Yahoo Finance reported today that the Enterprise Desktop Alliance's annual survey shows that 66% of IT administrators expected the number of Macs in their sites to increase this year. The leading reasons for more Macs were user preference, increased productivity, and ease of technical support.
T.Reid Lewis, president of the Enterprise Desktop Alliance and CEO of Group Logic, said, "Despite the uncertain economic conditions, Apple can expect the Mac to continue to find acceptance in large organizations." Sixty percent of the respondents have a unified support organization that supports both Macs and PCs, and 81% of them said that parity (treating Macs and PCs equally in integration and management issues) was important to their organization. Other issues that were “very” or “extremely” important were:
- 79% - File sharing between operating systems
- 79% - Security
- 72% - Client management (tracking inventory, applying patches, etc.)
- 66% - Active Directory integration
- 60% - Cross-platform help desk and knowledge base support
Currently, 14% of the enterprises surveyed only provide official support for PCs, but that number will be decreasing in 2010. It's easier than ever to support multiple operating systems, Lewis says, because “More and more solutions are available to help these enterprises address their integration and management issues.”
Gartner agrees with the survey results. In their December 4th, 2009 report, Predicts 2010: PC End-User Issues, they claim, “As a greater percentage of enterprise applications become OS-neutral, the cost to support a more diverse hardware and OS mix will decrease, making Macs a more viable choice for a greater number of users who continue to demand them. Providers that sell enterprise-class Mac solutions and Mac services may see an increase in demand.”
