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"Just A Fluke, Your Honor" (10/1/03)
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We all know that Apple has been slowly ramping up for a serious push into enterprise computing and corporate sales for, well, years now-- arguably as far back as the 1996 decision to buy enterprise-savvy NeXT and use its operating system as the basis for Mac OS X. Well, Mac OS X has been out for a couple of years, now, Apple has a raft of hardware far more suitable for business use than Performas and candy-colored iMacs, and there's reportedly even the beginnings of an honest-to-goodness enterprise sales division within the hallowed halls of One Infinite Loop. So is it finally time for Apple to pull out all the stops and launch a killer sales offensive on the IT departments of the world?
BusinessWeek seems to think so. Right now it cites an opening into corporate IT formed by "three key trends": the increasing popularity of Apple hardware among UNIX/Linux users; portables that kick exactly the right kind of butt in a market starting to buy laptops instead of desktops; and IT departments sick to death of cleaning up after "catastrophic failures of entire organizations" every time a new virus or worm says howdy. The result? A "slow but steady rise of interest in Apple products at corporations"-- one that Apple could accelerate if it deems the time is right.
Conspiracy theorists may find the confluence of factors a little suspicious. It's perhaps reasonable to chalk up the imminent release of the most-corporate-friendly-ever Panther and the peak of Apple's "Year of the Notebook" as a mere coincidence, but the viruses and worms that plagued the Wintel world with billions of dollars in damages over the past few months seem a little too well-timed to ignore. Does anyone else have a nagging suspicion that a sizable wing of Apple's top secret underground labs must be devoted to the cultivation and timed release of havoc-wreaking Windows malware?
Anyone? No?
Okay, so it's just us, then. Maybe we'll see about upping our dosage. Still, we agree with BusinessWeek that this completely coincidental convergence of factors (cough) has opened just the door that Apple's been waiting for. Don't be surprised if Apple starts getting aggressive about corporate sales soon after Panther's release. But here's a word to the wise over in Cupertino: if the feds come a-knockin', burn the printouts!
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SceneLink (4241)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 10/1/03 episode: October 1, 2003: Forget 90 nanometers; IBM knows that 60 nanometers is where it's at. Meanwhile, a suspiciously convenient confluence of factors gives Apple an opening into corporate and enterprise sales, and a pair of Apple job postings reveals the company's next big diversification move...
Other scenes from that episode: 4240: The G5: Let's Get Smaller (10/1/03) Gotsta Git Fonky! Remember yesterday when we discussed how IBM plans to shrink its processor fabrication process from 130 nanometers down to 90 nanometers by the end of the year, thus unleashing a golden bounty of lower-power, higher-clock-speed G5s that will propel Apple squarely into serious World Domination Mode?... 4242: Heck, WE'D Sure Feel Safer (10/1/03) We're going to have to make this quick, because we here at AtAT are all currently mired in various stages of an end-of-summer cold outbreak ranging from "just starting to get a little cranky" to "all the fluid in my body is attempting to flee through my nasal passages."...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
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