Apple and Business
Is It Time for Your Small Business to Go Apple? Probably Not.
Maybe what employees want isn’t what the business needs
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Apple has experienced astonishing growth in the US corporate market. It has a 23% share of enterprises, according to ComputerWorld. This is a significant change of fortunes.
I’ve worked in everything from a massive telco to start-ups, but only one used Apple products and services for its IT needs. A company I worked for actually banned employees from using Apple Macs.
I was the CTO of the one that did adopt Apple, but I only agreed to it after initially thinking it was a bad idea. I gave into pressure from the sales department, which was probably a mistake!
Anyone who reads my articles knows I’m an Apple enthusiast, so why do I have doubts about using Apple for business?
Supplier Lock-In
Using a PC? You’ve many vendors to choose from. Dell can sell you a stylish XPS laptop at a mid-range price point. Lenovo’s ThinkPad laptops offer durability and security features.
HP’s Elitebook and Probook deliver high laptop performance, just two products amid a HP product suite. If your budget has to stretch further, Asus and Acer are there for you.
That level of choice is unavailable in Apple’s world. I’m not saying Apple doesn’t have great products; quite often, they’re market leading. The trouble is that if they get it wrong, you’ve nowhere else to go.
And, yes, they do make mistakes. Consider the butterfly keyboard fiasco, which ended up with Apple settling a class action suite for US$50m.
Apple introduced the butterfly keyboard in 2015. It used a membrane under the keys to detect key presses. This proved to be unreliable. Apple was in denial for a while, not correcting its mistake until 2019.
