speed, but Apple developers do not have time to keep up, and this hurts developers, enterprises and consumers. When you upgrade to 10.3 and can't use your printer or scanner that worked fine under 10.2, that is a problem. When you do not get security updates because you are on 10.2, that is a problem. Using Apple means paying for constant updates and innovations, but this breakneck speed isn't good for average users. And this is why many people rule Apple out.
What security updates do you not get because you're on 10.2? I've applied every patch they've ever released, including today's, and I'm on 10.2. That assertion is simply wrong.
Printers and scanners die between updates in all operating systems, not least Windows. Drivers are sensitive like that (especially craptacular drivers like Epson's).
All that notwithstanding, the people who rule out Apple for their current high rate of updating only have a point if they're waiting for OS X to stabilize (which I consider completely understandable, from an enterprise perspective). Apple sent out the "development is slowing down" message recently for exactly that audience. If people believe that Apple is doing this for any other reason than to get OS X up to speed as fast as possible, then they have only themselves to blame for missing out when it does get up to speed. Which seems to be with the next release, by Apple's lights.
I like in Northern California, Which is pretty well populated with Apple stores, but I met many people liking on the southern edge of the east bay (ie Fremont and neighboring towns), about 25 miles from all apple stores. And these people do not make it there. In fact they do not even hit the niver mall in my town that is 15 miles away. So nope Apple stores aren't well covered yet. Until then, we will have a problem.
This is not to say I am faulting Apple for the placement of the stores, but if you aren't in the targeted affluent area, your are out of luck (I like 15 miles from the nearest Apple store. I usually go to CompUSA)
I have a good idea for WWDC. If Apple can show me a good finder, I'll be a happy camper. I don't care about hardware or anything new like that. Don't even care about Tiger. Just a good finder, cause this one is a huge joke.
Comments
Originally posted by jade
So here is the problem, the AIOs are severely underpowered and unexpandable. So why pay 2x the money, and limit your self. Sure "technically" the emacs are a great value, but even people purchasing entry level computers want room to grow. On an imac/emac you don't have room to grow into a better monitor or a larger hard drive easily. And this is a huge drawback for many consumers, even if they do not take advantage of the expansion. Personally, we have 2 PC that have been in use since 1997/8. Each machine has had processor, RAM, optical drive, hard drive and monitor upgrades. Based on how these machines are used, the will be in use for 2 more years easily. If it was an all-in-one machine, we would have had to trash them once we needed these upgrades.
RAM and HD upgrades are possible in the AIOs - you'll want a tech to do them, but most consumers will ask techs to do any upgrade anyway. Also, most consumers never, ever upgrade computers, regardless of how easy it would be to do so, so greater potential expansion mostly addresses the geek market.
Or, rather, it addresses that part of the geek market that expects to have to do a lot of fiddling to get things done. One big reason why Linux conferences are full of PowerBooks: You buy the machine; 5 minutes later you're using it; you never worry about it. Part of the Mac gestalt - and part of what sells Macs - is precisely that you don't have to worry about all that. You can hop off the treadmill and enjoy what you have.
At my company we have a mac we use to run compatibility testing with our hardware. In most cases there are no problems, but our tech support guys have seen a few issues with Apple users. One key challenge for CIOs is integration and support, but Apple's support offering are not on par with the EMCs, IBMs, HPs and Dells. Apple need a knowledgeable service to go on-site to integrate Apple hardware, as well as offer support for multi-vendor environments. When the enterprises can depend on Apple, and not worry about abandonment, they can seriously consider Apple solutions .
This is all true, and it appears to be something that Apple is working on in earnest. You don't build a robust support structure overnight.
With people running OS X Jaguar intermittently receiving security patches and updates, and people with older OSes are just out of luck, This doesn't mate well with the typical enterprise environment where they waits for 12-18 months to ensure all of the bugs are removed before implementing new software or adding unproven updates. Apple is eager to push constant updates onto its users, and we have to trust they will work out fine. Enterprise organizations do not have the blind faith Apple relies on in the consumer markets.
To be fair, MS is even worse these days, and they have a long habit of discontinuing support for old software to drive upgrades. The only reason they haven't discontinued support for some older OS' is because of howls of outrage from their customers. And as for "adding unproven updates" - MS is unparalleled in this department, because you now have to choose between applying brand-new patches everywhere immediately or falling prey to this week's viral epidemic. If anything, Apple would be an improvement here. There is generally very little urgency in applying their system updates, so you can regression test them to your heart's content before pushing them out. Apple is still more patch-happy than, say, FreeBSD, but they're hardly worse than Linux and much better than MS.
As for migration from Exchange, MS still seems to get a bye: Nobody thinks twice about the difficulty of migrating from, say, Notes to Exchange, but if you advocate migrating from Exchange to Notes then all of a sudden the walls go up and you're being unrealistic and do you know how much trouble that would be?!
One thing about enterprise: Fred Anderson pointed out that the enterprise market is 30% of the overall market. The consumer market dwarfs it. The appeal of enterprise lies in two areas: First, it's what the Wintel market is geared for anyway - their consumer offerings are basically funny-looking enterprise configurations; and second, you only sell one machine to one consumer customer, but you can sell 10,000 to one enterprise customer, so there are significant economies of scale associated with enterprise sales. People will also tend to buy for home what they use at work; but you can also sell them on a machine that they won't have to put up with, unlike their machine at work.
My 2 cents. Apple has a ways to go, and even the speediest hardware won't solve all of Apple's key marketshare problems.
In this we agree. Apple's had the fastest hardware several times before, and it's never really mattered. They'll have to have made a great deal of progress before price/performance is their biggest issue.
Originally posted by Amorph
Nice, meaty post
RAM and HD upgrades are possible in the AIOs - you'll want a tech to do them, but most consumers will ask techs to do any upgrade anyway. Also, most consumers never, ever upgrade computers, regardless of how easy it would be to do so, so greater potential expansion mostly addresses the geek market.
One thing about enterprise: Fred Anderson pointed out that the enterprise market is 30% of the overall market. The consumer market dwarfs it. The appeal of enterprise lies in two areas: First, it's what the Wintel market is geared for anyway - their consumer offerings are basically funny-looking enterprise configurations; and second, you only sell one machine to one consumer customer, but you can sell 10,000 to one enterprise customer, so there are significant economies of scale associated with enterprise sales. People will also tend to buy for home what they use at work; but you can also sell them on a machine that they won't have to put up with, unlike their machine at work.
Well there is one important thing about the geek market. The consumers ask their geek friends to help them choose a computer. And those geeks are most likely to do the updates for them. So the average person...who doesn't need or do the upgrades....is listening to the type of person who will. And that is why the consumer machines need expansion, every "expert" tells them that is what they need. So I disagree. I'll admit, we took our PCs to our tech for upgrades too. And then you get to the last piece of the puzzle, mac techs. If you can't take it to Best Buy, and no one you know can upgrade it, well...you just won't get one. The all-in-ones are too weird for the PC techs. A tower (even small form factor) would be much less challenging for techs, and more attractive for consumers venturing to the unknown world of apple.
Going after the enterprise, even though it is a smaller market than the consumer is the whole work/home thing. People want to be able to "communicate" with people at work...so their choices mirror the work environment. Until there is prooof that Apple plays well in corporate environments, people will keep getting PCs (even though they don't have tha trusty IT guy on site at home to help them)
Apple needs to work with current hardware and software infrastructure, whether it is exchange, lotus notes, office, iSCSI, whatever. Sure we wish people could just ditch exchange, so we do not have to work about entourage's sub-par exchange support..but that is foolhardy.
The largest problem with Apple and the enterprise is NO ONE knows where Apple wants or plans to go. At least you know with Microsoft, if enough people complain and refuse to upgrade they will change their policy. Microsofts OS support contunies for a long time, including updates (Windows 2000 still has current security updates...but if you are back on 10.1 you don't get jack), WE aren't talking about not supporting Office 95 here, if Apple drops support for itunes 1.0, it isn't a deal breaker, but Early OS X adopters have been forced to move up if they want a secure, stable OS thats works with software packages. Apple might decide on a whim "a screw you cheap people policy" and abandon the project altogether.
Originally posted by jade
Well there is one important thing about the geek market. The consumers ask their geek friends to help them choose a computer. And those geeks are most likely to do the updates for them. So the average person...who doesn't need or do the upgrades....is listening to the type of person who will. And that is why the consumer machines need expansion, every "expert" tells them that is what they need. So I disagree. I'll admit, we took our PCs to our tech for upgrades too. And then you get to the last piece of the puzzle, mac techs. If you can't take it to Best Buy, and no one you know can upgrade it, well...you just won't get one. The all-in-ones are too weird for the PC techs. A tower (even small form factor) would be much less challenging for techs, and more attractive for consumers venturing to the unknown world of apple.
And Apple's solution to the failure of imagination of most geeks (who recommend what they'd like rather than trying to figure out what non-geeks would want) is the Apple Store. Need your computer fixed? There's the Genius Bar. They're working on moving all your data over for you, and on all of the various other tasks that a local "computer person" would normally handle, right there in the store. AIOs are nothing unusual for Apple techs. The point of putting Apple Stores in very high-traffic shopping locations is to attract walk-in traffic and bypass the local geek altogether.
Going after the enterprise, even though it is a smaller market than the consumer is the whole work/home thing. People want to be able to "communicate" with people at work...so their choices mirror the work environment. Until there is prooof that Apple plays well in corporate environments, people will keep getting PCs (even though they don't have tha trusty IT guy on site at home to help them)
Actually, I think it has less to do with "communication" - except for the fear that they won't be able to communicate with anyone, which is still a perceived problem with Macs - and more to do with the fact that whatever they use at work is a known quantity. Unless it really sucks, you're likely to get it just because you already know what it is. This is why enterprise is so important to Dell, in particular - you can't walk into a store and look at a Dell, so their best chance to get you comfortable enough to hit their web site is to target your employer. Apple, again, is going directly for consumers. Their (rough) equivalent for enterprise is education.
Apple needs to work with current hardware and software infrastructure, whether it is exchange, lotus notes, office, iSCSI, whatever. Sure we wish people could just ditch exchange, so we do not have to work about entourage's sub-par exchange support..but that is foolhardy.
And that's why MS is a monopoly. They've got everyone trapped in 1992, as if the internet had never gone mainstream, with proprietary mail and contact software (remember that?). And they've done everything they can to make it as difficult as possible to be compatible to lock people in. Apple can work with Lotus, and they can work with a number of other solutions, but the infuriating thing about the way everyone assumes that a transition to Microsoft is always unambiguously better is that they buy into a closed and locked system. It's not in MS' interest to ever open it, and I wouldn't be surprised if MS declared open war on Apple for successfully reverse-engineering MAPI. This is up to MS, and the only way it will change is if MS changes it. Ditto Office file format compatibility - again, MS deliberately made it nearly impossible to reverse engineer, even to the extent of compromising the stability of Office itself, and somehow this is supposed to be everyone else's problem to fix. MS gets a free pass, again.
When people pull their heads out of the sand, we can make real progress.
The largest problem with Apple and the enterprise is NO ONE knows where Apple wants or plans to go. At least you know with Microsoft, if enough people complain and refuse to upgrade they will change their policy.
So then, if enough people complain and refuse to upgrade Exchange, will MS open up MAPI? If they refuse to upgrade Office (which is a problem for MS right now, actually) will MS open up .DOC? I think you'll find that there are issues where MS will absolutely refuse to budge. But since MS always gets a free pass, everyone will pretend not to notice this.
Their solution to slow upgrades sofar has been to send armed marshals into businesses to extort money from them - or else they'll get audited on ridiculous terms, and billed for their trouble.
Apple has as well, many times. OS X had teething problems, but so did Windows. You mention Win 2000, but XP is only an upgrade to 2000. Where's the support NT3? NT 4? Those are the equivalents of the early builds of OS X.
Early OS X adopters have been forced to move up if they want a secure, stable OS thats works with software packages. Apple might decide on a whim "a screw you cheap people policy" and abandon the project altogether.
Well, again, how do you think the early adopters of NT are doing? The only saving grace in MS' case is their relatively glacial progress in releasing operating systems, but this is matched by enterprises' glacial pace of updating systems. Installations of Windows versions older than 2000 are still fairly common. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. But don't expect to run anything other than what you're running now, either.
Originally posted by Amorph
And Apple's solution to the failure of imagination of most geeks (who recommend what they'd like rather than trying to figure out what non-geeks would want) is the Apple Store. Need your computer fixed? There's the Genius Bar. They're working on moving all your data over for you, and on all of the various other tasks that a local "computer person" would normally handle, right there in the store. AIOs are nothing unusual for Apple techs. The point of putting Apple Stores in very high-traffic shopping locations is to attract walk-in traffic and bypass the local geek altogether.
Apple stores aren't everywhere, and when it comes down to it, you will still trust your friends computer advice over the sales guy at the local computer store.
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Actually, I think it has less to do with "communication" - except for the fear that they won't be able to communicate with anyone, which is still a perceived problem with Macs - and more to do with the fact that whatever they use at work is a known quantity. Unless it really sucks, you're likely to get it just because you already know what it is. This is why enterprise is so important to Dell, in particular - you can't walk into a store and look at a Dell, so their best chance to get you comfortable enough to hit their web site is to target your employer. Apple, again, is going directly for consumers. Their (rough) equivalent for enterprise is education.
I agree, but it is still up to Apple to talk to these people about their fears.
Apple shouldn'a abandon the enterprise, because people think what happens at work is more important than school. Work is the "real world," schools can do what they like.
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And that's why MS is a monopoly. They've got everyone trapped in 1992, as if the internet had never gone mainstream, with proprietary mail and contact software (remember that?). And they've done everything they can to make it as difficult as possible to be compatible to lock people in. Apple can work with Lotus, and they can work with a number of other solutions, but the infuriating thing about the way everyone assumes that a transition to Microsoft is always unambiguously better is that they buy into a closed and locked system. It's not in MS' interest to ever open it, and I wouldn't be surprised if MS declared open war on Apple for successfully reverse-engineering MAPI. This is up to MS, and the only way it will change is if MS changes it. Ditto Office file format compatibility - again, MS deliberately made it nearly impossible to reverse engineer, even to the extent of compromising the stability of Office itself, and somehow this is supposed to be everyone else's problem to fix. MS gets a free pass, again.
When people pull their heads out of the sand, we can make real progress.
Shoud Microsoft get a free pass? No. But that doesn't change reality. Microsoft won the game, and everyone else has to play by their rules to compete in the next round. End of story
[quote]
So then, if enough people complain and refuse to upgrade Exchange, will MS open up MAPI? If they refuse to upgrade Office (which is a problem for MS right now, actually) will MS open up .DOC? I think you'll find that there are issues where MS will absolutely refuse to budge. But since MS always gets a free pass, everyone will pretend not to notice this.
Their solution to slow upgrades sofar has been to send armed marshals into businesses to extort money from them - or else they'll get audited on ridiculous terms, and billed for their trouble. [/quotes]
And Microsoft customer's should speak with their wallets, and well the customer are still buying, no matter how jacked up the policies are.
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Apple has as well, many times. OS X had teething problems, but so did Windows. You mention Win 2000, but XP is only an upgrade to 2000. Where's the support NT3? NT 4? Those are the equivalents of the early builds of OS X.
Yes and no, but the key point here is, if you have a two year old Apple OS right now, you arre out of luck in terms of upgrades. Even if you purchased OS X a year ago you won't get updates. NT 3 and 4 were out 10 years ago, it doesn't matter. But mass customer complaints on Win 95/8 caused Microsoft to continue the upgrades for the 5 more years for these old school OSes.
Early versions of OS X were unpolished, but if you aren't running 10.2 you can hardly get your printer to work, forget about fixing security flaws, that is ridiculous. And for get about software...most new stuff won't even run on anything lower than 10.2...and that has barely been out for 24 months.
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Well, again, how do you think the early adopters of NT are doing? The only saving grace in MS' case is their relatively glacial progress in releasing operating systems, but this is matched by enterprises' glacial pace of updating systems. Installations of Windows versions older than 2000 are still fairly common. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. But don't expect to run anything other than what you're running now, either.
Running old versions of windows will still get you new software, just about every Windows title out there (except games and office 2003 which everyone agrees is a waste) will run on at least Win98 and in most cases Win95. That is pretty good for longevity seeing Win98 came out 6 years ago.
Apple engineering is on speed, but Apple developers do not have time to keep up, and this hurts developers, enterprises and consumers. When you upgrade to 10.3 and can't use your printer or scanner that worked fine under 10.2, that is a problem. When you do not get security updates because you are on 10.2, that is a problem. Using Apple means paying for constant updates and innovations, but this breakneck speed isn't good for average users. And this is why many people rule Apple out.
An Xstation? Well, why that might be nice to sell, it would be insane because Apple could never garner the chips to produce them at great quantities while still meeting requests for the new PowerMacs that will be (presumption) at WWDC.
I would love to see some new PowerBook G5s, but my heart does not yield the power to create computers.....
Originally posted by jade
Early versions of OS X were unpolished, but if you aren't running 10.2 you can hardly get your printer to work, forget about fixing security flaws, that is ridiculous. And for get about software...most new stuff won't even run on anything lower than 10.2...and that has barely been out for 24 months.
I think that has become a side-affect of the transition to OS X. People either took the leap, and upgraded as released, or they stuck with OS 9. Think about it, the last time Steve mentioned something about the transition it was around (maybe just under) 50% of Mac users. There are still a great number of OS 9 users out there, and that is because they did not want to roll through the tough times of early OS X adoption.
Longhorn will be a key time for Apple in this way too. If they can come up with a solid Enterprise division, excellent sales and support staff and come up with a way to transition a business just plain tired of the MS licensing/upgrade rapings, then they have a good shot at gaining a chunk of that marketshare. I think that is what Steve meant all along when he was saying that "people will migrate when they are fed up enough with MS" or something to that affect. Longhorn and being robbed blind by ridiculous licensing practices. Time will tell.
Originally posted by jade
Running old versions of windows will still get you new software, just about every Windows title out there (except games and office 2003 which everyone agrees is a waste) will run on at least Win98 and in most cases Win95. That is pretty good for longevity seeing Win98 came out 6 years ago.
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Sort of...yea the new stuff will run on 98 but beleive me you dont want to do it, it is a miserble nightmere, the software is BUILT for 2k/xp but is also compiled and tested on 98 as a CYA for the venders, and any system that runs 98 doesnt have the horsepower to run moddern apps reasonabley and useabley.
this is bigger than the 98 to xp upograde, going from mac classic to X is comparabe to the migration from win 3.1 to 95 or NT4 back in the day
Originally posted by a_greer
Sort of...yea the new stuff will run on 98 but beleive me you dont want to do it, it is a miserble nightmere, the software is BUILT for 2k/xp but is also compiled and tested on 98 as a CYA for the venders, and any system that runs 98 doesnt have the horsepower to run moddern apps reasonabley and useabley.
this is bigger than the 98 to xp upograde, going from mac classic to X is comparabe to the migration from win 3.1 to 95 or NT4 back in the day
True, but my beef if is with the fairly small jump from 10.1 to 10.3....and the fac that running 10.1 is like software purgatory. Damned if you do and damned if you don't. I understand if a developer wants to dump classic, that makes sense. But 10.1 was dumped to. And that was only from 2 years ago.
But I still vote for a cheaper headless mac. It can be called whatever.
Originally posted by jade
True, but my beef if is with the fairly small jump from 10.1 to 10.3....and the fac that running 10.1 is like software purgatory. Damned if you do and damned if you don't. I understand if a developer wants to dump classic, that makes sense. But 10.1 was dumped to. And that was only from 2 years ago.
I can see your point, but who would want to live with the sluggishness of 10.1? Jaguar saw great speed improvements and Panther too a good degree as well.
I remember the Public Beta days and thought, man this is cool. Hopefully the 10.0 release will be faster though. It was slower and 10.1 was about on par with the Public Beta, although more stable.
Originally posted by jade
Apple stores aren't everywhere, and when it comes down to it, you will still trust your friends computer advice over the sales guy at the local computer store.
Apple Stores cover over 80% of the market, and there are more coming. Maybe your friend's advice got you a fiddly computer that became a virus attractor? Or maybe your friend actually recommended a Mac? OS X has brought a lot of geek cred to the platform, and the gorgeous hardware hasn't hurt. Geeks might like internal expandability, but they're still buying iBooks and PowerBooks in droves.
Failing that, though, the odds are very good that you'll find yourself near an Apple Store, and if the numbers are any indication, the numbers are pretty good that you'll find yourself in one, and then you'll find yourself walking out with a Mac.
I agree, but it is still up to Apple to talk to these people about their fears.
Apple shouldn'a abandon the enterprise, because people think what happens at work is more important than school. Work is the "real world," schools can do what they like.
Apple didn't abandon the enterprise. The enterprise abandoned Apple. Apple is currently working very hard to gain enterprise sales, so the problem is not Apple's lack of attention.
My point, however, was that enterprise is not as crucial to Apple as it is to, say, Dell. There are larger markets that Apple is better suited for.
Shoud Microsoft get a free pass? No. But that doesn't change reality. Microsoft won the game, and everyone else has to play by their rules to compete in the next round. End of story
Their rules are that you can't compete. End of story.
The problem lies 100% with Microsoft. End of story.
Yes and no, but the key point here is, if you have a two year old Apple OS right now, you arre out of luck in terms of upgrades. Even if you purchased OS X a year ago you won't get updates. NT 3 and 4 were out 10 years ago, it doesn't matter. But mass customer complaints on Win 95/8 caused Microsoft to continue the upgrades for the 5 more years for these old school OSes.
Your point is transient; OS X matured quickly, and there are certain basic things the immature versions aren't capable of. The flip side of that is that early adopters of NT (like my shop) floundered along with incomplete and poorly supported OS's for 10 years. And MS' support is purely maintenance. You still can't plug a USB keyboard into a Win2000 box and expect it to work (we've tried). You have to upgrade.
Time will solve this problem.
Running old versions of windows will still get you new software, just about every Windows title out there (except games and office 2003 which everyone agrees is a waste) will run on at least Win98 and in most cases Win95. That is pretty good for longevity seeing Win98 came out 6 years ago.
Mileage definitely varies here. Our shop has had one compatibility nightmare after another; $50K/year apps breaking and working between service pack releases, never mind OS releases. And good luck trying to get 95/98 and NT/2000/XP machines talking on the same network.
Win32 is a notorious minefield, and application compatibility is marginal. On the OS X side, you have Classic, which does a remarkable job of running applications developed for a totally different OS, and pretty decent compatibility with older OS X apps given that OS X was thoroughly replumbed multiple times, and the printing architecture was completely replaced twice.
Apple engineering is on speed, but Apple developers do not have time to keep up, and this hurts developers, enterprises and consumers. When you upgrade to 10.3 and can't use your printer or scanner that worked fine under 10.2, that is a problem. When you do not get security updates because you are on 10.2, that is a problem. Using Apple means paying for constant updates and innovations, but this breakneck speed isn't good for average users. And this is why many people rule Apple out.
What security updates do you not get because you're on 10.2? I've applied every patch they've ever released, including today's, and I'm on 10.2. That assertion is simply wrong.
Printers and scanners die between updates in all operating systems, not least Windows. Drivers are sensitive like that (especially craptacular drivers like Epson's).
All that notwithstanding, the people who rule out Apple for their current high rate of updating only have a point if they're waiting for OS X to stabilize (which I consider completely understandable, from an enterprise perspective). Apple sent out the "development is slowing down" message recently for exactly that audience. If people believe that Apple is doing this for any other reason than to get OS X up to speed as fast as possible, then they have only themselves to blame for missing out when it does get up to speed. Which seems to be with the next release, by Apple's lights.
This is not to say I am faulting Apple for the placement of the stores, but if you aren't in the targeted affluent area, your are out of luck (I like 15 miles from the nearest Apple store. I usually go to CompUSA)