Posted on 01/22/2013 3:40:22 PM PST by library user
Source is link only.
94% of Fortune 500 companies are testing or deploying iPads. Who is it that doesn't seem to understand the enterprise?
If you were a CEO looking to outfit your organization with tablet computers, would you start looking for one from a company that's circling the drain or abandoning that product category?
Profitable products keep getting made and supported. Profitable companies continue to offer upgrades. If I bought HP Touchpads or Blackberry Playbooks or Dell Streaks or Cisco Ciuses or LG Optimus Pads or Sharp Galapagoses or HTC Flyers/Evos/Jetstreams for my employees last year, what will I buy for the new hires this year?
I've worked in IT for over 30 years. Back when MS and IBM were working to get PCs talking to corporate mainframes, Apple was giving them the finger and basically turning their nose up at the idea. They've never given a rat's ass about supporting that environment.
Whatever you want that fits your requirements. Hardware has a limited lifespan compared to operating systems and the user training that goes with it. When you sign on with Apple, you're committing to single-source hardware procurement. No company does that if they can avoid it.
Sales of the RT have been relatively sluggish against other tablets. The Pro will be competing with a wide range of Win8 capable notebooks and ultrabooks and its specs don't really offer much of an advantage over, say, Dell's or Lenovo's offerings in that range.
For those reasons, I doubt the Pro will be a big seller. But they will sell some -- Microsoft has it's share of "fanboys" too, who will jump at it. It seems a capable enough machine (battery life questions aside) so some people will choose it over other offerings.
Just a prediction, and as I noted upthread, predictions about the tech industry aren't necessarily reliable, historically speaking.
True.
The people who talk about iPads and iPhones "taking over the enterprise" don't seem to understand the enterprise.
Actually, it's quite apparent that Apple is, if anything, backing away from the enterprise and focusing more on personal use. Apple users may talk about "taking over the enterprise", but Apple as a company doesn't seem inclined to devote resources that way. (At least not at the moment, but I can't imagine what would change there in the near term.)
All the 32GB Surface tablets sold out on the first day they were available for pre-order. Given that the platform is relatively new in the market and most of the hardware offerings are still in development I think it might be a little early to be comparing sales numbers based on the OS platform.
If anything, the analysts were too kind to Apple. In reality, Apple's net profits fell 18% to f$9.55 billion, or $10.09 a share, down from $11.62 billion, or $12.30 a share, a year earlier(as against the down 2 percent to $12.8 billion, or $13.48 a share that the analysts predicted).
Still in denial are we?
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