Rob Enderle, an analyst at The Enderle Group, says Apple's market share in the enterprise remains nearly nonexistent, with perhaps a 1 percent total penetration. Enderle said barriers include Apple's longstanding nemesis -- the Wintel platform -- the absence of a proven enterprise road map, bad memories of previous Apple efforts in the enterprise and the company's lack of commitment to the market will likely keep it a bit player in the enterprise. According to Enderle, Apple made a bit of an enterprise effort a decade ago but "abandoned" customers when there was insufficient progress in the market.
"The enterprise market is a tough market to penetrate," Enderle said. "It typically takes a good chunk of a decade to become a viable vendor, and building up an ecosystem can take a substantial amount of time. The enterprise tends to be a relatively low-margin business, where companies tend to buy in the mid- or bottom line of product offerings. Success in the enterprise is a pain in the butt, with long sales cycles, and long product cycles."
Charles Smulders, an analyst at Gartner, said he has seen no real change in Apple's approach to the enterprise. "Apple is not pursuing a broad enterprise strategy," he said. "Most IT departments remain resistant to introducing Apple because of the cost to support an extra platform. However, overall Apple usage within enterprises may have risen slightly as part of the 'consumerization of IT' that has seen consumers, rather than the IT department, have increasing influence over driving technology adoption in the enterprise."
Apple seems indifferent to its success in the enterprise and allocates most of its resources in terms of advertising dollars, executives dedicated to the market and to its highly successful consumer efforts. The company sells, on average, more than 10 million iPods per quarter.
Not that it's doing badly in computers. For the most recent quarter ended in March 2007, Macs represented 56 percent of Apple's product revenue, and portables accounted for 59 percent of all Macs sold. Apple shipped over 1.5 million Macs in total, and over 10.5 million iPods during the quarter, representing 36 percent growth in Macs and 24 percent growth in iPods over the year-ago quarter.
Still, the company's on-again/off-again romance with corporate customers can also be illustrated by the following: Apple's public relations department provided some assistance for this article by pointing a writer to relevant information on the corporate Web site and by providing a customer contact. But the company declined to provide an executive for an interview and would not respond to e-mailed questions about its strategy for the enterprise market, citing commitments to other pressing projects.
The general disregard of the enterprise is a tough pill to swallow for some of even Apple's biggest supporters, but it's a fact of life they have learned to work around.
"I just don't know that it's ever been part of Apple's corporate DNA to be a business-addressing company," said Chip Pearson, partner for strategy and development at JAMF Software, which makes a suite of products aimed at enabling Mac implementations in the enterprise. "Someone I know that works at Apple said it best: 'We're not going after the enterprise. The enterprise is coming after us.'"