You've heard it before: The new iPhone is "enterprise ready", and if
you missed it, Apple has it posted on its home page.
Then there are the articles talking about whether Apple, the Mac, or
the iPhone are really ready for "enterprise".
Maybe you don't know what they really mean by enterprise. Don't feel
bad; the judge in the
Oracle trial didn't like how the definition kept changing
either.
To help out, I did some research to find out what the heck
"enterprise" and "enterprise business" really means. The first thing I
did was a Google search, and I found this simple
definition: "...an enterprise is an organization that uses
computers."
That was easy, so what is the big deal? Well the definition is
really broad and includes everything from small businesses to giant
corporations to charities. The word has also taken on a special elite
status, for both the big name software vendors like SAP and Oracle and
the businesses who use their software.
Because this is all a foreign language for me, I called for help and
gained some clarity from another Low End Mac author, Jason Packer. He works in the IT
business, and he shared some of his wisdom on this issue.
You're absolutely right that "enterprise" is a
flexible word. Sometimes it is synonymous with "business", as you have
suggested, but more often it is used to differentiate the size of the
business. You see it broken down into Small Business, Large Business,
and Enterprise. Some define it to mean a business with multiple office
locations connected by a WAN rather than just a single location, as
that adds another layer of complexity to the technology. I have worked
in situations where "enterprise" implied not so much size as capacity -
how quickly could capacity be added if needed, and reliability - do
these resources need "five nines" uptime or is it acceptable to have
some downtime built into the operation.
So I can't give you a clear-cut answer, except to say
that when people say that "Macs are not ready for the enterprise," they
usually mean they don't play well with existing Windows infrastructure,
rather than that they're inappropriate for use as a database server or
for dynamic web applications.
Jason
So there you have it, "enterprise" has become a fancy word to imply
that you use not only software for your business, but that it's complex
and probably very expensive. If you want to use the word for the
original purpose, you still can, but depending on the situation you may
confuse others, especially a judge.
Just remember that the word "enterprise" came into use to help us
separate out the software used for consumers, like Windows XP, MS
Office, Internet Explorer, Adobe Acrobat, Photoshop, etc.
Oh wait, those are all programs used by consumers and businesses, so
I guess it's not always clear what is for business and what can be used
by consumers. One thing is for sure; you probably don't have any
software from Oracle running at home for fun.
So are Apple, the Mac, and the iPhone "Enterprise Ready"? Of course
they are - depending on who you are talking about, what type of
software they run, and if their IT department isn't completely scared
of anything new and untested.
In this case, I think we'll have a few more years of argument about
whether or not Apple is truly ready.
