Bladewatch.com

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2008/05/13/apple-should-go-after-the-corporate-computing-mark.aspx

When Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) sells you a computer, it comes loaded with Mac OS X — and that’s simply a very pretty version of Unix.

That’s right, those sleek and sexy iMacs and PowerBooks run enterprise-grade operating systems by default, on top of top-of-the-line Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) processors. It’s in the same platform family as Linux and Unix, and its cousins are running lots of Web servers, business intelligence systems, and ultra-proprietary software for nearly every major business in existence.

There are two very big and largely untapped opportunities in enterprise computing for Apple: workstations and servers. So how come Apple doesn’t load up every data center and cubicle maze with Leopard-powered servers and desktops, the way Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), IBM (NYSE: IBM), and Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) do?

We’ll have to see, I can certainly see why there are suggestions that Apple should go for the corporate market, but there is also the viewpoint that going after the consumer market might generate more revenue? Let’s not forget the enterprise market isn’t going to pay the retail price, and by staying in the consumer market it manages to maintain the ‘cool bit’, the element of differentiation that is difficult if you start scaling up, selling vast numbers of machines to the corporate market.

Yes we can use virtual machines on the Apple mac to run Office 2007, or Project, but remember the volume discounts that the enterprise market can get for Microsoft Windows/Office, and also consider that as expensive (or perceived to be expensive) as the Windows desktop is, it’s a fixed cost, as an enterprise I typically hand the desktop over to someone else, and supply my own version of Windows XP, running on a common desktop.

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