News, info, and opinion by Mac users, for Mac users.

August 17, 2006

business

The myth of self perpetuating IT

Posted Aug. 17, ’06, 5:32 AM PT by Derik DeLong
Category | Business

David Pogue Common logic among many Mac advocates is that many IT professionals promote Windows in order to maintain their employment. Considering Macs cost less overall to maintain, it seems a natural that IT departments would have to slim down, scaring those in the departments in question. I’ve never thought it was that simple and that’s been pointed out to David Pogue in his latest blog entry. I agree mostly with the big four pointed out (and I had a short stint in IT).

  • Cross-product Microsoft deals
  • Competition
  • Standardization
  • Inertia

His blog entry explains them in detail. Here’s my executive summary. (1) Microsoft likes to sell their products and will offer discounts in order to sell more of them. (2) Hardware vendors will compete against one another. Apple won’t compete against itself. (3) It’s easier to force Windows on everyone than to support multiple platforms. (4) They’ve already got everyone using Windows successfully.

I have a couple minor problems with some of those arguments that corporations are unlikely to care about. (1) You may get an inexpensive bundle, but parts of those bundles will inevitably be weak. (2) Corporations get entrenched in long term contracts with vendors and rarely switch. The utility of having multiple vendors is lost because of this. (3) I’ll further clarify that it’s easier to hire a big force of IT personnel that all know Windows than to find Mac trained ones and make sure the ratio is correct for proper coverage. (4) Nothing to say here.

It’s for all these reasons that we’re unlikely to see Apple make a huge dent in larger corporations on the desks of most employees. Rather, they should focus on small startups (to create their own inertia) and market the Mac Pro to the more high end of corporate needs. Trying to play the low margin, low cost game sucks and even worse in the corporate environment.


2 Comments

Bozwell Kay said:

Don't forget the cost of training employees. That seems to be the biggest worry in the companies I work with.

August 17, 2006 6:53 AM
macnuke said:

posted elsewhere in this never ending series of stories by another who's name I forgot and ask forgiveness for not searching..
to roughly quote ...

people are stupid. they can break anything.

I believe that statement to be true.
you would be surprised at what i have broken.

August 17, 2006 2:21 PM

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