Filed under: Apple Corporate, Enterprise
80% of US businesses have Macs
Computerworld is reporting on the results of a Yankee Group Research report that finds that 80% of US businesses now have Macs. This represents an huge increase from just two years ago when only 47% of businesses reported having Mac users. The Yankee Group estimates that corporate marketshare has risen to 8-10% overall with 21% of firms reporting more than 50 Mac users. Interestingly, and perhaps not surprisingly, 28% are running Windows in virtualization.While the consumer marketshare (and better yet, profitshare) numbers have looking up for some time now, it's good to see that Apple is finally starting to gain (or regain) a serious foothold in the corporate sphere as well. It's no surprise that as more users get acquainted with Apple gear at home that they're bringing pressure on corporate IT managers to implement Macs at work as well. Things just keep rolling for the bean counters in Cupertino.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Galley said 11:22AM on 6-28-2008
The company I work for would never use Macs, because they would make the employees more productive, and they would save money by not getting raped by Microsoft. Also, they would have to lay off half the IT department.
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Robot Kitten Face said 2:27PM on 6-28-2008
This is EXACTLY why more companies aren't using Macs. I work for a newspaper, and all the designers used to have Macs until about 2006 when the IT assholes decided to switch everyone to PeeCees. The ONLY reason is because they know NOTHING about Macs. Which is totally ironic because they're the ones who say Macs are for people who know nothing about computers.
Camperton said 6:38PM on 6-28-2008
@ Robot Kitten Face
Classic.
steve ballmer said 12:04PM on 6-28-2008
D@%&*^%%^
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Gary Gulley said 12:36PM on 6-28-2008
I work for a very, very large online travel agency that you've all heard of, and there are loads of people with MBPs. My entire user interface team uses MBPs exclusively because it makes us extremely productive.
We can test those horrible IE browsers with VMware (and unlike windows users who can't install IE6 & 7 simultaneously, we have two virtual machines, one with IE6, the other with IE7. We just boot up the one we want to test, very nice!). We develop with Firefox using Firebug and other plugins, all fully Mac compatible.
And we ssh or vnc into our Redhat linux development boxes to run/build/configure/modify our web server app. Again, very nice.
Our design team and other various folks use MBPs as well, and we have no problem interacting with the enterprise including VPN, wireless, Exhange (via Entourage), Jabber, etc. We'll never go back to Windows.
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ZeRo said 12:54PM on 6-28-2008
Actually you can run both ie6 and ie7 on a windows machine. All you need to do is make small registry edit. There are a few guides online. You should try it. That way you don't have to run to VM's and waste cpu cycles needlessly.
Gary Gulley said 1:03AM on 6-29-2008
Well ZeRo, I'm aware that you CAN hack the hell out of Windows to get both to run but it's exactly that: A hack. It's not supported by Microsoft and they explicitly tell you that the behaviour can be different than a properly installed IE6 or 7 which could provide non standard behaviour during development and testing. That would be bad. And my MBP has no problems running more than one virtual machine. It's easy.
Frank said 12:54PM on 6-28-2008
what?? did i fall through a bizarro wormhole last night in my sleep or something??
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Dan said 3:02PM on 6-28-2008
I agree that Macs are increasingly becoming more and more productive for everyday use and business use. But to say 80% of the business world is using Macs?? The survey sounds very doubtful.
If anything the article is mis-leading, it doesn't necesarilly mean that they are exclusively using Macs. Many high-profile business applications still run on Windows only, ofcourse you could always use a WMware app for the mac but its more of a hassle for a everyday business user. I still doubt the survey and its results. I don't know a single firm or business that uses mac in my client roster except for regular usage of email, web, and music.
Not to bash on Mac or anything as I recently got a Macbook for my girl and really liked the OS in fact. Just in my profession (accounting and taxation) theres not a single tax program that runs on Mac, and the same goes for a lot of other businesses and professions. Unless the business is primarily runned through web portal programs I dont see Macs being that huge of a business tool just yet.
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reallycrazyguy said 3:40PM on 6-28-2008
Dan, it's not that 80% of users in companies have Macs, but that 80% of companies have at least one Mac.
tillman said 3:21PM on 6-28-2008
I work for the largest internet company in the world and been using MBP for last 2 months. I don't see any reason people should change to MBP unless they need to use specialized tools that work only for OSX. I found it amusing that people say Mac is more efficient in terms of usage. Some one like me who uses spread sheets a lot have 4-5 of them open at the same time and with Mac I always have to click on expose to access others. In windows you can always switch between multiple open instances of the same application with Ctr + Tab. And, every time I open a large spread sheet ( and I mean large i.e. 35 mb file); OSX crashes the application. Integration between XP and Office is just amazing. Luckily my company has given me VMware fusion so I can run xp and osx simultaneously. Now a days I end up running only XP the whole day because it is so much more efficient. Those who are complaining that XP is not powerful doen't necessarily know small features in xp. Another example is that I can use XP for the whole day doing my work without touching a mouse. And, using keyboard shortcuts is way way faster than using mouse (and it lowers risks of carpel tunnel).
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lawrenceinseattle said 4:48PM on 6-28-2008
FYI. In Excel for Mac, you can use CTRL-` to cycle between open spreadsheets. Works for lots of other apps as well. I see your point about XP, however. When I am working on math equations for planning classes, for example, Mac's version of Word just does not compare and I end up in XP via FusionWare.
tillman said 3:22PM on 6-28-2008
I work for the largest internet company in the world and been using MBP for last 2 months. I don't see any reason people should change to MBP unless they need to use specialized tools that work only for OSX. I found it amusing that people say Mac is more efficient in terms of usage. Some one like me who uses spread sheets a lot have 4-5 of them open at the same time and with Mac I always have to click on expose to access others. In windows you can always switch between multiple open instances of the same application with Ctr + Tab. And, every time I open a large spread sheet ( and I mean large i.e. 35 mb file); OSX crashes the application. Integration between XP and Office is just amazing. Luckily my company has given me VMware fusion so I can run xp and osx simultaneously. Now a days I end up running only XP the whole day because it is so much more efficient. Those who are complaining that XP is not powerful doen't necessarily know small features in xp. Another example is that I can use XP for the whole day doing my work without touching a mouse. And, using keyboard shortcuts is way way faster than using mouse (and it lowers risks of carpel tunnel).
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lawrenceinseattle said 4:49PM on 6-28-2008
Oops. I said CTRL-` in my previous post but it is Command-` (The Apple key) that cycles through open docs. Sorry.
Patrick said 4:49PM on 6-28-2008
tillman, actually learning about the OS you're using is fun. Command + ` will cycle through multiple instances of the same program. This lack of knowledge also voids your comment about using the keyboard in XP all day, since knowing what keyboard shortcuts do is -how- you're able to stay on the keyboard for so long.
In terms of efficiency, if you've grown up with XP then you will know more about XP and thus will be more at home using XP. I've never had a problem with opening rather large files (a 300MB in After Effects in addition to a 150MB file being open in Photoshop). Maybe you should try NeoOffice instead of Microsoft Office for spreadsheets.
reallycrazyguy said 3:38PM on 6-28-2008
It's NOT that 80% of user's in companies use Macs, but that 80% of companies have at least 1 Mac.
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Neo said 5:47PM on 6-28-2008
Thanks patrick and Lawrence for the tips. I have used NeoOffice too and believe me it doesn't work either. I guess the fault may be on the part of Microsoft too for not making Excel 2003 macros work in Mac Office 2008. However, my argument is that when a person changes from xp to mac he/she doesn't become more efficient for a long time until he/she learns every small tricks in the OS. And Apple is no better than MSFT when you try to learn the OS. I certainly do enjoy some features in Mac such as spotlight, Safari, Y! Messenger, Skype, iCal and others. But when it comes to productivity apps such as Office I must use XP untile Mac Office is upgraded to run Old Macros.
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Ron said 1:59AM on 6-29-2008
Think this has anything to do with the fact that the Mac can now run Windows??? Hmmm, and people are surprised??
Had the Mac been "backwards compatible" with Windows earlier, Apple would have been much farther ahead... they lost a lot of ground when this gap was widening... now at least they are regaining some of the ground lost.
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Brad Hart said 11:02PM on 6-28-2008
no matter how you spin it I highly doubt the numbers are accurate. Usage may be up but I can guarantee that 80% of business don't have at least one mac.
I have never seen a fast food restaurant in 15 years of servicing their equipment ever use a mac, and fast food makes up 15% of all businesses in the US. Furthermore I have seen but handful of them in major retail in that same 15 year period and none of them were major retailers or grocers. Between those two industries they make up nearly 35% of all US workplaces. The only way they could skew the numbers to 80% worldwide is to see if one person in some far flung corporate office that has nothing to do with actual operations uses a mac and claim the entire company uses a mac.
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Kelmon said 6:40AM on 6-30-2008
For some odd reason the Mac community seems to have gotten excited about this report, with even a couple of sites reporting that this is evidence that Microsoft's reign as the leader of corporate computing services is coming to an end. This is clearly nonsense.
Firstly, the article is definitely bunk because there is no business case for deploying Macs unless there's a job you need doing where only a Mac will do. In some companies that may be the case, particularly those involved in media, for "standard" office companies a Mac is going to be a worse choice, simply because the likes of Office 2007 is superior to the equivalents on the Mac. While most of us like the fact that a Mac runs Windows today, particularly given the convenience of VMWare/Parallels, for normal use this is ridiculous. If you are going to "go Mac", then do it completely.
Secondly, Windows is much more than simply the Windows client operating system. Love 'em or hate 'em, Microsoft has built the Windows platform to comprise of servers, applications and services that all work with each other, and the Mac has nothing to compete with that beyond OS X Server. If you already have an investment in the Windows platform then clearly introducing Macs will not deliver benefits.
Let me be very clear here. I love my MBP, and use it for day-to-day work in a big corporation. However, because a lot of applications are run under Windows via VMWare Fusion to access the resources of the company, deploying Macs widely in the company would be nuts. You either need the Macs to work seamlessly with the Windows platform (Exchange support and better Active Directory support will be a start), or Apple needs to deliver a Mac platform that competes with Microsoft's Windows platform far more than it does today.
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