Quote:
Originally Posted by KC Fish
It's so far from the self-absorbed hipster image you have in your mind, that it makes you look a little out of touch. I've introduced hundreds of iPads into our ecosystem over the last few years. And not to snobby hipsters, but shiny suit executives. If you completely shun Apple these days, you're going to significantly limit yourself in the IT field.
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I'm, of course, being facetious.
Macs are great consumer tools but they are slllllllllloooooowwwwwww in making any real impact in the workplace. The iPad and iPhone are the two devices that are having the greatest traction. Iphone, because Blackberry is a PITA and Android is not secure. The iPad, due to form factor.
For most business work, you need coroporate communications (e.g. mail, messaging), Excel, Word, and Acrobat. You then have line of business applications that perform various functions. Apple products can, for the most part, connect & participate in the business world, but there is additional configuration that is needed, there is additional cost for the products themselves, and there are compatability hurdles that must be overcome. THis all means additional COST. To business, additional COST is bad. Business exists for profit; if they can do all the things they need to do using a PC laptop at .25 the price point of an Apple solution, you better believe that is what they are going to do.
Apple has been fantastic is marketing their products to the consumer world. Their devices are tailor-made to consumers. You have to modify their behavior & make concessions to make them a business-friendly device (exception being very basic stuff like running a small business; which I have done using a MacBook Pro).
The iPad form factor is nearly perfect. Problem is it's just a big iPod touch. While super cool, and it has untold potential, it is still limited by its focus on being the ultimate consumer tablet device. Kudos to Apple, they achieved that goal.
Business people are also consumers. They love their consumer platforms and want to use them at work; thus the rise in bring your own device (BYOD ) initiatives. The problem is integrating these devices that are not bult for integration, management, and business is a big challenge. Yes, it can be done, but it is not cheap. Again, business exists to make a profit. Yeah, it would be super neat to be able to do all your work on an iPad, but the cost of doing that is unjustifiable for most.
This is where the Surface comes in. It is a business device, running the desktop OS that runs all of the applications businesses already run, can be integrated and administrered like their existing platforms with no additional cost, AND provides the awesome form factor of the iPad. That is a winning proposition. That, of course, is in reference to the Surface Pro. The RT, on the other hand, is simple Microsoft's version of the iPad: a cool form factor for basic consumer needs, e.g. surfing the web, social media, checking web mail, Skype.
The cool thing about Surface is it's not a different OS from the desktop. Apple has OSX and iOS; they are distinct. Surface, the PC, laptop, and Phone all run W8. Consistent experience + integrated functionality + ability to use as both a business and consumer device; I think it's a great idea. Execution on that idea is the key; that's where Microsoft needs to be on their game. Now that the idea is out there, Google, Apple, Amazon, Samsung, and others will try to do the same thing. If they can execute more efficiently, we will all win as consumers. Nothing breeds excellence more than true competition.