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.