Government, enterprise Mac sales surge

Apple continues to show tremendous growth in the enterprise and government markets, as Mac sales spiked sharply over the last three months.

AppleInsider cites a report from Charlie Wolf of Needham & Company this week that Apple saw a 200.8% year-over-year growth in government sales for the month of July. That's a huge number, and significantly higher than the 12.1% of growth that PC sales showed over the same period.

Likewise, sales grew 49.8% in the business market during the same time period. Large companies out-purchased small businesses, picking up 98.3 more Macs than they did in the previous year.

Wolf hesitates to call the figures a pattern, saying "Whether the June blip was a one-quarter phenomenon or something more enduring should be revealed in future quarters."

As for education, traditionally a stronghold for Apple, sales grew 14.7% during the same period. Recent reports show that college and university students in the US are buying MacBooks in huge numbers.

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Source: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/08/23/apples_governm…

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Apple continues to show tremendous growth in the enterprise and government markets, as Mac sales spiked sharply over the last three...

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Brett

I'm torn on the government numbers... my gut reaction is to be annoyed that they're buying expensive (better, but more expensive) equipment. But my second thought is towards the arguments I've heard about upfront costs being more expensive but long-term maintenance being cheaper.

I wish I had some reliable numbers so I could know whether I should be annoyed or pleasantly surprised...

August 23 2010 at 3:40 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

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Random1

The sad truth is that most of that is due to federal budgets closing out in October, and as such federal agencies have to spend all their budget before the end of the year. Any money they return to the general fund at the end of the year does not get budgeted for their agency next year. Therefore at the end of the year they spend a ton of money on stuff that is barely justified in order to make sure they have that money next year.

Since Apple is hot this year a ton of money got thrown at it. The sad part is due to security regulations, most of that equipment will go unused because it is not secure out of the box, and the expertise to secure is almost no where to be found in the Federal IT work force.

iPads, iPhones and iPods lack some of the key security features that handheld devices need to connect to the network. Thus any of these that are bought either need special exceptions, or will sit on warehouse shelves. The tales I could tell about waste would be shocking.

On the flip side there are well managed Mac networks out there I have heard of. Supposedly NASA and Walter Reed have somewhat well run networks but don't really have the cash to spare on new stuff like other DoD agencies/White House/DHS.

August 23 2010 at 4:08 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply