January 16th, 2012
Over the years, Apple has earned a less-than-stellar reputation among purchasers of enterprise desktops. Macs were seen as overpriced to begin with. And Apple didn't offer huge discounts for bulk purchases, like the PC makers. Plus, Macs didn't come with the ecosystem of integrated productivity and management apps that are taken for granted in theWindows world.
But the latest numbers don't lie. Apple's U.S. market share for the quarter ended Sept. 30 jumped from 10.5% to 11.3%, according to IDC. And Apple's global Mac shipments increased by 20%. Gartner puts Apple's U.S. market share at 12.9%, with a 21.5% growth in PC shipments.
In its latest earnings report, Apple said Mac sales hit an all-time high of 4.9 million units, a 26% year-over-year increase. And according to a survey by Forrester Research, 22% of enterprises report the use of employee-owned Mac computers is growing significantly.
So, what is Apple doing differently? The answer, not surprisingly, is not much. Apple hasn't changed, but the world has.
The popularity of consumer-oriented devices like iPhones and iPads among traditional end users has created a sea change in the enterprise. Whereas enterprise IT managers once tried to keep a tight lid on new hardware accessing the network, the trend toward a new open attitude is described in two of the big buzzwords of the day: consumerization of IT and BYOD (bring your own device.)
Read Maria's full article in TechWorld and hear from Desktone customers about how they're using cloud hosted desktops to meet BYOD demand.
