Apple grows new business branches on corporate soil

“You will reap what you sow”, and there goes the saying that has tickled me for quite some time. Since I’ve been trying to find the right idea that embodied in the text of the title up there, with the subject I wanted to talk about down here.

Sure, no one can predict the future. And all we have to do to get the best result, is to do the best we can at the time we’re given right now. In the case of the company with a one bite eaten fruit logo; Apple pretty much these days has been collecting Steve Jobs’ (Apple’s CEO) ‘indecent’ actions in the past. It can be called like that, because back then when Steve startled Mac fans & users by going to the so-called ‘dark-side’ which meaning Mac is using its rival’s power source: Intel’s processors.

Everybody was furious, including those stuck-up share holders who are sitting at Apple boardroom. But with Mac sales is soaring at 51% over the previous year and Apple share price has risen 2,300% over the past five years, those once frowning eyebrows of the share holders are now replaced with big smiles on their face. And so Steve has scored a big juicy fruit in the form of a private Gulfstream jet, as a token of appreciation for his ‘always-controversial’ vision.

The huge transition from implanting a new Intel brain into Mac family line-up, has enabled everyone who own & use Windows to run it on Mac. You even have the choice to run both OS X and Windows, with Boot Camp or 3rd party softwares like Parallels Desktop & VMware Fusion. The good point is that Windows will run just fine even on Mac Mini (1.66GHz Core Duo) to the newest eight-core Mac Pros, the trick is picking the right Windows you want to install on your Mac.

While Microsoft is pushing Vista as the next upgrade from XP, and they also plan to stop supporting XP starting on next June 30th; so basically Windows users are left with Vista with the only choice available. Microsoft has slated that Vista can be run on less powerful and cheaper machines, but at minimum performance. And this means, Microsoft is indirectly created an opening for Mac OS X to be an attractive alternative for companies and their workers; who don’t want to spend more money on expensive computers but still want user friendly features & eye-catching user interface.

And so big companies like IBM, Cisco and Salesforce; are starting to give a trial for their employees to migrate from PCs into Macs. The illusion of Mac is killing PC slowly becomes a reality…

But are the reason you can put Windows on your Mac and Vista slumps, is the same reason why Apple’s total sales have surged from $5.2 billion in fiscal 2002 to $24 billion last year? Not exactly, it’s more come from the user’s experience on using Mac.

According to Student Monitor researcher who has surveyed 1,200 undergrads this year, there are 43% of college students who intend to buy a laptop plan to buy a Mac. Aside from that statistic research, Scott Kriens (Juniper’s CEO at Sunnyvale) has said: "Everybody told me I should get one, it's not anything to do with negative perceptions about Microsoft. It's just that Macs are cool."

The very same perspective has been the foundation of Steve Jobs and his minions for a long time ago: to create the next cool thing for the world’s consumers, and this core of every Apple’s products which was first only appreciated by small groups of college students and artists; is now being embraced by almost everyone.

It all started with the wonder music player from Apple: iPod, and soon followed by the one and only mobile phone product: iPhone. Those both products are specifically made by Apple’s engineers ~and cunningly envisioned by Steve himself~ to work best only with Mac, so that’s when people are starting to buy Mac for home usage. Soon they begin to wish to stop being a vampire; "Windows-by-day, Mac-by-night”.

Mark Slaga, chief information officer of Dimension Data, says he has received up to 25 e-mails from his employees who asked for permission to use Macs at work. He concedes, "Steve Jobs doesn't need a sales force because he already has one: employees like the ones in my company." Steve Jobs declined to comment for this story, and so he did on the mysterious lines of people queuing in front of Apple’s flagship store on 5th Avenue-New York few days ago.

But the ‘notorious’ Fake Steve has explained what really was going on that day: “I just had Katie and Phil in here mumbling excuses and trying to blame the contractor who hired the actors for the iPhone queue outside the Fifth Avenue store in New York. As you may have read, the bozos started lining up yesterday -- a full two weeks ahead of schedule. I mean we've worked this out for months here in our Fifth Avenue mock-up set in Building X at the Cupertino headquarters. ….. Phil says it's the contractor in New York who got the folks out on the sidewalk and had them out there chanting until we got wind of it and had them hustled away.” ;-D ~LOL~

Both of Steve above has the same thing in common: eccentric style. And for the ‘real’ Steve who is leading Apple to its glorious name nowadays with his unconventional leadership, has created a certain dilemma for companies who wish to adopt Mac platform into their system. One peculiar thing for corporate customers is they need cooperation, like knowing the road map of a product and its future upgrade version. Steve’s way of thinking is to make Apple’s product as secretive as possible and to announce it with dramatic unveilings (often at the annual MacWorld convention), this way Apple’s products can become exclusive for the owners.

And exclusive will means the product can be tagged with high price, just like what Steve has long argued that he wants to sell to people who spend their own cash and therefore will appreciate quality and style. For example is MacBook lightest sibling: the Air, which racked around $1,599 for the lowest spec but still score as one of Apple’s biggest sales contributor behind iPhone & MacBook Pro. And that’s not all, the MacBook Air also has created a new battle ground against other PCs and Windows, as “cloud-computing” has become a new platform in the future.

But the biggest challenge for Steve (and Apple) to grasp a bigger slice of pie in the computer market; is the support for existing corporate systems such as Microsoft’s Exchange Server, IBM’s Lotus Notes and SAP’s System Solution. Both of Apple’s products: Mac & iPhone, aren’t capable to support those corporate grade programs yet.

So like the previous surprising move for Mac to go with Intel’s processor, Steve announced iPhone will support Microsoft’s Exchange mail system last February. And also open up iPhone’s source code for 3rd party software developers to create new exciting and productive apps with iPhone SDK, all are set to be announced as iPhone 2.0 at WWDC ’08 on June 9th (according to Fake Steve’s announcement, again ;-p).

Ken Dulaney, an analyst from Gartner Group research firm, said that all of these discussions about iPhones are causing tech buyers to ponder whether to bring in Macs as well. But the most propelling factor is shown by IBM’s Institute for Business Value survey result, which concluded around 80% of consumers said they'd prefer a service provider that gave them more choice in the applications and services available on their mobile device.

With Symbian and Windows Mobile are the most used OS for mobile phones in the market right now, consumers are seeking for a niche mobile phone that stands out in the crowd: iPhone. So when the corporate office workers are demanding for more Macs and iPhones, is Apple ready to comply with the most anticipated & upcoming iPhone 2.0?

I’ll let Dan Moren’s (Macworld) fine line of wisdom to answer that question: “But when it comes to Apple, the interesting questions never begin with “could they…”, but rather with “would they…”….. So, don’t be too surprised when the next big thing out of Apple is something that nobody predicted. After all, that’s just the way we like it.”

Sources are from:
The Mac in the Gray Flannel Suit (BusinessWeek)
Best of Both Worlds: OS X and Windows (Macworld)
Mobile subscribers really do want more choice (NewsBlog)
The Apple of the future (Macworld)

[blogged with my Treo 750v]