5 ms·

Smart play to focus on businesses with fewer than 500 employees, as those are the most likely to grow in the next 3-7 years into larger accounts, and they don't

Smart play to focus on businesses with fewer than 500 employees, as those are the most likely to grow in the next 3-7 years into larger accounts, and they don't have the 12-18mo sales cycle and shennanigans of an enterprise. It's a strategic departure from being a consumer luxury product company, and the shift to enterprise suggests they're out of ideas, but at the rate they're losing consumer growth I'd say they've still got another 150 years. Leveraging the apple store as a service point is a huge deal, as it may compensate for the additional hardware premium their products cost. I've worked in a large number of organizations as a consultant and the microsoft ecosystem is basically unusuable to me now. Between performance issues and thoughtless design, I switch back to my apple devices to do simple things and get real feedback from actions while I'm waiting for the microsoft platform to respond. As a result, I manage client work on MSFT, and do real work on my mac. With Apple getting into this space, I can't see buying another microsoft product unless I actually hated the people I was hiring to use it. The essence of the apple experience is that by their products being designed to be responsive no matter what, you are always engaged and working on them for the feedback, whereas some MSFT error message means I'm going to go do something else for 15-20m while I get past the gumption trap. Current one is having to reboot the machine to reset a VPN driver just to check client site email. MSFTs problem isn't from lack of a solution, it's that the problem exists at all and as a user I am even aware of it. I have lots of issues with Apple's social decisions, and am switching out of their ecosystem because of it so I'm not an uncritical fan, however, this announcement means they aren't just getting into enterprise, they're getting upstream of it and in 10-20 years they will have replaced a lot of it. They're dropping in on a macro trend wave that is how work itself is going to be different.

short12 5y ago
Didnt they already try this and it was a huge failure
- zeusk 5y ago
  Who remembers xserve?
  - ryanjkirk 5y ago
    and XSAN <shudder/>
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - pxc 5y ago
      What was wrong with XSAN?
  - TimTheTinker 5y ago
    I cried a tear or two when they deprecated it. Apple can do enterprise hardware... just because Linux and x86 hardware became commoditized doesn't mean there isn't room for further innovation. I think Apple should come out with an M1 Enterprise chip and a line of data center/server hardware to compete with Oxide. As for an OS, why not hire Hector Martin and adopt a particular flavor of Linux (maybe partner with Red Hat)?
    - NovaS1X 5y ago
      An LDAP offering that competes with AD and integrates with OSX would be gigantic. I work in VFX where 95% of our hardware runs Linux, our laptops all Apple, and the only Windows machines being the accounting department, yet we still use AD for directory services because there's simply nobody else that offers a product even half as good, and OSX doesn't even like working with AD anyway. A product that could even compete with half of what AD offers and could manage OSX devices would be pretty incredible.
      - lukeh 5y ago
        Well, they won’t use Samba (which has a very well featured domain controller implementation), because of the GPL. The only other one going around is the one I wrote, but Novell bought that, not Apple. (Apple wasn’t so interested in the enterprise space circa 2006.) But anyway, AD will become much less relevant in the future as everything moves to the cloud, a la Azure AD.
- newsclues 5y ago
  Apple has had success in certain sectors of industry: the creative space being a large focus where they had success often in spite of being Apple
- hhaha88 5y ago
  I’ve been backing up and restoring my personal phone, and managing family gadgets that way for a while. This is a reskin of an existing Apple iCloud infrastructure project.
cptskippy 5y ago
> Current one is having to reboot the machine to reset a VPN driver just to check client site email. These aren't Microsoft specific issues but vendor specific. My partner's last two employers have used Dell machines and they've each had serious problems with audio drivers. I've seen Dell bios updates completely mess up full disk encryption by losing keys and more recently switching SSDs from ACHI to ATA mode. At the same time I've had comparatively few issues using my work issued Lenovo laptop. However I completely re-imaged my work issued Macbook because the Trend Micro software installed on it made it $3000 brick.
zitterbewegung 5y ago
Once Apple stops doing 22 percent year over year growth is when there is a problem. This is just Tim Cook’s personal plan to move Apple into more of a service oriented company and this product should have existed a long time ago.
vineyardmike 5y ago
> the shift to enterprise suggests they're out of ideas Pretty sure its just the way to profit off of all types of users, keep cash flow coming and grow the business. When their app store faces anti-trust, and everyone already has an iphone and the next igadget is 5 years away, how do you generate growth?
- numbsafari 5y ago
  Agreed. They have been leaving a mountain of money on the table by not offering this, or a competitor for Google Workspace.
  - frankfrankfrank 5y ago
    It could actually be a play for far bigger, the mountain of money that is now largely dominated by Microsoft in ALL establishment corporations and governments. Think of being able to run your whole network and equipment with a mere fraction of the IT and network personnel that it now takes to run a Windows based environment.
    - _carbyau_ 5y ago
      Well, yes and no. Some innovation in this space will be much welcomed and may well lead to the "mere fraction". But right now in almost every IT office, if you could get rid of the right 50% of people, the remaining 50% would keep things running without missing a beat. The trick is doing that. Also, right now in the corporate space, virtual machines are popular for server and workstation environments. Apple hasn't dipped a toe in that space yet. Maybe as more business software go towards web and BYODevice becomes a thing Apple could gain traction.
  - vineyardmike 5y ago
    > a competitor for Google Workspace. I think this is their obvious next move. They just launched iCloud email with custom domains for end users. That seems like an early battle-test for enterprise use cases. They already have alternative software to google docs too, so it could be an easy business to set up.
novok 5y ago
> the shift to enterprise suggests they're out of ideas I would not say that. This is a long time coming for apple to finally acknowledge with actions that apple devices are used in an enterprise context for many, many companies and to start thinking about proper first class support for that use case. "Innovation" wise it's independent of their other efforts IMO.
ziggus 5y ago
I'm calling BS on this entire pile of nonsense.
thereddaikon 5y ago
Smart to focus on smaller businesses but foolish albeit expected to only include Apple products in the solution. I'd put money on the overwhelming majority of businesses that have any Apple devices also have non Apple devices. Very few will be purely Apple environments and those that are would hardly qualify as enterprise environments. The reason is simple, Apple has failed to provide the needed suite of enterprise solutions to allow a company to build themselves around their ecosystem. You can do it in the home but Apple doesn't sell servers anymore or allow anyone to develop server products for them.
- Closi 5y ago
  > Smart to focus on smaller businesses but foolish albeit expected to only include Apple products in the solution. Eh, it depends why you think they are doing it. If you think they are offering this because they want to get into selling MDM software, then yeah, it's foolish. If, on the other hand, you imagine that they are offering this because they want to encourage small businesses to go 'wall-to-wall' Apple, and for a benefit of this to be that if you go 'Apple' you effectively have some level of a technical support contract too with on-site hardware repairs (not really offered in a compelling way by any other hardware vendor), then it might not be so foolish from a commercial perspective. I suspect it's the latter - make going 'all in' on Apple a super appealing proposition for small businesses. The second thing is, Windows is very appealing for small businesses because, amongst other things, configuration and management of users, sign ins, security policies e.t.c. through AAD / Office 365 is brilliant, so this seems to close the gap a bit. > Apple doesn't sell servers anymore or allow anyone to develop server products for them. This seems to be more like an MDM/device management and user management/onboarding solution, not something you would install or use to manage servers.
  - codyb 5y ago
    It also seems like a progression for this product would go from "All Apple" to "Mixed Use". No need to lose the "All Apple" money while you're working on the "Mixed Use" software if you're going to take that road.
- r00fus 5y ago

short12 5y ago

Didnt they already try this and it was a huge failure

zeusk 5y ago
Who remembers xserve?
- ryanjkirk 5y ago
  and XSAN <shudder/>
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - pxc 5y ago
    What was wrong with XSAN?
- TimTheTinker 5y ago
  I cried a tear or two when they deprecated it. Apple can do enterprise hardware... just because Linux and x86 hardware became commoditized doesn't mean there isn't room for further innovation. I think Apple should come out with an M1 Enterprise chip and a line of data center/server hardware to compete with Oxide. As for an OS, why not hire Hector Martin and adopt a particular flavor of Linux (maybe partner with Red Hat)?
  - NovaS1X 5y ago
    An LDAP offering that competes with AD and integrates with OSX would be gigantic. I work in VFX where 95% of our hardware runs Linux, our laptops all Apple, and the only Windows machines being the accounting department, yet we still use AD for directory services because there's simply nobody else that offers a product even half as good, and OSX doesn't even like working with AD anyway. A product that could even compete with half of what AD offers and could manage OSX devices would be pretty incredible.
    - lukeh 5y ago
      Well, they won’t use Samba (which has a very well featured domain controller implementation), because of the GPL. The only other one going around is the one I wrote, but Novell bought that, not Apple. (Apple wasn’t so interested in the enterprise space circa 2006.) But anyway, AD will become much less relevant in the future as everything moves to the cloud, a la Azure AD.
newsclues 5y ago
Apple has had success in certain sectors of industry: the creative space being a large focus where they had success often in spite of being Apple
hhaha88 5y ago
I’ve been backing up and restoring my personal phone, and managing family gadgets that way for a while. This is a reskin of an existing Apple iCloud infrastructure project.

cptskippy 5y ago

> Current one is having to reboot the machine to reset a VPN driver just to check client site email. These aren't Microsoft specific issues but vendor specific. My partner's last two employers have used Dell machines and they've each had serious problems with audio drivers. I've seen Dell bios updates completely mess up full disk encryption by losing keys and more recently switching SSDs from ACHI to ATA mode. At the same time I've had comparatively few issues using my work issued Lenovo laptop. However I completely re-imaged my work issued Macbook because the Trend Micro software installed on it made it $3000 brick.

zitterbewegung 5y ago

Once Apple stops doing 22 percent year over year growth is when there is a problem. This is just Tim Cook’s personal plan to move Apple into more of a service oriented company and this product should have existed a long time ago.

vineyardmike 5y ago

> the shift to enterprise suggests they're out of ideas Pretty sure its just the way to profit off of all types of users, keep cash flow coming and grow the business. When their app store faces anti-trust, and everyone already has an iphone and the next igadget is 5 years away, how do you generate growth?

numbsafari 5y ago
Agreed. They have been leaving a mountain of money on the table by not offering this, or a competitor for Google Workspace.
- frankfrankfrank 5y ago
  It could actually be a play for far bigger, the mountain of money that is now largely dominated by Microsoft in ALL establishment corporations and governments. Think of being able to run your whole network and equipment with a mere fraction of the IT and network personnel that it now takes to run a Windows based environment.
  - _carbyau_ 5y ago
    Well, yes and no. Some innovation in this space will be much welcomed and may well lead to the "mere fraction". But right now in almost every IT office, if you could get rid of the right 50% of people, the remaining 50% would keep things running without missing a beat. The trick is doing that. Also, right now in the corporate space, virtual machines are popular for server and workstation environments. Apple hasn't dipped a toe in that space yet. Maybe as more business software go towards web and BYODevice becomes a thing Apple could gain traction.
- vineyardmike 5y ago
  > a competitor for Google Workspace. I think this is their obvious next move. They just launched iCloud email with custom domains for end users. That seems like an early battle-test for enterprise use cases. They already have alternative software to google docs too, so it could be an easy business to set up.

novok 5y ago

> the shift to enterprise suggests they're out of ideas I would not say that. This is a long time coming for apple to finally acknowledge with actions that apple devices are used in an enterprise context for many, many companies and to start thinking about proper first class support for that use case. "Innovation" wise it's independent of their other efforts IMO.

ziggus 5y ago

I'm calling BS on this entire pile of nonsense.

thereddaikon 5y ago

Smart to focus on smaller businesses but foolish albeit expected to only include Apple products in the solution. I'd put money on the overwhelming majority of businesses that have any Apple devices also have non Apple devices. Very few will be purely Apple environments and those that are would hardly qualify as enterprise environments. The reason is simple, Apple has failed to provide the needed suite of enterprise solutions to allow a company to build themselves around their ecosystem. You can do it in the home but Apple doesn't sell servers anymore or allow anyone to develop server products for them.

Closi 5y ago
> Smart to focus on smaller businesses but foolish albeit expected to only include Apple products in the solution. Eh, it depends why you think they are doing it. If you think they are offering this because they want to get into selling MDM software, then yeah, it's foolish. If, on the other hand, you imagine that they are offering this because they want to encourage small businesses to go 'wall-to-wall' Apple, and for a benefit of this to be that if you go 'Apple' you effectively have some level of a technical support contract too with on-site hardware repairs (not really offered in a compelling way by any other hardware vendor), then it might not be so foolish from a commercial perspective. I suspect it's the latter - make going 'all in' on Apple a super appealing proposition for small businesses. The second thing is, Windows is very appealing for small businesses because, amongst other things, configuration and management of users, sign ins, security policies e.t.c. through AAD / Office 365 is brilliant, so this seems to close the gap a bit. > Apple doesn't sell servers anymore or allow anyone to develop server products for them. This seems to be more like an MDM/device management and user management/onboarding solution, not something you would install or use to manage servers.
- codyb 5y ago
  It also seems like a progression for this product would go from "All Apple" to "Mixed Use". No need to lose the "All Apple" money while you're working on the "Mixed Use" software if you're going to take that road.
r00fus 5y ago