By Jo Best, 21 September 2009 14:43
NEWS
Apple may be reinvigorated with CEO Steve Jobs back at the helm and a new OS just out of the gates, but it looks like the business world is still closed to the Mac maker.
According to silicon.com's CIO Jury, the release late last month of Apple's latest OS, Snow Leopard, won't signal the company's entry into the business market.
Just one of the 12-strong jury said the launch of Snow Leopard will make their IT department more likely to adopt Mac OS X machines.
For Matthew Oakeley, CIO of investment management firm Schroders, a new OS isn't a sufficient spur to consider Macs.
"The OS itself isn't enough - the impact on the whole desktop and Wintel architecture have to be considered," he said.
Andrew Wayland, CIO of recruiter Michael Page, agreed, saying operating system upgrades don't always deliver significant boosts in performance on their predecessors.
"I don't view 'operating systems' as the enablers of business now that they perhaps once were with say Windows 3.1 and the first Macs.
"The benefits are often marginal upgrades upon previous products, even though they may be spun out as more. In many cases they can actually be of no demonstrable benefit and a real source of pain, for example Vista. For some companies there is a possible alternative to Microsoft where perhaps there was not one available before, but time will tell if that is the case."
While there may be no pressing reason to shift away from Microsoft products for many CIOs, Apple products continue to make their way into the business, according to Kevin Fitzpatrick, CIO Northern Europe of food and facilities management company Sodexo.
"Although Apple products are undoubtedly very good (and very appealing) they are only used in niche areas (design). There are no substantial benefits in moving away from Window-based environment for personal productivity. This doesn't stop the daily requests to support corporate email on individual's iPhones though!"
The corporate world's lack of interest in deploying Macs appears to have increased little over the years - a CIO Jury from 2005 found just one tech chief claiming Apple machines are an issue for corporate IT departments.
And a poll of US tech chiefs also found a lack of interest in moving to Macs on the back of Snow Leopard's launch. A CIO Jury conducted by silicon.com's sister site TechRepublic found not one of the 12 heads of IT saying Snow Leopard would push them to consider Mac OS X.
However, some industries are exploring their OS options.
Mike Roberts, IT director of The London Clinic, said: "Macs are becoming more popular in the medical community. The primary issue for us is always security and after that the need for applications to work reliably on the Mac OS. So I'm off to the Apple store for a new MacBook Air!"
Is the CIO Jury right? Read an exclusive article, in response to the CIO Jury findings, from Michael Silver, research VP and distinguished analyst at Gartner who argues that just because CIOs aren't buying Macs, that doesn't mean they won't appear on corporate networks.
This CIO Jury was:
- Alan Bawden, IT & operations director, The JM Group
- Peter Birley, director of IT and business operations, Browne Jacobson
- Chris Ford, IT director, Nottingham City Council
- Kevin Fitzpatrick, CIO Northern Europe, Sodexo
- Madhushan Gokool, IT manager, Storm Model Management
- John Keeling, CIO, John Lewis
- Matthew Oakeley, CIO , Schroders
- Mike Roberts, IT director, The London Clinic
- Mark Saysell, technology director, Creo Retail Marketing
- Spencer Steel, IT manager, Informatiq Consulting
- Andrew Wayland, CIO, Michael Page
- Derrick Wood, CIO, Wood Group Production Facilities
Want to be part of silicon.com's CIO Jury and have your say on the hot issues for IT departments? If you are a CIO, CTO, IT director or equivalent at a large or small company in the private or public sector and you want to be part of silicon.com's CIO Jury pool, or you know an IT chief who should be, then drop us a line at editorial@silicon.com
Comments
There are 8 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
I'm a big Mac fan and CTO of a small software company. I have upgraded to Snow Leopard (a little too early I would say) and there is still no way I would deploy Macs across our business. There are still compatibility issues with Mac Office and Office for windows, no decent mail client (mail is getting there but still needs work), little or no group policy control and very few people have one at home, meaning more desktop support.
I'll know when they're getting close when I no longer need Fusion and a Windows virtual machine.
2. Richard Sarson
Think of the sleepless nights worrying about Wintel viruses that the CIOs could avoid if they moved to OS X. And the amount of money they could save their companies by getting rid of the vast security teams they need to fend off those viruses. And the immense training and support costs they could cut by moving to a more user-friendly platform.
3. Chris Anderson
Think of the number of viruses and other malware that would be written for mac's if they ever became mainstream, I think mac users should stop evangelising and just carry on spending far too much for their hardware like they have in the past
4. David Howe
As someone who has over 70 Macs and 10 Windows machines I can state that your CIO's are worried about job security. My support costs for both platforms are identical despite the difference in units. I also get on average +18 months greater life out of the Macs.
5. anonymous
It really is time for CIOs to get their brains into gear - have they ever really carried out TCO? Guess what - in a company with 600 Macs there were just 2 support personnel - and did you not know that Microsoft wrote Office for Macs - years before it was available on Windows - in fact I understand that they made more profit from Mac software than from PC software - until Windows!
6. karen challinor
it's not really up to the CIO who has to prepare a budget request in advance for everything they want for the coming year, then go into a boardroom and try to walk out with the shirt still on their backs and still be in employment, never mind with the budget intact
they make a business case for the expenditure and fight for it and they don't always win
it's a hard enough job without having to include hardware or software that is desired but not really necessary as the kit that's currently budgeted for will do the required job
now as I said in the other mac thread
you are the one wanting hardware or software that falls outside the company policy, so it's up to you to find all the numbers, add them up, make a business case from the result and then sell it, justify the expenditure and demonstrate the cost savings
I agree this is a lot of work, but you are the beneficiary so why should someone else do it
turn your wants and desires into monetary equivalents that the board can understand and you will stand a much better chance of getting what you want
but whining about how the CIO won't listen or bringing your own kit to work and expecting the IT department to jump through hoops to fit it into the company infrastructure, despite it breaking the company policy and the work not being budgeted for, won't get you anywhere and in the latter case may even be grounds for disciplinary action
you want something ? then fight for it! don't complain about it and then complain even more when no one else fights for it for you
and if you lose then lose with grace, there will be nothing to stop you trying again the following year
7. anonymous
There is no reason for Macs to be more reliable than PCs as they now share the same hardware, even if it cost a lot more.
Windows has been tested to death with security issues, which are now relatively rare, whereas Macs are just at beginning of the bell curve, as they become more popular.
Macs often win in the looks deparment, but that is just not important to business.
8. Keith Thomas
Windows 7 is better and more safe and secure, but, with the Apple Macintosh the hardware costs more, but you can still use a 7 year old Mac on the internet running 10.5, which had outrun having to purchase 2-3 pc computers, Apple Macs are cheaper to own and run.
Most senior people in companys do not look at the mac because Macs have a false stigma of being not IBM PC compatiable machines, this might have been the case when Apple Macs had floppy disk drives that only read Mac formatted disks and there was no PC filesharing until late system 7.1, Today the 10.5 and 10.6 Macs can see a Windows 7 machine almost without having to do any network config setup.
A Brave CEO who told him I.T. Team we are getting rid of 10,000 PC machiners and now we are getting Apple Macs, Good Move.
The Apple UK Marketshare i think is 10% for consumers and a lot less for companys 0.1%