Apple Loves Them Some SMBs

Apple certainly is hip these days. What with iPhones and iTouches and iPods with 160GB hard drives and GarageBand and all that cool stuff. But is Apple still a player in the business market, specifically the small and midsize business market?According to InformationWeek, the answer is "yes." Apple may no longer covet the enterprise, but John C. Welch says it's a perfect fit for small and midsize companies (with fewer than 1000 computers).

According to Welch, Apple fits in well with "smaller IT departments" with limited "ability to deal with human-intensive solutions" and "not much room for fussing, fixing, or fidgeting."

He says Apple's limited but "solid" hardware choices have "the unique ability to, out of the box, run all the major desktop/user operating systems." And he says the limitations make busying easier, for hardware and operating systems, especially the upcoming Leopard.

"That's not to say the SMB market doesn't care about comparisons and choice, but being able to buy hardware and software without a degree in vendor negotiation is more important to them than to, say, GE."

Similarly, iWork is a more than adequate office application for most smaller companies, and it's only $80 a seat!

If Apple is so great for smaller companies, though, why don't more of them use Macs? I think it still comes down to price. At least in terms of initial cost, PCs are still signficantly cheaper, especially if you only need -- or can only afford -- bare bones functionality.

I was in Best Buy today replacing a busted wireless router, and while the iMacs were gorgeous, they cost a lot more than my humble HP laptop.

What do you think? Does your company standardize on Macs? If so, why? And if not, why not?