Ben Lorica 2008/05/07

In every O’Reilly conference and event I've been to, the number of Mac laptops is disproportionately high: I would say at least around a quarter (if not more) in most of our conferences. The most common answer I hear is that the Mac combines an elegant UI, a suite of useful software, and a Unix command line. O'Reilly does tilt towards the “alpha geek” crowd, but one wonders if mainstream companies are beginning to allow Apple products (including iPhones) in their networks.

Business Week’s most recent cover story is on the growing interest in Apple computers among corporate users. I was expecting the article to include some estimates for the corporate market, or at least the results of a recent survey. It was after all the cover story of the U.S. edition.

I do recognize that estimating Apple’s share of the corporate market is difficult. Apple itself does not provide corporate sales estimates and according to the article, it doesn't even have much of a sales force dedicated to the space. What Apple provides are sales for Desktops and Portable PC’s:

Starting Q3-2006, the share of portables jumped to 60% and has remained slightly above that number. Apple began moving to Intel processors in Q1-2006 and by August 2006 the entire line of Apple PC's had switched over. The graph for revenues (Desktops vs. Portables) is essentially the same. In Q2-2008, portables grew 61%, compared to the prior year, and now account for close to 2 in 3 units sold.

As the author points out, Apple’s secrecy and large margins may hamper it in the corporate market, where buyers prefer transparency and bargains. Overseas, particularly in the developing world, Macs are too expensive for most. With the introduction of expensive models (e.g. MacBook Air) the article estimates that the average price for a Mac is now about $1,526: too pricey even for large American companies, unless of course Apple is willing to forgo their fat margins and negotiate. Why would Apple want that when consumers seem willing to pay for their products? With more and more tasks moving to the cloud, expensive Macs will be even harder to justify. So while more companies might be willing to allow Macs, I would be surprised if Apple makes inroads in the corporate space.

My pet peeve: MS-Excel 2008 for the Mac is quite unstable, and I think the 2004 version is superior. In the corporate market a stable and easy-to-use spreadsheet is a must.

If you work for a large company they probably tightly limit what machines you can use. Luckily for me, O’Reilly allows the use of any (Mac, Windows, Linux, BSD, …) computer.

在我参加的每一个O'Reilly会议和活动中，Mac笔记本的数量都出奇地高：很多情况下我敢说有四分之一（如果不是更多的话）。我听到的最多的回答是Mac机器既有优雅的用户界面，又有一套实用的软件，还有Unix命令行。O'Reilly周围的人肯定都是那些“超级极客”，但是不知道主流公司是否已经开始允许Apple的产品（包括iPhone）进入他们的网络。

商业周刊最近的封面文章就是关于企业用户对Apple计算机日益增长的兴趣。我本想文章能提供一些对企业市场的预测，至少是一些最近的调查结果。那毕竟是美国版的封面报道。

我认识到估算Apple在企业市场中的份额是很困难的。Apple自己就不提供这样的数字，而且根据这篇文章的报道Apple甚至不向这一领域花费更多的销售力量。Apple提供的只是桌面计算机和便携计算机的销售情况：

从2006年第三季度开始便携机的份额达到60%并且一直保持在这个水平之上。Apple从2006年第一季度开始转移到Intel处理器，到2006年8月整个产品线都完成转移。公司收入（台式机和便携机）的图表与此吻合。2008年第二季度便携机比前一年增长了61%，现在几乎占销售单位的三分之二。

正如文章作者指出的，Apple遮遮掩掩的作风和巨大了利润空间阻碍了它进入企业市场，企业购买喜欢透明和讨价还价。国外尤其是发展中国家对大多数人来讲Mac还是有些贵。算上新贵机型（比如Macbok Air）文章估算Mac现在的平均价格是$1,526，即使是对美国大公司讲也太贵了，除非Apple有商量肯于让利。为什么在消费者有意买他们产品的时候Apple却坚持这样做？随着越来越多的工作会采用云计算来完成昂贵的Mac会更难被接受。所以尽管越来越多的公司可能开始接受Mac了，如果Apple能够染指企业市场我仍然会感到吃惊。

我的烦恼：MS-Excel 2008 Mac版很不稳定，我想2004版更好一些。在企业市场中一个稳定、易于使用的电子表格工具是必须的。

如果你为大公司工作他们可能严格限制你用什么样的机器。我很幸运，O'Relly允许用任何机器（Mac、Windows、Linux、BSd……）。