back to article Apple is Mac-ing on enterprise: Plans strategic B2B alliance with HPE

Apple is to set up an alliance with Hewlett Packard Enterprise to reach more suits in the corporate world, The Register can reveal. Similar arrangements are already up and running between Apple and IBM, Cisco, SAP, GE and Deloitte. Apple said in 2015 its enterprise business turned over $25bn in sales. HPE is to be added to the …

  1. Missing Semicolon Silver badge
    Happy

    "relinquished" == "relented"

    FTFY

  2. Warm Braw

    They create the kind of wonder...

    I wonder why it costs so much

    I wonder why I have to use it their way

    I wonder why I can't upgrade it

    I wonder why it can't be repaired

    I wonder why it trashed my disk

    I wonder why I cnt tpe ny mre

    1. Douchus McBagg

      Re: They create the kind of wonder...

      Enterprise.... hmmmm …. don't you need some form of enterprise product, or I dunno… something... to be in the enterprise market?

      oh wait, no sorry, I forgot the ipad "pro". i'll get back in my box.

      while I don't have to like them, you have to respect apple for the same reason I respect that guy who does talent shows and makes a mint off of stupid people... Jeremy Howel? Powel? you know... the snarky one that has his trouser waistband and nipple level...

      anyway, a fule and their moneys etc. etc.

      1. Bavaria Blu

        Re: They create the kind of wonder...

        I think the iphone is standard in quite a lot of enterprises. It is apparently the only phone which is secure due to regular software updates. I'm not sure many companies check ROI of just handing everyone an iphone, probably it helps morale to have a nice shiny phone, even if it does mean you are easy to find and contact. Perhaps corporates could be sold a cloudy Exchange competitor?

        1. big_D Silver badge

          Re: They create the kind of wonder...

          Due to the price of subsidies, we get the choice of a Hauwei P20 or an iPhose SE or iPhone 6. If I wanted a current iPhone 8 or X, I'd have to pay at least 450€ out of my own pocket for a "company" phone... (Samsung Galaxy S9 is only 250€ of my own money). For something that sits on my desk all day, gets put in my bag at night and get put back on my desk when I get back to work, it isn't something I want to invest my own money in...

          1. one crazy media

            Re: They create the kind of wonder...

            Then don't.

            Too many cry babies on here!

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: They create the kind of wonder...

        Did you doff your fedora after writing that?

    2. Ol' Grumpy
      Thumb Up

      Re: They create the kind of wonder...

      wonder why it costs so much

      I wonder why I have to use it their way

      I wonder why I can't upgrade it

      I wonder why it can't be repaired

      I wonder why it trashed my disk

      I wonder why I cnt tpe ny mre"

      I wonder why this post made me laugh out loud. Kudos sir or madam! :)

    3. one crazy media

      Re: They create the kind of wonder...

      Stop wondering.

      Don't use one.

    4. Gordon 10
      Gimp

      Re: They create the kind of wonder...

      And I wonder why I still want the shiny shiny things...

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    From the experience of others who have dealt with Apple at a national level I suspect that what we will see is that Apple will expect the enterprise to change it's business in order to work with Apple products rather than Apple making products suitable for the business.

    However execs love that shiny shit so they might well win out. But then I don't recall the XServe being startling success.

    1. Kristian Walsh Silver badge

      It wasn't a huge success, but then Apple didn't give it much time to gain any traction: XServe was actually competitively-priced product with some compelling technical advantages (there were very few comparable 1U servers back in 2002), and it had picked up orders in academic and scientific markets as a handy "Unix server in a rack" solution.

      When the product was canned just two years after launch (!), Apple suggested that customers should put the much bigger G4/G5 desktops onto a rack-shelf as a replacement, which was mostly met with: "actually, if we're going to have to give up 12 U of rack space, we could just fill it with three times as many HP/Dell rackmount servers instead, thanks..."

      Two things killed it. First, Steve Jobs turned Apple's focus towards consumer electronics: the iPod and iMac were the key products. Second, there was a technical problem: to get to the very low case profile, Apple had taken advantage of the Motorola G4 chips' super-low TDP - however, these were about to be replaced by the much hotter-running IBM POWER "G5" parts, which would never be made to run reliably in such a small enclosure.

      Whatever the reasons, the market saw it as Apple saying "we'll jump ship as soon as it gets difficult" - an attitude pretty much killed Apple's chances of getting back into enterprise for a decade.

      ... and I completely agree with your first paragraph, both as someone who used to work at Apple, and someone who's spoken to previous Apple "partners". You get hundreds of pages of guidelines that basically all say "it's my way or the highway, buddy"

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        > the market saw it as Apple saying "we'll jump ship as soon as it gets difficult" - an attitude pretty much killed Apple's chances of getting back into enterprise for a decade.

        It was not helped by killing off most of the features of the software counterpart, macOS server:

        https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/29/farewell_to_macos_server/

        https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208312

        OpenDirectory still lives on, but after this, would you trust it to be here in 3-5 years time?

      2. Inspector71

        Have to say that that I think there was a point when Apple could have made a dent in at least the SMB enterprise market. They should have pushed Mac OS X Server and the XServes as a all in one business in a box solution like the old MS SBS product which Microsoft was breaking up when they thought they could make more money by selling separate products.

        The "proper" OS X Server around Tiger, Leopard and Snow Leopard and the G5 and Intel Xserves made it a really good solution IMHO.

        But then along came the iPhone and Apple Computer became Apple Inc, OS X Server became just an "app" and the Intel Xserves were killed off and they started offering Mac Minis as "servers". They just lost interest.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "...what we will see is that Apple will expect the enterprise to change it's business in order to work with Apple products..."

      Businesses already been doing that with MS products for years, so no big deal.

  4. macjules
    Devil

    Translation Required:

    1) track record as a Strategic Partner Manager - but not for Microsoft, Google or Facebook please.

    2) be an “expert at presenting” - you know PowerPoint well

    3) bring “integrity, honesty and accountability in all that you do, every day. - see 1 above, that's why we don't want anyone from Facebook

    4) You are a trusted advisor who does what you say you’ll do - and always do what is best for Apple - Do what we say, when we say it ... or else.

    1. Mayday
      Coat

      Re: Translation Required:

      "2) be an “expert at presenting” - you know PowerPoint well"

      Don't you mean Keynote?

  5. BebopWeBop
    Pirate

    I remember when the old HP (I was working there at the time) partered with Apple to ring the 'blue iPod' to the clamoring masses.

    That went well.

  6. John Doe 6

    Actually...

    ...it is easier to get an Mac to boot Linux than it is to get a PC to do the same.

    They may have some ideas how they want to people to use their product but that is not different from how your dishwasher manufacturer want you to use their dishwasher.

    Most of the anti-apple mob are angry Windblows users who are afraid of losing their "supremacy" of having to reinstall their PC at least once a year.

    I am btw. running OpenSuSE on a MacBook Pro... installing Linux on a Lenovo was too time consuming.

    Oh one more thing: Windblows still can't manage proper display scaling something OS X and Linux has been doing for over 10 years.

    1. Lee D Silver badge

      Re: Actually...

      Welcome to the 90's. It's where you appear to be stuck, anyway.

      "Actually......it is easier to get an Mac to boot Linux than it is to get a PC to do the same."

      Absolute nonsense. Stick disk in, F12, boot, install, done.

      "They may have some ideas how they want to people to use their product but that is not different from how your dishwasher manufacturer want you to use their dishwasher."

      My dishwasher has never told me that it only works with John Lewis Plates, that I'll need to use Apple Soap, nor that it "just can't do that" when I ask it for a 10 minute rinse instead of a 20.

      "Most of the anti-apple mob are angry Windblows users who are afraid of losing their "supremacy" of having to reinstall their PC at least once a year."

      1) If you're reinstalling a PC once a year, you're an idiot.

      2) Would you like stats on how often I have to reinstall a Windows machine versus a Mac machine in a school with hundreds of the former and only a dozen of the later? I'll give you a clue: You lose.

      "I am btw. running OpenSuSE on a MacBook Pro... installing Linux on a Lenovo was too time consuming."

      Good for you. And why? As someone with an entirely-Lenovo shop, I can't imagine what could cause that. Literally, boot install at disk / decompression speed.

      "Oh one more thing: Windblows still can't manage proper display scaling something OS X and Linux has been doing for over 10 years."

      Display scaling? As in zooming your display to show on higher resolution screens? You really are operating in the dark ages.

      1. JLV

        Re: Actually...

        hmmm, my ASUS ROGs secure boot UEFI is peculiarly resistant to booting off USB Linuxes. Worked at some point, using one particular USB imaging utility, which lulled me into not taking good enough notes. Hasn’t since, despite several tries. Incredibly time consuming to play with when you’re not familiar with UEFIs.

        Are macs easy to boot off USBs? No idea (would expect the opposite), but it’s a stretch to say all’s rosy all the time in PC land.

        1. stephanh

          Re: Actually...

          "...it is easier to get an Mac to boot Linux than it is to get a PC to do the same."

          Not in my experience. Especially if you don't just want to boot, but also use all the $$$ hardware in your shiny machine. And assuming you took some care in selecting the PC.

        2. James O'Shea

          Re: Actually...

          Macs boot off anything bootable. Apple doesn’t put roadblocks in the way of booting from anything but the internal drive. I currently have Macs which have booted from USB sticks, from USB 2 hard drives, USB 3 hard drives, USB optical drives, FireWire drives, and Thunderbolt drives.

          1. Kristian Walsh Silver badge

            Re: Actually...

            Macs will *boot* anything, but the driver support is poor.

            Fine if you don't need stable WiFi, or a webcam that works, or synchronised audio and video, but honestly if you wanted a high end laptop to primarily run Linux on, Dell would have given you much, much better bang for the buck (8th generation Intel CPUs, for a start: Apple is still back in 2016 sometime). A need to run macOS is the only reason to pay Apple’s crazy prices.

        3. one crazy media

          Re: Actually...

          You should have disabled UEFI. Very easy to do in the Bios.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Actually...

            Or get a board like a Gigabyte. My PC is a Hackintosh as well as a Linux box. Could be a Windows 10 machine also if I felt so inclined. It really doesn't give a shit what it boots to.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Actually...

      If you can't install linux on a lenvo in under 30 minutes turn in your geek creds.

  7. ArrZarr Silver badge

    Difficult Job

    From the article - 'bring “integrity, honesty and accountability in all that you do...and always do what is best for Apple.”'

    I'm not sure I could pull off the doublethink required for any job including that in the job description.

    1. Mark 65

      Re: Difficult Job

      I was puzzled by them wanting integrity and honesty for a sales role.

  8. Daniel von Asmuth
    Gimp

    Apple’s enterprise business

    "Apple’s B2B division in the UK and Ireland is run by enterprise director Matt Key. The new hire will report to him. He has been in situ for less than a year.".

    That makes their regional B2B division cost 2 salaries, while raising almost 0 income. Understandably they wish to grow.

    "The people here at Apple don’t just create products"

    Once upton a time Steve Wozniak used to create products, but the Products division is shrinking these days.

  9. E 2

    Magical Wonderful Datacenters

    Apple's tried this before. They still don't seem to get it.

    I'll take low cost reliable pizza boxes, and I'll not pay for bling or froth. I do not see where Apple brings what I need to the table.

  10. JLV

    interesting, wonder what will come out of it

    I don't know if Apple has it in their DNA to provide systems suitable to large established enterprises. Or even commercial users in general, barring creatives and developers. It may work better with newer companies that rely a lot on cloudy stuff for their back office.

    And let's not forget the $$$$. CAD$3.5K for a, not extremely tricked-out, MBP?

    But at the same time they do have:

    - a reason to be motivated - that's a big untapped market for them and they're running out of consumer opportunities. Less of a potential return than say smart cars, but also less competitive - the smart/EV car field which has major established players. They need something to move the needle on their market valuation basically.

    - lack of competition in the enterprise desktop OS. It's basically Windows, with a smattering of Linuxes for some. Anyone who's fed up with Windows/MS might consider macos favorably. Or not. But it's not like they have many other choices, Linux desktops aside.

    - Windows 8 and 10. Different enough from 7 (esp 8) that it's not that much more of a jump to train end users to macos. Not exactly stellar perception either. Many people will already know macos from their home use and Office runs on it. And there's a fair bit of dev goodwill towards macos, if not necessarily towards Apple.

    - security. Though Apple is sometimes quite sloppy in the details, macos is a BSD/Mach derivative and is generally fairly secure out of the box. Viruses and malware do happen, despite Apple's claims, but they happen at much less frequency in practice.

    - Has Apple abandoned their software in the past? Definitely, as other commentards have pointed out. And I recall shabby LDAP implementation glitches. But, again, MS has softened that particular argument with their inability to stick to their own products and dev stacks. The Apple development stack is actually pretty stable - I don't much like ObjectiveC, but it's been around for ages and plays well with newbie Swift. Macos supports a lot of Unix software too - anything that's not GUI is usually good to go.

    Methink service, ability to listen and availability of suitable 3rd party service and software offerings will decide, but only if they're ready to commit for the long term. Add to it something to support group policies and IAM.

    Yeah, really deep insights here, but they do have some opportunities. Which, to be honest, I doubt they'll pull off - I really don't think it's in their corporate DNA.

    1. Richard 12 Silver badge

      Re: interesting, wonder what will come out of it

      Win 7 to Win 10 is a very small change.

      Windows to macOS is a massive, massive change. The fundamental assumptions are completely different.

      For starters, scrolling goes the other way. Oddly, the way it should go on a touch input - except there are no touchscreens.

      Then there's the hardware - remove 20% of the keys from your keyboard. Yes, we know you used those buttons, no, we dont care.

      And finally, the hardware is very old, very expensive and almost impossible to repair.

      I can't call up Apple and have a technician come to replace a dead keyboard in a laptop. They need specialist tools, and want to take the machine away for a couple of days.

      That means I have to securely wipe the machine, and carry even more spare machines.

      Unlike say Dell, who will swap out any failed components on site - or I can fix ot myself. Takes about five minutes for a keyboard, so I barely need any spares of these much cheaper machines...

  11. Mayday
    Gimp

    I like Apple stuff - Generally

    I'm a fanboi I suppose, although I haven't bought a Mac for a very long time because I don't really think they have been that good for a number of years. My main home PC is now Windows due to a specific use case (it was Linux, but what I need is Windows only which is a drag - personal opinion, use whatever you like in my view). I also have a Mac Mini which I use as a HTPC which is very old and soooooooo due for replacement.

    Which leads me to the next point. Look at the Mac lineup! It is woeful in my view. A Mini or Pro which would be a prime enterprise product, has not been upgraded in years, far from modern and still costs a modern price. Dodgy keyboard on a laptops and no server products.

    What else is there? No desktops, laptops not as good as they were 5 years and no servers? Having said that, give me a new Mac Mini and I'll replace my ancient one thanks.

    1. JLV

      Re: I like Apple stuff - Generally

      Totally missed that, but yes, you are right. Desktops suck, big time.

      Mind you, even on the MBPs the newer ones are nothing to write home about with rather limited SSD space unless you pay totally outrageous prices. And very limited serviceability.

      There's some good groundwork done on the OS, but their desire for hipness and slimness above all may not be a good enterprise fit at all. I am starting to eye Linux options because of little you can do to swap parts on newer macs. My 2011 MBP has had its keyboard changed (my bad: water damage), 2 SSDs (first 850 died), 2 RAM upgrades. The new stuff is not appealing hardware-wise. Or price.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The Horror !

    Isn't it bad enough that I have to suffer using an iphone every day to do my job (god awful piece of merde) at the behest of my company that there is now a threat that they may go 'all Apple' and take my Panasonic Toughbook away and replace it with an iToy ?

    Maybe time to find a new job if this happens, I can only spend a limited amount of time in a day cursing an unreliable/illogical lump of silicon, adding another would leave me no time for actual work.

    1. one crazy media

      Re: The Horror !

      You should just quit.

      Nobody should be put through such horrible working conditions.

      File a discrimination suit after you quit and live happily.

  13. Kevin McMurtrie Silver badge

    Lost in the High Sierras

    Step one for business adoption would be not breaking enterprise management software every few months. High Sierra drove many companies to ban all Apple purchases. Some are resuming purchases, but others have decided to stick with Windows and Linux running on Dell and HP hardware.

    Getting around to optimizing MacOS would be great too. Something is seriously broken in virtual memory and disk caching.

    1. one crazy media

      Re: Lost in the High Sierras

      Apparently, you have no clue as to how UNIX works.

  14. HolySchmoley

    Apple has never been open about hardware / software issues and their status, resolution, etc.

    This is fundamental for being taken seriously as a large enterprise infrastructure supplier.

    cf. IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, et., etc., for which full information is published.

    But iPhones for workers? They could do OK there.

  15. teapot9999

    Enterprise support - they have no idea

    I have a faulty Mac, all our Macs are supposed to be enrolled with on-site enterprise support. I call Apple, they say it is not enrolled. I say it was purchased was support, Apple doesn't care. My supplier (a large company) calls Apple to ask it to be enrolled with the enterprise support we have paid for, without success, and have been asking every day for 3 weeks. 3 weeks later, still no support, still no repair.

  16. Bavaria Blu

    the platform wars are over

    One of the reasons the Windows platform is so embedded in companies is the legacy software. Slowly as everything moves to the web, the client platform becomes less important. Google is helping here (partly in its own interest) and even Microsoft is being forced to support iOS and Android (although mainly due to the failure of its own mobile platform).

    The platform wars are over, it is now a battle of the cloud datacentres, although these are not mutually exclusive, I can build a web app, which can run on more than one cloud, or pick and choose the best from each. So everything is up for grabs, but Apple has always given the best experience to its hardware customers. Perhaps it could reinvent itself as a service supplier of cloud integration? Isn't that what HPE has already done? This announcement just means HPE will bundle Apple hardware with its solutions, a sales partnership.

  17. hoola Silver badge

    What a load of bull!

    The number of times we have "consultants" turning up with a Mac that will not connect to anything is just stupid. They these shiny iToys that then require a wheelbarrow full of additional parts to make them work, which they NEVER bring because it is too much of a pain . Even if they do have the right connector it them refuses to link up correctly. Then discover that it has only one part and cannot plug in the inevitable USB stick to get the presentation up.

    Love it or hate it, even a basic consumer laptop will connect to an external monitor or projector. Add all the extra peripherals for Skype & conference calls and they just work.

    They also have far too many problems connecting to services that in any organisation, because it is Windows centric, just work. Everything to do with these things at true enterprise scale is a serious pain in the arse, ultimately costing far more than supporting a regular business class PC/laptop. Just selling a few iToys at CEO level does not make it "enterprise ready". Sure they may have a place somewhere but I am buggered if I can see it in mainstream big business.

    1. one crazy media

      Re: What a load of bull!

      You must be running a network from the 1990's. Heard of a technology called WiFi? It is magic and doesn't need any wires!

      These ridiculous posts really make you look stupid.

      1. gnasher729 Silver badge

        Re: What a load of bull!

        "You must be running a network from the 1990's. Heard of a technology called WiFi? It is magic and doesn't need any wires!"

        That said, I paid £2.50 for a USB to Ethernet adapter, so as a consultant going to an unknown environment without that is quite pathetic. Consultant should know better.

      2. Richard 12 Silver badge

        Re: What a load of bull!

        Wifi doesn't help plug a projector in.

        Plus it has awful latency, very low bandwidth and is not permitted in secure environments.

        It's fine for general browsing, but it's poor to awful for any tasks that require serious networking.

        USB Ethernet adapters are all well and good, but it's another dongle to carry and a lot of applications cannot recover from a vanishing NIC. Losing the connection is fine, losing the whole NIC...

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