4 ms·

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.
- numbsafari 5y ago
  Completely agree. I think they have been slowly making moves into this space over the last 4-5 years (probably longer, but slowly gaining momentum in that time). I think my read on the new custom domain support is the same as yours. It's clearly a limited beta without the label. They are moving at a snails pace, but a lot of the pieces are there. Numbers is just garbage, though. If they want to seriously play in the docs space, they need to fix it. They also need a simple database solution. They've got Claris, and could bring that to the table if they wanted. Apple also has a serious reputation problem when it comes to reliability in this space. Personally, as excited as I am about all this, I'm hesitant based on their track record.
  - vineyardmike 5y ago
    > they need to fix it. They also need a simple database solution I actually disagree. (improvements are always welcome though). There are so many different products in this space from MSFT to Google Docs, Quip, Confluence, Notion, etc. They're never going to actually make stuff for everyone. Their move should just be to handle the licenses. My work buys all MSFT products, yet most people use quip docs instead. But we also pay for google docs, and confluence. Most places probs use more than one redundant tool, so you just need a "good enough" bundled-in tool. If they can handle licenses and sales of the software, they can continue to collect their apple tax even if their app store gets trust-busted in the future. This can be a way to preserve app store revenue. Especially since businesses are whales compared to regular consumers.

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.

numbsafari 5y ago
Completely agree. I think they have been slowly making moves into this space over the last 4-5 years (probably longer, but slowly gaining momentum in that time). I think my read on the new custom domain support is the same as yours. It's clearly a limited beta without the label. They are moving at a snails pace, but a lot of the pieces are there. Numbers is just garbage, though. If they want to seriously play in the docs space, they need to fix it. They also need a simple database solution. They've got Claris, and could bring that to the table if they wanted. Apple also has a serious reputation problem when it comes to reliability in this space. Personally, as excited as I am about all this, I'm hesitant based on their track record.
- vineyardmike 5y ago
  > they need to fix it. They also need a simple database solution I actually disagree. (improvements are always welcome though). There are so many different products in this space from MSFT to Google Docs, Quip, Confluence, Notion, etc. They're never going to actually make stuff for everyone. Their move should just be to handle the licenses. My work buys all MSFT products, yet most people use quip docs instead. But we also pay for google docs, and confluence. Most places probs use more than one redundant tool, so you just need a "good enough" bundled-in tool. If they can handle licenses and sales of the software, they can continue to collect their apple tax even if their app store gets trust-busted in the future. This can be a way to preserve app store revenue. Especially since businesses are whales compared to regular consumers.