Apple Enterprise Sales Group?

[MacRumors]

ThinkSecret reports that Apple has formed a new Enterprise division which is aimed at corporate sales.

According to ThinkSecret, the division is ramping up and isn't expected to be made public until "later in the year when new server products are released".

Products, such as the PowerMac G5 and Xserve are presumably the key to their success in making inroads in this marketplace. A previous report indicated that Australian reseller, NextByte, was also aware of this growing potential marketspace.

Xserve sales are rumored to have stalled after the introduction of the PowerMac G5, with many eyes looking towards Xserve G5 revisions.

 

[AppleMatt]

I wonder what effect this will have on Apple's corporate sales. From what I understand Apple are being taken a lot more seriously in IT circles since the XServe RAID. Let's hope it trickles down.

AppleMatt

 

[markiv810]

Looks like Apple is trying to get into the real corporate world this time. Most of the Fortune 500 companies do you use Apple, but for some reason Wintels are considered to be nore of professional machines compared to Macs. I hope this move by Apple will change the way the corporate world looks at Mac's in general.

 

[Powerbook G5]

Sounds good to me. Apple has a chance to make a serious impact if they play their cards right.

 

[gothamac]

I opened a new checking account yesterday and ended up in the bank for 2 hours. The computer the woman was using kept going down during the process, and she kept calling tech support to help fix it. It was windows of course. I was thinking how much better
this bank would have run if they had an Xserve running OSX. The corporate world is ripe for Apple to come in and take business from MS. It my be wiser to pitch the system to accounting rather than the IT pros who's job it is to fix the current systems.

 

[QuiteSure]

How many times has it been said here and in every other Mac forum:

Apple will see no effective entry into corporate sales until it releases a cheap "headless" mac. Cut the monitor off an emac and sell for $600 and you will see corporate america start to take an interest.

 

[rjwill246]

Originally posted by QuiteSure

Apple will see no effective entry into corporate sales until it releases a cheap "headless" Mac.

This is absolutely true! Apple has never quite got the idea of "entry" and if that means having a crappy monitor on a pretty but affordable Apple box, there is no end to what might happen...

 

[bwintx]

Originally posted by QuiteSure
How many times has it been said here and in every other Mac forum:

Apple will see no effective entry into corporate sales until it releases a cheap "headless" mac. Cut the monitor off an emac and sell for $600 and you will see corporate america start to take an interest.

True, but better yet would be the magic number $499. That would make it something many lower-level corporate types could buy without having to fight for the approval of their Windows-loving bosses.

Ah, me. Dream on. <Sigh.>

 

[Vlade]

Originally posted by QuiteSure
How many times has it been said here and in every other Mac forum:

Apple will see no effective entry into corporate sales until it releases a cheap "headless" mac. Cut the monitor off an emac and sell for $600 and you will see corporate america start to take an interest.

Great idea, maybe with a fast G3 (cheaper than G4's)

 

[QuiteSure]

In order to really impact corporate users Apple has to have a special event devoted to rolling out business products with a keynote or other announcement from Steve Jobs himself. This cannot be an event dealing with iApps, proApps or content-creation hardware. Steve has to introduce both the Xserve solution and the inexpensive headless box at the same time. There will not be success without it.

 

[rjstanford]

Re: Apple Enterprise Sales Group?

Originally posted by Macrumors
According to ThinkSecret, the division is ramping up and isn't expected to be made public until "later in the year when new server products are released".

And, if its true, this would imply that those G5s will hit the XServe racks pretty soon, no? At least this year sometime...

[sigh]

Its funny. Most XServe type applications are running either 100% custom code doing number crunching, or nice happy Java servlets (these days, at least). The OSX tools help with management, but other than that there's a lot less of the "fluffyness" of OSX to recommend it for backroom racks.

If they can get the XServe prices reasonable with the horsepower of the G5s, that would be very intreging. As it is though, other than the XServe RAID, the current rack systems are little more than curiosities. At least, unless you happen to be doing genome work or something else that Altivec does significantly better than MMX.

-Richard

 

[mmmbop]

Originally posted by bwintx
True, but better yet would be the magic number $499. That would make it something many lower-level corporate types could buy without having to fight for the approval of their Windows-loving bosses.

Would Apple dare to brand a cheap monitor, even?

The other 'headache' that'll get mentioned at the corporate 'should we switch' meeting will be training issues, i.e. how much would it cost to retrain those staff who can barely manage windows.

Hang on, I know the answer to that one, but I think it is an argument that could be thrown up against switching.

From ths US TV shows I watch, I thought all of corporate America used Apples (and, shhh... Dells)???!!

 

[ryaxnb]

No success

Apple has never had much success in the non-design Enterprise market (Apple III, Business Mac, 1996 set of Macs), and I hope the G5, XServe, and OS X will change that. You know, the XServe really needs a G5 (the G4s 'Velocity Engine' is practically useless for serving).

 

[ryaxnb]

My 'headless iMac' would be available in $499 G3 1Ghz, $610 G4 1Ghz, and $1,650 1.5 Ghz G5 configurations.

 

[agentmouthwash]

old imacs

I remember Larry Ellision from oracle (I think I spelled his name right) saying how he wants Apple to sell iMacs with no hard drives and no CD Rom drives- as client machines for unix type servers...

 

[edenwaith]

Originally posted by QuiteSure

Apple will see no effective entry into corporate sales until it releases a cheap "headless" mac. Cut the monitor off an emac and sell for $600 and you will see corporate america start to take an interest.

I've been installing new machines in a desktop roll-out, and I find it kind of interesting how most of them are cheaper Dells or Compaqs, and they are still using PS/2 corded mice and keyboards, and just keeping to parallel ports for the printers. I imagine to the older computers they might seem nice, but I can even see that it looks like as little as possible was spent in the new machines. The mice aren't even optical! I can't stand ball mice now since I've had several go bad on me.

But if Apple can either promote MS Office even more (or better yet, bring out a superior office suite of their own at a more reasonable price), plus the cheaper "headless" Mac, then we might start seeing more sales there. It would be interesting to see a desktop Mac, somewhat shaped like the LC series or an XServe...like a small thin, Tektronix box...I think NeXT even had some thinner workstations at one point.

 

[edenwaith]

Office Space

Originally posted by mmmbop

From ths US TV shows I watch, I thought all of corporate America used Apples (and, shhh... Dells)???!!

Or watch the movie Office Space. I got a kick out of that movie, how they were in this highly corporate type office, yet the interface on the computers was VERY Mac-like...except for the C: that appeared before they turned off the computer. I'm wondering if movies aren't allowed to show real OS's in a movie or something.

Another example...take the girl from Jurassic Park, and she goes up to some "UNIX" machine, and she says something like: "This is UNIX! I know UNIX!" One of my former instructors mentioned how that was a type of UNIX he had never seen! Not to mention that unless the girl had been extremely spoiled or had the right connections, I don't think a 12 year old (or however old she was) would have had easy access to UNIX in the early 90's. I certainly didn't. The WWW was still a baby so the internet hadn't caught on too much yet, and Linux was pretty much a bunch of drivers and such Linus had written.

Sorry to vent, just some odd little things in movies which just seem extremely funny or stupid in movies (and I'll try and not get on to the movie Swordfish).

 

[MacsRgr8]

Re: No success

Originally posted by ryaxnb
Apple has never had much success in the non-design Enterprise market (Apple III, Business Mac, 1996 set of Macs), and I hope the G5, XServe, and OS X will change that. You know, the XServe really needs a G5 (the G4s 'Velocity Engine' is practically useless for serving).

I agree entirely.

The S-ATA + fast FSB are more of need. Mac OS X is definitely THE step for Apple to be able get some succes.
If you get a Dual G5 Xserve (+XRaid) with Panther Server for about the same price as the current Xserves, Apple WILL get themselves there.
This is a very good thing. Suddenly Apple could be seen a serious player in the corperate game. This could trickle down to the general public....

 

[Doctor Q]

I see many businesses where the lowest-level staff members (who exist in the largest quantities) are using a single application almost all of the time. They are migrating to flat screens and they usually have a way-too-powerful up-to-date Wintel box for their meager needs. They could just as easily have a Mac, assuming that their application is available on the Mac (or is web browser based, as many are).

The trouble is that if Apple offered a bottom-of-the-line headless Mac for these thousands of business workers, there would be little "Mac" about it other than the logo. If you are running a web browser or the coporate recordkeeping program all day, you don't get any of the real Mac OS benefits. So why would they bother buying such a Mac?

Mid-level professionals are the ones who have the greatest need to "fit in" with the corporate standards, and it's hard to move Macs into that mindset.

Maybe Apple can switch some business customers from Wintel-only to Mac-only or Mixed-platform with their tempting servers, but I don't see that they can do much to push cheap Macs in the business world. Of course, I'd love to see them prove me wrong!

 

[QuiteSure]

Originally posted by Doctor Q
The trouble is that if Apple offered a bottom-of-the-line headless Mac for these thousands of business workers, there would be little "Mac" about it other than the logo. If you are running a web browser or the coporate recordkeeping program all day, you don't get any of the real Mac OS benefits. So why would they bother buying such a Mac?

1. Less infection from viruses
2. Ability to run many more applications (calendar, contact, database, word processing, web browsing) simultaneously due to OSX multi threading
3. Relatively crash proof environment
4. Lower maintenance costs

Also, I believe that it is easier to use the Mac OSX Finder than the desktop equivalent on the Windows Side. "My Computer" "My Network Places" "My Shared Disks" and other windows-centric protocols, at least to me, are harder to manage than the Mac OS X Finder. But that may just be me. But if I'm right, and the finder and general navigational tools are easier to use, then you can get more productivity out of the lower level employees on a Mac than on a Wintel box.

 

[themadchemist]

The first step in this direction was the sort of industrial design seen with the G5. No-nonsense, functional, simple.

And I think that that is going to be symbolic of Apple's campaign to grab the business world.

64-bit chips and OS are going to help, especially if they can outperform the Opteron. Unfortunately, as several AMD-enthusiast sites have pointed out, Apple doesn't like to compare the Opteron and the G5.

Hopefully, the G5 is faster, but we'll have to wait for the benchmarks and for real-world performance to tell.

But no matter what, Apple has got several important pieces of the puzzle. Industrial design that serious, tie-tied-too-tight professionals can tolerate; a 64-bit, high performance processor; and an OS with a UNIX backbone.

 

[abates25]

Apple Corporate group...

It exists. I've chatted with a couple guys down there already, they just started the group in early summer. We are a smaller company, only run about 40 macs, but they were still very open and helpful, they, in fact, solicited me, which was a change. I'd been refered to them by an old friend, an ex-Apple employee, as a good Seattle-based Mac company. So far I haven't made use of their services, but they do offer corporate pricing and support which is nice. Haven't heard about any 'special' hardware, but they were offering amazing deals on XServes - the same deal as is currently being offered to Apple employees, which, I think, is around 30% less than retail.

 

[Thanatoast]

Even after Apple brings its price down (which is almost a prerequisite for success in corporate purchases land) it still has to overcome its stigma as the "creative" computer.

I had my boss today relate a story where she matter-of-factly stated that macs are good for creative stuff and pc's are good for business related stuff. Amusingly enough, it was a situation where she was explaining to a higher-up why in the world we had macs in the office at all. He wanted to go all pc! Arghh!

 

[panphage]

PCs are good for holding up shelving, keeping doors open, making lots and lots of heat and noise (ok, no MDD comments, please) and creating Neverwinter Nights modules with the Aurora toolset. For ANYTHING else, a Mac is better. Even Microsoft Office is better on a Mac, not that I agree that using Office is a good business plan...

Can someone tell me why everyone wants a headless el-cheapo mac? I've worked in many an office, and they were not buying $500 dells. They were buying ~$1000 dells and ~$400 monitors. Why not buy a $1400 imac? An imac at current specs will be a fine office machine for at least 4 years (My poor little 450 cube is keeping up with my WEB DEVELOPMENT needs for god's sake!) while the Dell will be trash in 2 at most (due to shoddy components/half-arsed production values, not to mention prick-waving rights). By my math, even if you DO reuse the monitor with the Dells, you've spent nearly 2x what the imac'll cost you. And that doesn't include the saving on tech support staff, increases in productivity, or peace of mind from not having to worry about viruses.

 

[bankshot]

Sneaking Apple in...

Well, this is certainly timely. I work in a company where Macs are an incredibly rare sight. Managers used to use them back in the mid 90s, but by 1997 they were standardizing everyone on Windows. My manager at the time fought tooth and nail to keep her Mac, but nothing could stop the corporate march to support Redmond.

Thankfully, things were never that bleak in my group. We're one of the few teams in the company where every engineer has a PC for Office stuff AND a workstation in their office. I've had an SGI of some type on my desk for about 7 years, and have always used it about 80-90% of the time. I remember back in the day, I used to always say SGI was the Apple of the Unix world. And they were - Irix was far and away the most user friendly Unix back then. Of course, nowadays Apple is a full-fledged member of the Unix world, and SGI is struggling to survive. Oh how the mighty have fallen. But I digress...

So we do our real work on Suns and SGIs. My last big purchase of new workstations was back in 2000, spending about $100k on 10 machines. If only OS X had been more mature when I had that money to spend, we could have saved thousands AND gotten more machines, AND they probably would have been faster for a lot of our tasks (not all, but probably a majority). As soon as I realized that (which happened about the time I got my G4/733 at home, my first OS X capable Mac), I looked for any way to get a Mac on my desk -- I would instantly trade my SGI and the mobility of my PC laptop for a nice PowerMac. With MS Office + my scientific apps, it can do everything I do in just one machine. But in a company that doesn't buy Macs, that's hard to justify.

A few months ago, I talked my current team lead into buying a Mac for home -- he went for a 17" PowerBook and absolutely loves it. So now he's totally on board with the idea of getting some Macs in our lab. We desperately need a fileserver with a good TB or more of space, which will place nice with our Unix machines and PCs. Oh, and it has to be comparatively cheap, unlike most offerings from Sun and SGI. Just today we were talking about this and I mentioned Xserve RAID, so he tells me to go price some configurations. We got some ballpark numbers and will submit them for funding approval fairly soon -- but without specifying the vendor. If we wait until submitting the actual purchase order, we should be able to sneak it in. And when management sees how much we'll have saved, they ought to be congratulating us.

So now, here's hoping that Apple gets G5 Xserves fairly soon that play nice with Xserve RAID. And by that time, maybe we can sneak in a G5 PowerMac or two to replace some aging SGIs and our PCs...

I'll definitely have to try to get in touch with this enterprise sales group when it comes time to buy.