Like the rest of the PC industry, sales of Apple Macs have been declining, consumed by the tablet, namely the iPad.
Apple sold 3.8 million units in the last quarter it reported — down 7% from a year earlier — and 11.8 million units in nine months, down 11%.
But what these numbers don't show is that Apple has been winning in the one area it never really owned before: enterprises.
So says Jason Wudi, an executive for Jamf Software. Jamf makes software that help enterprises manage their Mac PCs, tracking them, securing them, keeping software updated, etc. Through its software, Jamf is helping enterprises manage some 2 million Macs, he says.
"OS X growth has slowed overall," Wudi says, but "in the enterprise, the OS X platform continues to gain market share." Jamf customers are adding new Macs "in excess of 20% year-over-year growth."
For instance, Cisco Systems, which used to use mostly Windows five years ago, now has 35,000 Macs, reports Infoworld's Galen Gruman.
Corporations will especially like Apple's soon-to-be-released Mavericks operating system, Wudi says, because it has several new features for them:
- Upgrades to a security feature called FileVault 2. This encrypts the whole hard drive, so others can't snatch data from it. FileVault 2 isn't new, but it includes new ways for enterprise to control it, Wudi says.
- Features that make the Mac more secure when logging onto corporate networks. Mavericks does a better job of protecting data when used with a corporate "virtual private network" or VPN. That's how businesses let employees log in from afar.
- Easier ways to install Mavericks on lots of machines across an enterprise. It's actually pretty hard to upgrade the OS on thousands of Macs without deleting data.
- Using Mavericks and Apple TV to do presentations. Hook them to a big monitor or screen in a board room.
- Improvements in Apple's Volume Purchase Program. Apple made it easier for corporations to buy lots of licenses for Mavericks.
Mavericks will be available sometime this fall. Latest rumor is that it will be out in late October.
