Will Macs take on the Enterprise?

This article by Tim Bajarin of PC Magazine Online explores how the Mac - with its ability to run two operating systems - may be very appealing to IT managers in the future. As the Mac platform with Intel matures, I believe that's exactly what will happen. Read it here or below:

By Tim Bajarin
PC Magazine

The traditional IT market is, for the most part, owned by Microsoft and various Windows PC makers, such as HP, Dell, Toshiba, and Lenovo. Surprisingly, Apple also has a solid foothold in IT, primarily in advertising, graphics, and marketing. This is where the Mac has found its home ever since it burst onto the scene, settling comfortably into the graphics and desktop-publishing niche. Beyond these areas, however, Apple has had very little luck in the broader enterprise marketplace.

This week I had an interesting discussion with an IT manager for a Fortune 500 company that is exploring the idea of purchasing Macs for mainstream enterprise deployment as well as for its graphics and advertising departments. As a result of this conversation, I began to think differently about the Mac and its potential role in the future of mainstream business.

Behind this IT manager's thinking is that the Mac now uses Intel processors, just like Dell, HP, and most other PC makers. And thanks to Apple's Boot Camp, most Macs can also run Microsoft Windows. When Apple announced Boot Camp last year, this IT manager downloaded it for use on one of the Macs in his company's graphics department. He also loaded a clean version of Windows XP.

What he found is that Boot Camp indeed let him run Windows on a plain-vanilla Mac. But he did not like that in order to run it, he had to power down the Mac and its OS X operating system and reboot Windows XP as a separate session. He did some research and found that another company called Parallels had a product that could do something similar: Parallels Workstation lets you flip between two operating systems and run dual virtual OS sessions simultaneously, without having to power down and reboot.

The first version of the Parallels software did not work that well, but I have been testing a recent version that is much easier to use. In my talk with this IT manager, he stated that Parallels' new software is the reason he has seriously begun considering Macs. Although he is not thinking of tossing out all of the company's PCs, he does think that having these dual-OS Macs in his IT shop could give his users some more options. And he's already supporting both PCs and Macs, so making the Mac an option for mainstream IT usage makes sense. When I pushed him on this, he said there is another reason: Because Apple had made some serious headway infiltrating college campuses, often recent graduates come into the company and want to keep using their Macs. Until now, they had been told no and have had to move over, begrudgingly, to the Windows platform. Though this is not a widespread issue, he told me he would like to give prospective employees the option of using a Mac or a PC.

Now that is a forward-thinking IT manager!

Apple itself has not really pushed a mainstream enterprise strategy and seems content to keep its current IT customers in the advertising, graphics, and engineering departments happy. I do think that the Mac's new ability to run Windows as well as OS X has to be viewed as a potential disruptive force within IT departments. At the very least, it should get Apple broader attention within traditional Windows-only IT operations.

Apple Better Off with "Intel Inside"

Well, it's true. Apple is moving to Intel. Who would have ever imagined it? Actually, the move to Intel technology makes a lot of sense for Apple, which since the introduction of OS X has moved its core architecture to previously PC-only territory. It will be interesting to see how the "establishment PC" crowd will feel about Apple now.

Few argue that Apple has one of the most stable and robust operating systems out there today. Windows still rules the day, of course, but OS X with its rock-solid stability and immunity to many viruses has got it noticed outside creative and scientific circles in recent years.

What's still missing is OS X's robustness in the enterprise. Windows has such a head start, one wonders if Apple could ever catch up. But again, who would have foreseen the Mac GUI running on top of UNIX powered by Intel chips?

Moving to Intel means Apple will finally produce a world class laptop with world class power-saving features and extended battery life. My G4 Powerbook running OS X is a great machine, but it's no match for my office HP laptop with its P4M. Battery life on the PC extends easily to 4 or 5 hours, while the Powerbook stuggles to run 2 to 3 hours...especially when pushed by intense computing.

Scalability is another factor I'm certain Steve Jobs considered in deciding to switch. It is very possible you could see OS X running on your iPod, cell phone or PDA in the very near future.

Long gone are the days of Apple's legendary hardware/software integration. It just isn't as necessary today as it was in the early days of computing.

Will Apple's move to Intel mean we can buy any piece of hardware off the shelf to run OS X? I doubt that is Jobs' intention, but I figure if he tries to prohibit it someone will reverse engineer around it and make it possible.

I continue to be very optimistic about Apple's future. I figure the move to Intel will be the last straw for some of the Apple faithful, but those losses will be easily replaced by appealing to a new and larger market that never would have considered an Apple without "Intel Inside."

Tim Yarbrough
MacDoor Editor