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April 17, 2008

business

IBM cautiously steps into the Apple fold with the Mac Pilot Program

Posted Apr. 17, ’08, 10:00 AM PT by Aayush Arya
Category | Business

IBM Mac Pilot ProgramWell, well, well—what do we have here? IBM, the company behind the first PC, the “big brother” of yore, the folks that (unwittingly) gave Microsoft the initial footing they needed to embark on their plan of world domination, has finally seen the light.

Wary of their complete dependence on Microsoft software and free of the obligation to rely on Windows now that they’ve sold off their PC division to Lenovo, IBM has decided to go cross-platform. Apparently, it is “less prone to security issues” (to put it politely) and “many new hires are more comfortable with the Mac and lately asking for it”.

IBM launched their Mac Pilot Program in October 2007 and started off by handing out MacBook Pros to 24 of their researchers in different sites. They were supposed to use it as their primary notebook for four months and report back in January this year. Not very surprisingly, 19 of 22 people who responded chose to stick with the Mac at the end of the trial period, most of whom hadn’t quite recovered from the Vista disaster yet.

Given the success of the initial phase, the company now plans to expand it to fifty more employees by the end of the first half of 2008 and then continue further from there.

As a part of this initiative, IBM also plans to commit itself more thoroughly to its software offerings for our favorite platform, with a new version of Lotus Notes and a new product called Lotus Symphony due out later this year. The iPhone and iPod touch will also factor into these plans.

So, basically, there’s good news all around. With the impending launch of the iPhone/iPod touch software v2.0 in June this year and mega-corporations like IBM taking a shine to the Mac platform, it seems that perhaps good things are in store for the adoption of Apple products in the enterprise.

Mark my words, someday soon we’ll see Steve Ballmer appear at some Microsoft conference and announce how they’ve installed Apple TVs in all offices and distributed free iPods to all employees. It’s only a matter of time now.

[Via MacDailyNews]


1 Comments

RayCon Author Profile Page said:

Mmm... I wonder what reasons the initial 3 out of 22 had for sticking with Windows?

April 17, 2008 3:20 PM

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