chartguy

For Microsoft, Apple Is the Elephant in the OS Room

When do we get to see MSFT start rolling out enterprise software for OSX? What's the tipping point in terms of AAPL penetration of the enterprise market?

My smallish (60 employees) company is wed to Wintel because of the software apps. Several senior managers and half the sales force are using Macs and emulating XP only to communicate with the server or to run some data analysis/graphing software. Office is run in the native OSX environment. The office staff all use Dell products.

Also, given the mobile nature of our sales force -- roughly half the employees -- the iPhone would be a natural fit. We already run a mobile platform to access our inventory and provide real-time order entry. Blackberries are the preferred device at this point, but we spent some time brainstorming ideas to exploit the iPhone's ability to run new applications. The biggest hiccup seems to be linking into our SQL database because we use Dynamics on the front end.

We may be forced to use Vista at some point in the future, just like we were forced to abandon Server 2000 when it was perfectly functional, but we're hoping there will be enough corporate pressure to continue support for XP past the June cut-off. Upgrading to Vista would be a large enough expense to warrant a full evaluation of our IT needs. Also, we do not have a dedicated IT person in-house. KISS... please.

Microsoft's Quarter and Outlook Are a Mixed Bag (Update 3)

It looks like MSFT is killing XP to force users to migrate to Vista. They can't possibly hope to convert 100% of the XP users to Vista, so there will be some inevitable defectors. The primary beneficiary of this "leakage" likely will be AAPL.

How long before MSFT decides to release Dyanamics for OSX? We can debate the point where AAPLs penetration of the enterprise market reaches the tipping point. But my question, which once would have been laughable, needs to be considered.

I have no doubt that MSFT will defend aggressively its dominant position. But at some point the good people in Redmond will not be able to ignore the fact that there are alternative operating systems. Operation Trojan Horse (aka iPhone) looks like a major success. Welcome to the wonderful world of AAPL.