The ‘Halo effect’ of Apple products are being felt in every level of corporate America from C-Level to employees.
This ‘effect’ was started by iPhones, which drove adoption of iPads, and is now driving adoption of Macintosh computers into the enterprise.
This shift in corporate adoption of mac and apple products has seen success in many industries. Manufacturers can keep track of deliveries nationwide, hospitals keep track of patient information, and field teams have instance access to corporate data.
Additionally, with data moving to the web and productivity software (like Microsoft Office) working across Windows and Macintosh platforms, Macs are now able to replace Windows machines on the desks of many in corporate America.
You might be surprised how large enterprise companies are leveraging Apple products. Here are just a few examples;
Here are some examples:
- Google. In 2013, Google announced that not only was it Mac-friendly but that it had more than 43,000 Macs company-wide. It is now considered to have one of the largest “fleets” of these machines in the corporate world. Although Google does permit some employees to use Chrome-based Chromebook computers, systems engineer Clay Caviness said that machines running Apple OS X are the preferred option.
- Facebook. The world’s largest social network loves its Macs. Part of the reason is simple customer service — it needs to make sure its news feeds, Messenger services and other features work just as well on Apple iOS systems, whether the user is logging in from a desktop, laptop or mobile device. Wired described the Mac-friendly setup at its data centers as a "super-computer" made entirely of Apple Mac Minis, the older slimmed-down desktop that lacked a display, mouse or keyboard and was originally popular only among serious programmers. Facebook developers found this to be the best testing tool, since its Linux and cloud servers can’t run iOS.
- imgix. A former Google developer spent much of his time there trying to make sure YouTube videos could play on low-resource systems or slow-speed Internet connections. He later took this knowledge of thinking smaller into a startup company called imgix that made it easy for users to quickly and easily resize, reformat and recrop photos for sites, especially in large batches. The site is powered by a hybrid of OS and Linux servers but started with a stack of Apple Mac Minis.
- Zappos. The world’s largest online shoe retailer must connect more than 1,600 employees worldwide and also has an interesting culture that has done away with job titles. The "holacracy" requires people with different skills to take on the responsibility of building a group and heading up different projects. It also has an interesting hybrid support center that uses Mac, Windows and Linux technology. Part of the reason it uses all three platforms is to make sure that customers browsing via mobile devices can have the same shopping experience, regardless of what device they’re using.
As Apple products continue to increase market share in the consumer space, we feel the ‘halo effect’ will only continue to grow within corporations, with key planning and integration technologies. And this effect is only limited to certain companies, we believe entire industries will start to shift. Read this article to see which industries are beginning to see these changes now.