Study: Apple gaining corporate traction

Apple is beginning to pave significant paths into the corporate world, says the research firm Yankee Group. Following a recent web survey of 750 global IT administrators and C-level executives, the firm says it has discovered that approximately four out of every five businesses have Macs running on their network. In general, says Yankee analyst Laura DiDio, adoption of Apple computers is said to be growing at a "steady and sustained pace not seen since the late 1980s."

Macs still, however, represent a fraction of the computers used within corporations, according to DiDio. She notes that while just under 25 percent of institutions have a "significant number" of Macs, a company needs only 30 to 50 systems to gain this qualification. Many corporations may thus have only a handful of Apple systems.

Higher adoption of Macs is attributed mainly to more corporate-friendly features in Mac OS X Tiger and Leopard, such as the FileVault disk encryption utility, which means that every Mac can be safeguarded in case of theft. Leopard in particular is cited for its integrated Time Machine backup, new virtualization support, and the Back to My Mac remote connection feature, which is useful for traveling workers.

Filed under: industry, enterprise, Apple
Other story tags: Mac OS X, Leopard, virtualization, Time Machine, Tiger, FileVault, Back to My Mac