In a debate at the Gartner Symposium in Sydney, Nick Jones argued the case that Apple would never be a viable enterprise technology provider, while his fellow analyst Robin Simpson took the case for Apple’s role in business.
However, despite the fact that a high percentage of the audience were iPhone-toting Apple lovers, it was Jones who made the more forceful argument.
Employees might like iPhones, but Gartner says Apple doesn’t have a clue how to do computers for business at anything like a reasonable price.
“Apple’s management tools are a joke,” Jones said. “Apple decides which applications you get and if they don’t like an application, you don’t get it. There’s lots of applications Apple don’t like which could be very useful to you. As an enterprise platform, it’s a joke.”
As for Macs, Jones suggested that current market share made it clear there wasn’t any real business case for Apple to go after enterprise users. “You have to think the numbers tell the story.
About 1% of enterprise PCs are Macs.
