Will Exchange support boost Apple's corp cred?

Despite the crowing by fans of Apple computers that  their lovely machines are gaining traction in the corporate realm, resistance to OS X boxes by CIOs appears to still be strong, even with the much trumpeted support of Microsoft Exchange in the latest edition of the Mac operating system, Snow Leopard.

The logic behind the expectation that Exchange support will be a deal maker for corporate IT departments stems from the infectious behavior Apple products have had in the past on markets. The iPod’s popularity, for example, had a halo effect that enticed consumers to move to Apple computers. More to the point, when Exchange support was built-in to the iPhone, it began to win nods from more corporate users.

But there are indications that, at least initially, the halo effect may not be as strong this time around. One of those indicators is a recent “jury poll” taken by TechRepublic, a Web site targeted at IT professionals. In that poll, a “jury” of CIOs voted 12-0 against adding new Macs to their existing computer mix. All the executives voted “no” to the question, “Does the release of Snow Leopard make your IT department more likely to adopt more Mac OS X machines?

The TechRepublic jury was a diverse group. It included IT bigwigs from an accounting firm (SS&G Financial Services), a college (Emory University School of Medicine), the Girl Scouts in Minnesota and Wisconsin, an engineering consulting firm (Structural Integrity Associates) and a number of government agencies (Wllingford, Conn., public schools and the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities).

More than 50 percent of the 90-member jury pool responded to the Snow Leopard question, TechRepublic reported, and the overwhelming sentiment in those responses was that the operating system revamp would not impact their IT infrastructure. “Nearly every respondent wrote that Macs simply don’t make sense in their corporate network,” the IT publication reported.

When TechRepublic began to drill into the reasons behind the resistance to Macs in the various corporate departments, the litany was a familiar one.

• We’re heavily invested into PCs. Besides, Macs are for graphic designers and educational institutions.
• We’re running Windows-based software so we don’t want to look at a non-Windows platform.
• We know we can run Windows software on a Mac, but it requires virtualization and supporting two operating systems, which is a headache we don’t need.
• We need to comply with federal regulations and Macs aren’t a good fit for that kind of environment.
• We’re operating under budget constraints and Macs cost more than PCs.
• We depend on key software vendors to support our core applications, and those vendors support only Windows.
• We’re a Windows shop because Microsoft makes pricing very, very attractive for higher education.
• We can’t afford to retrain users and support staff in a new hardware platform.

Apple has attempted to address many of the mines placed in the path of its Macs on the road into corporate environments, and for a while, it seemed to be making some progress. But earlier this year there appeared to be signs of slippage, as Forrester research reported that the Mac adoption rate for businesses in Europe and North America had declined from five percent in 2008 to three percent in early 2009.

As the TechRepublic poll suggests, the strong mix of real concerns–costs connected to hardware purchase, training and support–and popular perception–Macs are only for graphics and students–is creating roadblocks into the enterprise on which a change like Exchange support will have very little impact. That impact will be diluted even more by the fact that that support does not extend to the entire Exchange market but only to Exchange Server 2007 installations.

Moreover, the proximity of Snow Leopard’s release to the appearance on retail shelves of Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system will take some of the bounce the Apple OS may have gotten in corporate environments.

In the coming weeks, the public will be bombarded with the benefits of Win7, benefits such as a smaller memory footprint, faster performance, improved aesthetics and, maybe most important of all, it’s not being called Vista 2009.

Since the release of Vista in 2007, Apple has been able to grow its share of the corporate sphere. To some extent, that’s been due to Vista’s miserable performance in the market. Beating up on Vista became a national pastime rivaling baseball. With the arrival of Windows 7, Apple may find its pitch to corporate IT departments a bit more difficult without Vista to kick around anymore.