OSNews Looks At Challenges Apple Faces In Enterprise

O SNews has published a very interesting editorial by Aaron Vegh about Apple and the Enterprise market. Mr. Vegh says that he first started thinking about the subject when his employer, a large corporation, implemented a US$1 million emergency plan to deal with the most recent Windows worm, Sasser. In the piece, he identifies some of the issues that he sees as hurdles for Apple, and then looks at where he thinks Apple sits on the issue. From the article:

But the issue got me thinking about Apple, and their enterprise offerings. With the introduction of the Xserve, Xserve RAID, Xgrid and OS X Server, why hasnit Apple penetrated the enterprise market?

That answer is complicated too, but Iim going to try to explain it. There might even be a solution.

Problem 1: Enterprise IT hates surprises
The big players in the enterprise IT market (Microsoft, Intel, IBM, etc.) have roadmaps that CIOs use to plan their infrastructure: when to upgrade, when to stay put, are decisions made up to a year in advance thanks to roadmaps. If youire planning a budget, having that view of the future can determine whether or not you go with a particular vendor.

Sadly, Apple does not offer a roadmap for its product lines, either on the OS X Server front, or the hardware front.

There is much more in the full article, including a proposed solution for many of the issues Mr. Vegh targets, and we recommend it as a very interesting read.