4 ms·

I was surprised they didn't have this 10-15 years ago. I sort of wonder if Jobs had lived if he'd had pivoted towards this enterprise/support direction.

cestith 4y ago
I'd guess he would have. Jobs cared about professional users, and not just in film, graphic design, and music. Many decisions these past years feel like the company has not seen the need to invest in enterprise users and especially not enterprise fleet management.
- jeromegv 4y ago
  Jobs cared about professional users but never cared much about enterprise. There's a good quote in this 2010 article: https://www.zdnet.com/article/what-steve-jobs-hates-about-the-enterprise/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/what-steve-jobs-hates-about-th... >"What I love about the consumer market, that I always hated about the enterprise market, is that we come up with a product, we try to tell everybody about it, and every person votes for themselves. They go 'yes' or 'no,' and if enough of them say 'yes,' we get to come to work tomorrow. That's how it works. It's really simple. With the enterprise market, it's not so simple. The people that use the products don't decide for themselves, and the people that make those decisions sometimes are confused. We love just trying to make the best products in the world for people and having them tell us by how they vote with their wallets whether we're on track or not."
  - rovr138 4y ago
    I mean, if they had solutions that compete with what the other market has, then companies can support both. This professional training would help with that. It's not necessarily that things aren't available. Sometimes it's just not having someone that knows how to.
    - colechristensen 4y ago
      The motivations of enterprises and individuals are different. Trying to please both or compromise between them creates worse outcomes for the individual users. The choices you make when interests conflict lowers quality.
  - twoWhlsGud 4y ago
    Indeed. And there's another side that we used to discuss - many folks have negative associations with the gear they use at work because of the way they're managed by IT orgs. Compare a Windows box with a heavy-handed AV setup etc with the same tier of hardware with a stock OS install - the stock version is often a lot more responsive/usable. (And obviously the IT dept may have its reasons for locking down, but that's besides the point.) Due to near-dominance of iPhone/iPads, Apple doesn't have a problem getting mindshare these days, so brand familiarity (which could be an offsetting benefit of a stronger enterprise presence) is not much of a problem.
    - massysett 4y ago
      I’m not so sure about this, my Windows at home is a stock one and it randomly inserts junk into my Start menu and comes with crapware. The one I use at work has full-time admins to protect me from this garbage. I bought the Windows box to do only one thing (be essentially a dumb terminal to connect to work) but even using Windows for a task this small is such a bad experience that if I had it to do over I would just spend the extra money and get a Mac Mini.
      - faeriechangling 4y ago
        You need to get Windows Enterprise or Windows Education if you want to dramatically reduce the quantity of bloat that Microsoft flings at you which are $$$.
giobox 4y ago
Theres a fair amount of quotes I'm too lazy to find now where Jobs expresses his absolute distain for the "enterprise" market. With enterprise software, the end user is almost never the actual paying customer, which when you are trying to make really end-user focused products that delight in the way Apple do, can lead to incentives that prioritise enterprise needs over consumer - look at the huge number of enterprise specific features Microsoft historically have built, that have affected consumers too. Jobs loved making consumer products so much, I can't imagine he ever would have been able to really chase enterprise customers. The move to targeting services and enterprise more at Apple happened under Cook, because, well, he has to continue growing the company and Services + more engagement with enterprise markets have been critical to growth post Jobs under Cook. Perhaps Steve ultimately would have done the same as Cook, given iPhone can't grow forever etc, but it would have been a major shift in his opinions/outlook for Apple. I'm talking about "Enterprise" in the traditional software industry sense, which is not the same industry apple target for creative professionals, even if tools like MDM etc can overlap. Jobs loved "professional" users in creative industries, not enterprise volume sales and fleet management tools etc etc.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Mountain_Skies 4y ago
  Even worse than the Enterprise things that made their way into Microsoft's consumer products are the things that Microsoft rejected that enterprise wanted. Raymond Chen mentions these requests often in his 'The Old New Thing' blog. I can imagine Jobs going ballistic on enterprise customers who make one too many of these requests (and in some cases, the first request might be that one too many).
- spitfire 4y ago
  Steve jobs got burnt by enterprise customers at NeXT. Once he got burnt he had a habit of pivoting away and never revisiting a subject. Which is a shame NeXT (apple) had a world leading ORM and RPC system in 1990. It would still impress people today.
jshier 4y ago
They did! I'm an Apple Certified Support Professional and Server Administrator (10.5 and 10.6). They had a whole series of certifications you could get, just like Microsoft (though not as extensive). Those all went by the wayside when they started dropping their enterprise products (Mac OS X Server, Xserve) to the point I'm not even sure what existed before this announcement (haven't been an admin in 12 years at this point). On a related note, once I took the tests for the SP and SA certifications (in 2009), my name was supposed to show up on Apple's site for certified professionals. This was important, as any employer would check that list to make sure your certifications were up to date. Apparently that process wasn't automatic, as I wasn't on the list after three months. One email to steve@apple.com later and I was on the site!

cestith 4y ago

I'd guess he would have. Jobs cared about professional users, and not just in film, graphic design, and music. Many decisions these past years feel like the company has not seen the need to invest in enterprise users and especially not enterprise fleet management.

jeromegv 4y ago
Jobs cared about professional users but never cared much about enterprise. There's a good quote in this 2010 article: https://www.zdnet.com/article/what-steve-jobs-hates-about-the-enterprise/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/what-steve-jobs-hates-about-th... >"What I love about the consumer market, that I always hated about the enterprise market, is that we come up with a product, we try to tell everybody about it, and every person votes for themselves. They go 'yes' or 'no,' and if enough of them say 'yes,' we get to come to work tomorrow. That's how it works. It's really simple. With the enterprise market, it's not so simple. The people that use the products don't decide for themselves, and the people that make those decisions sometimes are confused. We love just trying to make the best products in the world for people and having them tell us by how they vote with their wallets whether we're on track or not."
- rovr138 4y ago
  I mean, if they had solutions that compete with what the other market has, then companies can support both. This professional training would help with that. It's not necessarily that things aren't available. Sometimes it's just not having someone that knows how to.
  - colechristensen 4y ago
    The motivations of enterprises and individuals are different. Trying to please both or compromise between them creates worse outcomes for the individual users. The choices you make when interests conflict lowers quality.
- twoWhlsGud 4y ago
  Indeed. And there's another side that we used to discuss - many folks have negative associations with the gear they use at work because of the way they're managed by IT orgs. Compare a Windows box with a heavy-handed AV setup etc with the same tier of hardware with a stock OS install - the stock version is often a lot more responsive/usable. (And obviously the IT dept may have its reasons for locking down, but that's besides the point.) Due to near-dominance of iPhone/iPads, Apple doesn't have a problem getting mindshare these days, so brand familiarity (which could be an offsetting benefit of a stronger enterprise presence) is not much of a problem.
  - massysett 4y ago
    I’m not so sure about this, my Windows at home is a stock one and it randomly inserts junk into my Start menu and comes with crapware. The one I use at work has full-time admins to protect me from this garbage. I bought the Windows box to do only one thing (be essentially a dumb terminal to connect to work) but even using Windows for a task this small is such a bad experience that if I had it to do over I would just spend the extra money and get a Mac Mini.
    - faeriechangling 4y ago
      You need to get Windows Enterprise or Windows Education if you want to dramatically reduce the quantity of bloat that Microsoft flings at you which are $$$.

giobox 4y ago

Theres a fair amount of quotes I'm too lazy to find now where Jobs expresses his absolute distain for the "enterprise" market. With enterprise software, the end user is almost never the actual paying customer, which when you are trying to make really end-user focused products that delight in the way Apple do, can lead to incentives that prioritise enterprise needs over consumer - look at the huge number of enterprise specific features Microsoft historically have built, that have affected consumers too. Jobs loved making consumer products so much, I can't imagine he ever would have been able to really chase enterprise customers. The move to targeting services and enterprise more at Apple happened under Cook, because, well, he has to continue growing the company and Services + more engagement with enterprise markets have been critical to growth post Jobs under Cook. Perhaps Steve ultimately would have done the same as Cook, given iPhone can't grow forever etc, but it would have been a major shift in his opinions/outlook for Apple. I'm talking about "Enterprise" in the traditional software industry sense, which is not the same industry apple target for creative professionals, even if tools like MDM etc can overlap. Jobs loved "professional" users in creative industries, not enterprise volume sales and fleet management tools etc etc.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Mountain_Skies 4y ago
Even worse than the Enterprise things that made their way into Microsoft's consumer products are the things that Microsoft rejected that enterprise wanted. Raymond Chen mentions these requests often in his 'The Old New Thing' blog. I can imagine Jobs going ballistic on enterprise customers who make one too many of these requests (and in some cases, the first request might be that one too many).
spitfire 4y ago
Steve jobs got burnt by enterprise customers at NeXT. Once he got burnt he had a habit of pivoting away and never revisiting a subject. Which is a shame NeXT (apple) had a world leading ORM and RPC system in 1990. It would still impress people today.

jshier 4y ago

They did! I'm an Apple Certified Support Professional and Server Administrator (10.5 and 10.6). They had a whole series of certifications you could get, just like Microsoft (though not as extensive). Those all went by the wayside when they started dropping their enterprise products (Mac OS X Server, Xserve) to the point I'm not even sure what existed before this announcement (haven't been an admin in 12 years at this point). On a related note, once I took the tests for the SP and SA certifications (in 2009), my name was supposed to show up on Apple's site for certified professionals. This was important, as any employer would check that list to make sure your certifications were up to date. Apparently that process wasn't automatic, as I wasn't on the list after three months. One email to steve@apple.com later and I was on the site!