Apple’s forays into the enterprise are succeeding and likely to push aside Windows over the next decade, according to outgoing Jamf CEO Dean Hager. “…In 10 years’ time, Windows will not be the dominant ecosystem; …Apple is coming up because it already dominates the mobile enterprise.”
Hager’s comments came in an interview with Computerworld.
Windows has no mobile device in a mobile age
The implications are significant, because it means IT has to accept that to some extent the infrastructure they have in place now has been assembled for a declining ecosystem. “No matter which way you look at it, Windows is a declining ecosystem and has been for 20 years,” said Hager. “That’s not a knock at Windows, it’s a statement of fact.”
As he sees it, the evidence is compelling. In an era of computing mobility, Windows has no mobile device, which means the platform can’t be an “endpoint leader.”
Apple, meanwhile, has the leading smartphone used in the enterprise, the leading enterprise tablet, and the fastest-growing PC used in the enterprise. These represent major changes to enterprise tech.
“When I joined Jamf in 2015, I thought some pretty special things were going to happen with Apple in the enterprise,” Hager told me. “But I think even my predictions would have fallen far short of what has actually happened in the last eight years.”
In 2015, Jamf had 4,000 customers running just over 3 million devices. Today it has over 72,000 customers running more than 30 million Apple devices. “Apple has a clear path, in my view, for winning the enterprise,” he said.
How Apple is winning the enterprise
Employee choice plays its part in this. After all, not only is it critical, but the nature of what employees expect has also changed.
“We live in an environment where people using the technology have a stronger voice than they’ve ever had in the history of the corporate world,” Hager said. “And ultimately that voice will prevail. They will choose the technology that they want, and this just wasn’t true 20 or even 10 years ago. But the world has changed, employees have a choice, and those organizations that don’t allow that choice are falling behind today.”
Jamf was founded a few months after the introduction of the Apple iPod in October 2001. The music player defined an era — and redefined Apple. Then in 2010, CEO Steve Jobs appeared onstage to announce that Apple was now a mobile company, which it remains today.
But the iPod nation wasn’t just a consumer choice at a moment in time, it also inspired generational shifts. It means children born in the late 1990s grew up with Apple products, from the iMac to the iPod. That makes them culturally accustomed to the company’s platforms, and now they’re entering the workplace and expect to use this tech at work, as well as at home.
This pattern is not confined to the US. It is also seen in developing countries, where Apple is growing market share in…
2023-07-24 18:00:04
Post from www.computerworld.com rnrn