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Wednesday, June 25

My Theory: Apple is making a huge push for Enterprise

I've said it before a couple times, and especially recently in the SC Magazine Podcast and the ISC Podcast that I did last night, I believe Apple is making a big push for the Enterprise.  I also believe that Microsoft's focus is changing.  I can't really explain what I mean by that yet, but I definitely think they are taking the emphasis off of the fact that they are a desktop operating system for everyone.  Anyway, back to Apple.

Let's look at a few examples.  
1)  iPhone / Exchange compatibility -- Apple is finally going to have the ability to natively communicate with Microsoft Exchange on the iPhone.  This alleviates the need, like RIM, to have a separate server on your network that you have to maintain in order to have email functionality on your phone.  Plus, and the less noticed thing is, this is really the first big time, and certainly the big time that a major competitor to Microsoft has had native functionality with Exchange.   I think Microsoft is going to concede a bit of ground with the Desktop in order to stay with their core market, and that's running the big business infrastructure.  But still, this is huge.
2)  Snow Leopard will have native Exchange functionality.  Address Book will be your GAL, Mail will have native functionality with Exchange email, and iCal will function via the Exchange Calendar.  While you have been able to do with with OSX Server for a bit now, vastly more companies already have Exchange/AD within their enterprise.
3)  Things like this. A seminar to teach business users how to use a Mac within your enterprise.  Worth a quick watch if you are thinking about switching to the Mac.

Just a quick theory, but I may have something here.

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3 comments:

Rob Dewhirst said...

I am curious where you get the details for #2. I ask this because "native Exchange functionality" is very vague.
I don't think Apple is making a huge push, toward Enterprise. A hurried jaunt in that direction to test the waters perhaps.
If they were really wanting to make a huge push, they would stop making Mac OS & AD integration such a Black Art.

Joel Esler said...

Here: http://www.apple.com/macosx/snowleopard/

Chandler Bassett said...

So long as they put ADUC in I'll be happy. OS X having a more granular AD integration is never a bad thing. Maybe I wont have to run Fusion for 10.6; fingers crossed.