Apple's small business share continues to grow

Let me chime in on our business use of Apple products. We use almost everything Apple up to the server. Apple's client products are great, and we've not yet had to install anti-virus software and have a common image that we upload to our computers. Software updates are a breeze with ARD. We keep a small Mac Mini to manage user profiles in OS X Server.

We use Microsoft Dynamics GP for our financial/ERP software, so we login through Windows Remote Desktop Connection to our Terminal Server. We use Linux for our Single-Sign On app and other non-Windows tools. I wouldn't recommend using OS X for a server, but for a client setup, Windows RDC/Terminal Server and OS X Client is a match made in heaven.

Please note that Apple has had a small business department at all of their retail stores for quite a while now where they make it easy for us small business to make the right desicion and they have really helped me get started. At least the business department in my local store knows software to solve the problems I am running into and are totally awesome when it comes to questions and stuff. For me, the biggest part is the face-to-face time, you don't get there elsewhere.

http://www.apple.com/retail/business/

My small business is in this category. I started with a Mac Mini and iSight Camera back in 2005 bought to do video chat with another mac user (and for that purpose only - figured I'd give my Mini to my kid when I was done with it), and ended up converting everything to Mac.

In my experience I've been able to find software to do everything I want to do for my business - with one exception - as well or better than what I had on Windows. The exception is finance software, and I use Quicken on Boot Camp, accessed via VMWare Fusion to meet this need.

The reduction in setup times, troubleshooting, search (thank goodness for spotlight), plus myriad options for syncing data across multiple computers are all major advantages for our business. I also find iWork - particularly Pages and Keynote - superior to MS Office for the types of reports and presentations we do. Numbers is on its way, and is good for creation of forms that use tables, but we still use Excel for most data management spreadsheets.

Now we truly are a *small* business - Four computers (two MacBooks, one iMac, and one Mac Mini) - and do consulting work that doesn't require inventory management, so I can't speak to those needs. But I can say that it works well for what we do.

The Threadless store in Chicago was being run on iMacs last year when I went in. I was quite happy. I am sure people just need to make a program to take care of the things people need for business.

Don't expect this to last too long. Apple isnt ready for business still. We have 30 iMacs, 3 xServes and a dozen assorted MacBooks, and not one of them does whats needed of them as easily as a Windows did. We're most likely switching back to Windows Q1-09 and scrapping the hardware (or installing windows on what we have so everything works)