Tonight I was listening to the MacBreak Weekly Podcast with Leo Laporte, Andy Ihnatko, Alex Lindsay and Frederick Van Johnson, when the conversation turned towards the future of Apple's Mac OSX Operating System. It appeared as if the majority of the panel were on the side believes Apple is gradually backing away from its future and that it would be in the best interest of everyone if Apple put it into the Open Source universe. Andy Ihnatko however, staunchly defended his opinion that OSX or whatever variant of Apple's premier platform for the desktop would be in the future, would still be of great interest by Jobs and Apple as a whole. I found myself siding with Andy on this one. Like Mr. Ihnatko, I do not buy into the notion that Apple has turned its back on OSX, quite the contrary. Apple Management's, not necessarily Mr. Jobs', main concern is that Apple is a business... period. As with any other business, the bottom line what feeds Mr. Jobs' passions. Where do you generate income from? Either new products and services, or in new markets. Is it too far fetched to believe that Apple is not using one to fund the other? We should not be naive enough to think that they wouldn't be looking at the Enterprise as a new home for OSX, and using all of the 'i' devices to fund that move in both capital and consumer brand awareness. Ultimately, the big money is in the Enterprise, not in the Mr. & Mrs. Smith household, the creative studios or halls of education who have been loyalists from the beginning. Apple has gone main stream for a reason.

You see, I am not a "creative" by trade. Nor am I a die hard "engineer." I am however, a Technologist. More specifically, an IT Service Management professional who has supported business users with their technology issues for going on 15 years now. I have watched as the Enterprise technology environment has become extremely complex and demands technology that performs heavy lifting with both in the datacenter as well as on the Desktop. It is because of this complexity and demand for greater processing power by users that desktop operating systems like Windows, Linux and OSX will always find a home. I have seen users attempting to perform analysis on data within Microsoft Excel spreadsheets consisting of one-million rows of data and clamoring for more powerful machines and operating systems to support their business efforts. Enterprise businesses live in data. Manipulating that data is what is driving business. That all begins on the desktop. Not on an iPhone, iPad or any variant of an IOS platform. Having worked in two of the most intense global enterprise industries of Financial Services and Audit/Advisory/Tax, I can tell you that if anything, there is a serious push for 64 bit power on the desktop. Surprisingly enough, exactly what places OSX in the position to enter into. What I seemed to be listening to, in the majority of podcasts I hear daily are consumer/creative level discussions about the future of Apple products and services. I see, hell I live outside of that paradigm and what I see is an unbelievable strategic play by Apple to take their game to a much larger level; into the world of the Enterprise, where Microsoft still rakes in hand-over-fist gobs of money via licensing of its various Windows/Exchange/SQL software products. It is no surprise that with Microsoft's announcement today of its earnings, that it is still holding on to the lead in revenue, when it has done nothing substantial over the past 5 years other than release Windows 7 which has yet to be fully grasped by the Enterprise market. When that ball starts rolling, the money will continue to subsidize other business areas within Microsoft. The XP to Vista debacle bought Apple time to focus on modifying a key element to their strategy, brand perception.

Back in August of 2008 while watching Jobs tout the merits of the Snow Leopard operating system, I saw right through the visual bells and whistles of things like TimeMachine and Spaces onto the deeper industry standard technologies baked into Snow Leopard which screamed Enterprise implementation, drawing chuckles when i blogged about my theory. I put my chips down at that point, convinced that what Apple had up its sleeve was a slow, under the radar move into the Enterprise. There would be only two ways to do this. By Brute force, going head-to-head with Microsoft, which I have no doubt that Apple would lose, not because of the technology, but because of the perception of Apple products not being "ready for prime-time." The other being a more strategic 5~10 year plan designed to intricately modify consumer opinion and allow the consumer to demand Apple products in the workplace. Anyone interested in competitive strategy, knows that in one way for Apple to begin to challenge Microsoft would be to not compete with Microsoft directly. A smarter strategy would essentially need to be a death by 1,000,000 paper cuts. Each cut representing a functionality and/or value proposition not at the Enterprise level, but at the consumer level presented to the people who use the technology. In many ways, you need to develop a game plan designed to modify people's perception of your products. What better way to do that then to do it through a consumer platform that demonstrated an excellent user experience, amazing design and unbelievable functionality? Sound like something you know? Enter the 'i' devices. I think it is fair to say at this point, that with OSX safely running in the background of what is now a fever-pitched feeding frenzy on iPods and iPhones, Apple can let the OSX continue to ride in the back seat while perceptions of Apple's brand and products are being swayed daily from word of mouth experiences with the "i" products. Snow Leopard is stable, has a good set of Enterprise level functionality baked in and is waiting in the wings to make its move when called upon, into the business world introduced by none other than the end consumer or employee.

Every Enterprise organization is comprised of people. People who own iPod's, iPhones, iPads in their own homes and absolutely love them. What I am seeing in my own organization, is this discovery of Apple products being made not by members of IT, but from the business. Partners, Directors and other Executive level individuals are now coming to IT asking what it would take to get these products into the company because they can see the value in the functionality they have at home. This is a monumental shift in attitude towards Apple products. Couple that with the reports I read today of Apple Retail beginning to target small to medium business. That is the leap from consumer to business. Enterprise then follows. Why would Steve not return to Apple with a 10, 15 or 20 year strategy for Apple? Not necessarily knowing what products or services Apple would develop, but a very high-level game plan that began with the need to swing public perception of Apple Computer. In retrospect you can almost see the plan being played out:

1. Create something as the trojan horse ("i" devices) capturing the imagination of the guards (consumers)
2. Be carried beyond the walls of the fortress (enterprise)
3. Unleash the beast (OSX) let in by the guards (consumers -> employees)
4. Gain ground against the enemy (Microsoft) within its own walls (Enterprise) capturing the castle ($$)

I know this is again a far fetched belief of mine, but one that I am willing to stick by as I watch it slowly unfold. For the reasons I mention above, I am pretty convinced that Apple will, by no means kill off OSX. OSX (or whatever variant they are working on behind the scenes) is in the bull-pen waiting to be called upon whenever the Enterprise comes calling. This is a Tortoise and Hare scenario. In the end, I believe Apple is playing the slow and steady wins the race game, after all, why would they name all of the OSX variants after cats? Cats are some of the most stealth, calculating animals on the planet you never really know when they are going to pounce.

Most people who know me, write me off to being an Apple Fanboy and that's fine.   The truth of the matter is that it is much more complex than that.  I do enjoy and celebrate Apple products, why?  Because they work for me.  Not you, me.  As a technologist, I have spent too many hours to mention in my life dedicated to fixing Microsoft products and issues to want to allow that to carry over to my pesonal life.  I can do things on Windows that can cause big problems.  Sure I could do the same with Apple products, but I don't have to.  I don't have to worry about registries, dll files, drivers or a never ending battle with virus attacks.  More importantly I don't have to worry about me screwing someting up.  So in that context, Apple products project me from me.  I don't jailbreak my iPad or iPhone, I don't hack away at the UNIX underpinnings in my OSX operating system, I just use the applications to get things done and 95% of the time they work as advertised.

This post is not about Apple or Microsoft, but it is about the electronics consumer in the United States and how the mentality of consumers has shifted.  The recent Apple PR/Engineering debacle of the iPhone 4 has uncovered true ugliness of doing business in the United States.  With Government regulations, Class Action Lawsuits, a rabid panic-enciting media base and a population that feels everything is owed to them, it is a wonder that any company can do business in this country or want to.

The truth in all of this iPhone 4 drama is this.  Apple made a product.  That product has issues.  Apple has handled the situation badly. Trust in their product has taken a hit.  What is not true is that Apple owes us nothing.  Their decisions; good, bad or horrendous are their responsibility and will impact their bottom line and their shareholders.  Why we act as if the decisions or trip-ups that Apple the company performs somehow damage our lives.  News flash:  They dont.

Yet, the environment seems to indicate that somehow apple owes us something for puttnig out a less than operational product.  In my opinion they did the right thing by waiving all fees to return the phone within the 30 day window in which anyone who didn't like the phone could have returned it.  I didn't have an issue serious enough to warrant turning my phone back in.  That was my choice and I exercised it.  Those who didn't puzzle me.

These individuals seem to think that because they spent money with a company who was willing to give that money back within 30 days, that decision was the responsibility for Apple to make based on the crazy idea of issuing a recall of the device.  That is just insane.  So why?  I could see it if the iPhone was the only mobile phone on the market.  It isn't.  So what would drive someone to ignore the issue for 30 days, then get on the bandwagon to somehow punish Apple for their own bad decision?  Class Action Lawsuits, bumper or case giveaways or full-out recalls are all aimed at somehow punishing Apple while holding on to the very device that is not working to their expectations.  AHA!  There it is, the word... "Expectations"

We expect too much and are willing to defer all decision making, risk and responsibility to others because we are owed something.  I think back to the days when rational individuals took responsibility for their own decisions.  The fact that a company is willing to provide options for you to make decisions with should be a kudo's to that company.  We need to stop blaming everyone else for our own bad decisions and start taking responsibility for our own lives.  That includes in our purchases of products.

So in the case of the iPhone 4 issue.  My device is working within my expected parameters.  I am not going to turn it back in and will wait to see if the small issue I do have with the Antenna is sorted through Apple's future actions.  If not, then I have to live with my decision and be happy with it.  I was an early adopter and as with anything else, there are certain risks that I sign up for.  If it goes bad, I really have no one to blame but myself, the penalty to Apple will be another little bit of trust and consumer satisfaction lost from me.  That translates into my decision making process going forward with Apple will be under more scruitiny that it was in the past.  Over time, that will be the ultimate penalty for Apple a growing loss of brand loyalty.

So stop acting like someone has died because of this issue and insisting that Apple be strung up on high because of it.  Look in the mirror ask yourself the following questions:

1. Can I live with another phone?
2. Would I be happy with gettting my money back?
3. Is this issue really impacting your life in a negative manner?

If the answer to any of those is Yes, then you should really consider taking the phone back and getting something else.  Otherwise, stop flooding the world with an issue as trivial as whether or not you get 2 or 5 bars all day, every day.  No one really cares, free up your time to thinks like hunger, people losing their phones or even what is going to happen to the Gulf as a result of the millions of barrels of oil poured into our environment.  Those issues impact peoples lives.  Not whether or not you have an iPhone, Blackberry or Android.  If you want drama, go back to watching soap operas, I hear they are taking a hit in viewer numbers. 

I was asked today what I thought of the new AT&T Data Plan revisions that have been announced. As with most of these conversations they usually start with someone rebelling against "The Man." In this case, AT&T. To be honest, being an avid RSS Feed reader, I was initially shocked by the announcement and based on the headlines went straight into the mode of thinking "Oh damn, I'm going to get screwed now."

Then I did what many are not doing before passing judgement on the announcement. I went and started digging into my own data usage on my iPhone. What I found actually shocked me. I was not consuming nearly as much data as I originally thought. Not only that, but I will actually save more money under the new plan should I choose to give up my $30 a month "Unlimited" data plan.

The first thing I did was obviously check the iPhone itself to see how much data I was consuming and it was not that clear given the fact that it only gives you what you are consuming during the current billing cycle. I needed to see an average across a period of time. So then I turned to the AT&T Application on the phone to see if I could get that information from AT&T directly. Same number.

My next attempt was to hit the AT&T Wireless website to see what my account details said, or if I could even see historical data usage on my account. There it was, a little link in the "Group Usage" section at the bottom right that said "View Past Data Usage." I clicked on it and it gave me the ability to analyze my data consumption across billing cycles over a range that you set. What I found blew me away. In the past year, my lowest consumption month was 256 mb of data, while my most active month was at 533 mb. I was sure I was consuming well over 500 mb of data in a month. For anyone who knows me, you would probably think the same thing as much as I am on-line from the phone. My running average over a 12 month period worked out to only being 391 mb of data per month. Compare that with the Mrs. who also has an iPhone and uses it as probably the average iPhone user would, who consumes only 72 mb of data per month averaged across the same 12 month period and you begin to see why the AT&T plan isn't really impacting the "average" iPhone user. In fact, it probably will save them money over the $30 unlimited 3G data plans required in the past.

With that information in hand, I turned to the new AT&T Data Plan to see what the financial difference would be over what I currently pay.

ATT Current iPhone Plan

• simplyRik - $30/mo Unlimited Data - 12/mo Average Data - 391mb/mo
• Mrs. simplyRik - $30/mo Unlimited Data - 12/mo Average Data - 72mb/mo

ATT New iPhone Plan

• simplyRik - $25/mo for 2Gb "DataPlus/DataPro"
• Mrs simplyRik - $15/mo for 200Mb

The Hardware: Yes, it is an overgrown iPod Touch. Same design, form factor and operating system. Call it what it is. Where it adds more value than either the iPhone or the iPod touch is in screen real estate. Period. However, the real estate is what puts it in the league of the micro-notebook, PC tablets or NetBooks. But outside of the screen that is where the iPad is definitely not any of these and does not have the benefits of these devices. Then again it was not designed to.

The Software: Possibly the biggest advantage the iPad has over these devices. Arguments have been made that the iPad does not have the capability to run the same apps as NetBooks or PC Tablets. Fine, but why would you want it to. In many cases anything put on these devices is overkill and rarely used. Not to mention the bulk space required to put a full blown operating system and a full Office Suite on it. Again, why? I asked my co-workers on a few occasions, "What is it that you do on a Laptop that you think couldn't be accomplished on the iPad even with the apps that have been developed for the iPhone/iPod touch which will run on the iPad?" I didn't get an answer. To avoid any possibility of a response however, I did add that even my iPhone has the ability to run a Remote Desktop session with either my MacBook Pro or my PC at home. If they are running these "Have to have" applications, why would I need it on an iPad if companies like VMWare and others are looking to provide applications for the iPad.

Seriously, if you have an iPad, are mobile, you are rarely going to need such powerful applications when you are out and about. Which leads me to my next point... people.

The Users: As previously mentioned much of the heated debate lives within the technology community. Everyone is taking shots at the iPad or the failure of mobile PCs. What apps, how much memory, to USB or not to USB, those are the questions. What we in IT need to do is top thinking about ourselves and where any of these devices fails in our eyes. The general non-technical public could care less. They want simplicity, they don't use big corporate applications in their daily lives. They live on the web and in email for the most part. They listen to music, watch movies or TV shows and even listen to or read books. I imagine this was the basic requirement set that Steve Jobs laid out before his team when the concept of an Apple Tablet was put out there.

My wife doesn't need a MacBook pro, aside from browsing the web and checking mail she just needs to remote into her company to work off of her Desktop machine doing all of the heavy lifting. iPad could be perfect for her outside of the office or when she is traveling. My parents don't need an iMac or a Dell desktop computer all they do is play Solitaire, surf the web and occasionally check their email. My guess is that there are many more people in those categories out there than those in the Forums and Blogs debating the validity of an iPad just because it doesn't have the specs that they would need.

Even I found my self coming to the realization today that I wouldn't have a need for my 15" MacBook Pro if I had an iPad. I have an iMac for my heavy lifting and an iPhone for my cell services. The iPad would fit nicely in between the two and I would be writing this on that right now as I sit on my couch in front of the TV. In short, my MacBook Pro is overkill for the type of work I am doing right now.

In my day job, I spend a lot of time breaking old habits and thought processes of people. We refer to this as a "cultural shift" in the way that people think about how we do a certain type of work. The same could be said for how people are defending a computing culture that is at the precipice of change. A computing cultural shift if you will.

This leads me to an article I was reading by one of the Co-Founders of Posterous, Sachin Agarwal entitled: "The Finder is dead. Soon, a PC won't have files, folders, or documents. It will have "apps" like an iPhone" A wonderful piece that demonstrates further where many are failing to see the vision of where computing is going. You can't necessarily defend a vision, but you can paint the picture of the future, or as is the case with Apple, begin to move beyond the vision and start to drive change. Remember the death of the Floppy Drive introduced in the first generation iMac? What about FireWire's introduction in the same product? "Crazy" is what the industry called it. But now, I haven't touched a floppy disk in years.

Sachin's article helps support a vision of the future I have been trying to explain for months now which began with people telling me that the iPad without USB ports was just stupid. How would people get files on and off of the silly thing? Truly destined to become a failure without it. I simply countered with facts like my iPhone having the DropBox application or MobileMe application to access files from the cloud so why would I need a USB port? Uh.... EXACTLY!

The iPad is Apple's appliance for cloud computing. High-speed and low-drag. It will become the interface to the cloud. Rumors indicate that we could see Music and Movies purchased through the iTunes Music store being stored on the cloud. The days of believing that because you purchase and download music that is essentially code makes it tangibly yours is going to change. You are not paying for the CD or the Code, but for the RIGHTS to own that music. Where it is stored becomes pretty much irrelevant as long as you have the receipt that gives you rights to that music.

So, if all of your digital assets are in the cloud, there becomes no need for local storage on gigabyte drives, USB drives or even the device itself. If it is connected via WiFi, 3 or 4G or even synced for when you are not connected, then there becomes less of a need to carry Laptops, NetBooks or external drives around.

So yes, I believe the iPad will be a hit. Possibly a HUGE hit that will re-shape the future of computing and what we know and do with it today. What that ultimately will be, we don't know right now, but the Vision looks bright for where we are headed and once again, love them or hate them, but Apple is once again leading the charge into the future, with or without you.

A couple of interesting things occurred to me at work today. I was attending a regular weekly meeting and due to various issues, I had not been able to attend this meeting for one reason or another. That is what made today quite interesting.

You know how you don't see someone for a long time and when you do you notice everything different about them? Kids grow, people lose or gain weight that goes un-noticed if you are around them on a daily basis. Well, today I was in this meeting when I began to notice that I was no longer the odd man out with my iPhone. I began to see a visible change in the mobile devices strewn about the table. Some had only the iPhone and others had both the company issues BlackBerry laying next to their personal iPhone. Of course there were those BlackBerry only owners, but that number appeared to be dramatically declining. The iPhone was slowly creeping its way into the Enterprise one way or another.

Anyhow, I digress. The meeting finished up about 20 minutes early and several of us were killing time until our next meeting at the top of the hour. The topic on the lips of many these days came up. The iPad. It was a discussion around how those who had not seen the point of an iPad or Apple for that matter just weren't buying the hype or the reason for why this "tablet" would be any different than any other "tablet" released over the last 5 years. It was not a heated discussion mind you but it did highlight to me a very important point. No one knows.

I mean really knows. I have written previously on the one major way in which the iPad is different and it is that it is neither an iPhone, iPod touch or a Laptop. No there are no USB ports for transferring of files or anything else that puts it into direct competition with a NetBook or a Laptop. Again, the question was posed "So why is it so special?" Truth be told, there is no clear answer to that question. As a matter of fact, it could be said that no one fully understands the true purpose of the iPad. The only thing that can be clearly supported is its form factor and the value of the eReader functionality. Even that is unproven territory. Traditionalists will still want physical books, semi-techno-heads will still opt for the simplicity of the "one-trick-pony" eBook readers out there today.

I listened for a while before simply saying that anything hardware related will not define the iPad. What will define the iPad's popularity or value will be the simplistic platform Apple has designed, the creativity of development for the iPad and the distribution mechanism that Apple has also developed to deliver those applications to the iPad. Keep in mind that many of the debates between the Apple "Fans" and the Apple "Haters" occur in the Technology realm, I continued. To the average non-technical individual, the iPad will be everything they ever needed and then some.

[to be continued...]

So I like to think of the harem that is my pool of Apple devices. Seems I am somewhat justified in this belief due to a survey of 260 IT Administrators. In a recent PRNewswire article, the Enterprise Desktop Alliance conducted a survey of environments that maintained both Macs and PCs and found that the majority of respondents felt that Macs were cheaper to manage than PCs. The survey solicited results from 520 individuals world-wide with in organizations that either had 50 or more servers or over 100 Macs.

So what exactly is involved in the costs associated with the management of technology in an organization? It is all about Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). The TCO takes into account the direct and indirect cost of owning a device. This goes beyond the physical hardware purchase, but attempts to also take into account the amount of costs associated with actually maintaining these devices over time. If it is a "high-touch" environment meaning events like manual security patch installations, upgrades etc., then the dollar amount for the personnel performing the activities are taken into account. If devices break and have to be fixed or replaced, then there is a human cost associated with that work as well. Other types of costs are also factored in revolving around areas like training, user calls to the help desk for software issues, each and every event or issue translates to a cost.

Finally there is the life of the device. In most high transaction environments the refresh-cycle on hardware is roughly 24 months. This two year cycle is vital in effectively determining the calculation for TCO. The basic math is relatively simple; How much did you pay for the device, how much money was spent on support personnel interacting with that device over the lifecycle of the device. In short, how much did it cost me to own that piece of hardware... really.

The survey covered areas including Software Licensing, Troubleshooting, Training, Service Desk (Help Desk) calls, Configuration and Infrastructure. Across the board, the survey found that PCs resulted in a higher expenditure for the business. The lower the "hands on" factor, the lower the Total Cost of Ownership and that is what you want to get to. In the world of Technology financial you could theoretically go much deeper into analyzing productivity which could then be attributed to results or revenue, but that is another story all together. As to why the belief is that Macs are cheaper to own, 29% believed a lower TCO for the Mac Platform over PCs while 45% added ease of technical support to the TCO.

To be honest, I am a firm believer that this also translates into the consumer market. For example, in our home, we have an Apple G5 computer which I purchased in January of 2004. We also have an PC Desktop which was purchased in 2007. Both have had to have their Power Units replaced, and with the frequency of ensuring the latest patches are up to date on both platforms, I find myself spending far less time working on the G5 than I do any of the Macs in the house. The differentiating factor for this scenario is the 6 years I have owned the G5 vs the 3 years I have owned the PC. The Mac is my lower TCO. The same could have been said for the Apple PowerBook I owned for 5 years before being able to justify upgrading to the MacBook Pro (now on its 4th year).

I have always argued the cost point of Apple products against my PC counterparts. As with any product purchased, it has to go beyond the upfront expenditure of and deeper into the TCO analysis to make a valid argument. I am just surprised that there are not more organizations moving to a mixed platform environment where potential operating costs can be realized. I still believe it will happen, but it is a slow moving cultural shift that may take a few more years.