The Apple Channel

December 21, 2007

It was a good year for Apple, and Apple resellers hope to ride the rising tide into 2008 as Macs become more popular with business users and the iPhone slowly transforms from hot consumer commodity to a viable business tool.

While VARs can't sell iPhones (bad Apple!) the opportunities for business users will skyrocket when Apple makes the device Microsoft Exchange friendly and releases a software developers kit, anticipated in early 2008.

Apple's thriving iPod and iPhone businesses may not have any impact on the channel, except perhaps to cause a bit of "why can't we sell those too!" ire, solution providers can take heart that business may be on the upswing for Apple resellers who cater to business accounts.

The NPD Group said that in its first month on the market Apple's Leopard was the Cupertino, Calif.-based company's fastest selling operating system release to date, beating out Tiger and Jaguar. Apple itself announced that 2 million copies had been sold in the OS's first weekend on the market, although in that count, unlike NPD's, Apple included OSes that shipped with new computers.

What might be most surprising is that Leopard Server is of growing interest to companies, according to Apple reseller Michael Oh, CEO of Tech Superpowers in Boston. "We have seen in 2007 a lot more interest in companies that would be more traditionally PC or at the very least are hybrid PC/Mac companies looking at completely switching over to all-Mac environments as well as switching over from PCs to Macs. Definitely there's more interest on the business side," Oh told ChannelWeb.

Meanwhile, rumors abound that next year Apple will release super-micro computers using Intel's ultra-mobile PC platform, a G3 iPhone that will transmit at faster speeds than in its current incarnation and that Apple TV may finally hit its stride in 2008. The device, launched at MacWorld last year, has been an underperformer but analysts speculate that improved software and more content could help the product catch on.

Why do Apple's consumer gadgets matter to resellers and the channel?

Because as Macs take hold in more households and more users are downloading music via iTunes and listening to it on their iPods, Apple use will trickle down into the office as well as CEOs and other high-profile scenesters look to stay cutting edge. And let's face it, Apple is still the cool kid.

Apple has always held the hearts and minds of creative industries like design and publishing, and the launch this year of Adobe's Creative Suite 3 has helped resellers push new Intel-based Mac hardware, according to Oh. More can be expected when CES and MacWorld bring a slew of new Leopard-friendly software to market in early 2008.

What would really help resellers get into new markets with Apple machines in 2008 is if the notoriously channel-ambivalent company decides to help its resellers push its server and storage products deeper into the enterprise and midmarket while it focused on its direct sales to consumers, but we're not holding our breath.