When it comes to the question of PCs versus Macs, the enterprise looks much more like the button-down John Hodgman than the comfortable Justin Long - the two actors in Apple's popular ad campaign. But Apple Inc. has been gaining ground. In a survey of corporate desktop operating system trends published in August 2008, Forrester Research found that since October 2006, use of Apple products among its clients had grown from 1.1 to 4.5 percent.

Among computer users at large, the Cupertino, Calif., company is doing even better. Apple claimed 9.5 percent of the U.S. personal computer market in the third quarter of 2008, according to figures released in October 2008 by Gartner. That's a 29 percent increase over 2007.

Macs Gain Ground?

Do Apple's gains in the enterprise mean that some corporate and government CIOs have switched their loyalties?

Not necessarily. "It's actual users bringing those technologies in, rather than the IT department bringing them in," said Charles Smulders, managing vice president of Gartner's End User Client Computing Group.

A growing trend toward "consumerization" in the workplace has seen more employees asking for the IT products they prefer, or simply bringing in products they buy themselves. "That has given rise to a greater number of Apple products being part of the enterprise ecosystem," Smulders said.

                        Photo: Charles Smulders, managing vice president, Gartner

Apple doesn't pursue the enterprise market, said Rob Enderle, president and principal analyst of the Enderle Group in San Jose, Calif. He said there are several reasons, and one is that Apple doesn't want to offer the aggressive discounts that enterprise customers demand.

Another is that IT directors require at least six months to prepare for new products and major upgrades from vendors. "Apple doesn't give anybody a heads-up on anything," Enderle said. "The final thing is, in any large company, IT buyers expect that no matter who you are, you're going to come in and kiss their butts a little bit," he said. "Apple doesn't play that game."

The government enterprise market is especially hard to please, demanding the lowest possible prices while piling on extra requirements to comply with procurement regulations, Enderle added.

Apple would not provide a representative to be interviewed for this story.

Photo: Rob Enderle, president and principal analyst, Enderle Group

Higher IT Costs?

Many IT directors shy away from Apple because it doesn't provide sales and technical support geared to the enterprise, Smulders said. Many also object to the cost of supporting yet another operating system. "Often, the IT department doesn't have the skill sets to be able to deal with a Mac," he said. Macs might also bring additional software licensing fees - for example, running dual operating systems on a Mac to accommodate all the applications an individual needs to use.

Of course, Macs aren't the only Apple products that end-users have lobbied to bring into the enterprise. "The attractiveness of the iPhone has driven it into the enterprise like no technology I have seen in recent years," Enderle said.

Gartner advises users to deploy iPhones selectively for data applications. "[In a perfect world,] it's a calendaring and e-mail type of device, but it isn't running third-party applications beyond that," Smulders said.