I retired from personal blogging in July 2008.
But you can find me over at http://blog.xero.com.
Just stumbled onto this post and great discussion that asserts Apple is not chasing the Enterprise market.
Lingering regrets from Apple days
My thoughts were
- What a massive opportunity for ISV’s
- What an M&A opportunity: putting Apple together with a Enterprise Computing Company - but that may kill it
- Apple has enough cash, it seems almost negligent to not invest in the Enterprise when there is such demand for an alternative. A decent Enterprise Mail Client would be a good first step. There is a Calendar Service in the next Apple Server but what use is that without Email. They should just buy Scalix.
blog
[...] Enterprise Mac and iPhone. If these devices win the hearts of consumers (and as consumers often work in corporates), there will be a huge demand for Enterprise features as mentioned earlier. [...]
As you might have guessed from my article, I spent a good portion of my career at Apple trying to convince Apple of the opportunity. I can give you a list of other people who banged their heads against Apple’s wall of consumerism.
The problem boils down to just a couple of things. As I said in an article recently in the Guardian
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1981815,00.htmlthe philosophy at
Apple wants to tell customers what to buy. Building a product to meet the complex needs of the enterprise just isn’t in Apple’s DNA. There are too many masters to please. Apple only wants to please one master, and that’s Steve.
I have seen Apple enterprise sales people beg Apple’s product people to work on calendaring. On the reverse side I heard one of Apple’s largest federal customers ask Apple to make Apple’s email client and Safari browser cross platform so the customer could effectively use Apple software products. Though this was after iTunes became cross platform, an Apple executive said that would be giving away Apple’s crown jewels.
One of the few people at Apple who believed in the enterprise was Fred Anderson. Unfortunately he’s gone and now been hung out to dry.
The second biggest problem is Steve’s view of CIOs. His June 14, 2004 comment in the WSJ is legend at Apple.
“….And you know, we’re not so good at selling to the enterprise where you’ve got, in the Fortune 500, five hundred orifices called CIOs. In the cellphone market you’ve got five. And so we figured we’re not going to be very good at that.”
I can wish you nothing but good luck. Many of us with years at Apple would consider it a good crusade but one doomed to failure. Success in the enterprise is sometimes the commitment to making incremental improvements. In spite of what they’re doing with OS X, that is really not what Apple’s all about. It’s about creating new products. Whether there is a disruption in supply of the old products and the new ones do something differently isn’t really something Apple cares to care about.
I’m now selling real estate on North Carolina’s Crystal Coast instead of calling on CIOs. Anything is easier that selling the enterprise for a company that doesn’t want to be in the enterprise.
By the way I really enjoyed my one visit to New Zealand. Back when Apple had real sales incentive trips, one of the Golden Apple trips was to Sydney. We took opportunity to spend a week in New Zealand on our own nickel.
If your crusade successful, call me if you need an enterprise sales manager.