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Opinion: Apple's Enterprise Strategy the Same As It Ever Was

Why Apple's failure to replace a retiring executive isn't the end of anything.

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At first glance, this looks bad. And it immediately raises some questions among the Mac IT crowd: Is Apple abandoning the Enterprise? Is this yet another step toward becoming "the iPhone company," preceded by Apple's February move to knife the Xserve RAID?

I think that depends on if you ever thought Apple was, or wanted to be, an "enterprise" company. There are a lot of people out there who think that Apple is somehow trying to become an enterprise company—that is, to compete in the big enterprise world along with Microsoft, IBM, HP, and others.

But honestly, every time I see that meme go around, I have to wonder why people would think that. Apple has never been an enterprise company, even when it had one of its pre-Return Of Steve "Apple in the Enterprise" spasms. The company has less clue of how to be an Enterprise company than IBM had about selling computers to home users.

To be an enterprise company is, in a very real way, to cede a great deal of control over your product line to your customers. Look at how many times Microsoft has tried to eliminate some kind of old software or hardware support from a product, only to change that plan because of customer outcry. Intel tried for many years prior to the iMac to advance USB over serial, parallel, and PS/2 ports to no avail. Why? Because these are enterprise companies, and they cannot afford to do anything their customers don't approve of. You want to know why Microsoft business software seems to be nothing but an ever-growing collection of features? I'll lay money now that 99 percent of new features in any Microsoft product come directly from customer request. If a GE or a GM wants, they get.

Ask yourself when was the last time Microsoft, or IBM, or HP came out with some product that no one expected. Or if they did, was it built in a way no one thought about? Go ahead, think about that, I'll get more coffee.

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