Apple is the No. 1 Client Device

A report out by Canalys on the final quarter of 2011 puts Apple ahead of HP as the preferred client device amongst corporates and consumers. Who would have ever thought that? Apple as the domain of geeks and marketing agencies is officially a thing of the past. Ty, you were right all along.

Some will say that this is wrong accounting as it includes iPads and iPhones in the total - but this is the entire point about the rapidly shifting client device market in corporations, the device is fast becoming the choice of the user not the company.

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is a real phenomenon and it is helping Apple become a corporate standard in a world traditionally dominated by PCs and Microsoft. 

Learn a lesson, everyone. There is not a penny of discount given for Apple products whether it be an iPod, iPad, iPhone or a Mac and they are top of the range end user prices. The PC market has been long rated as a commodity market and wags will tell you that Apple would never become a corporate standard as resellers and Apple itself never negotiate. That's another myth busted as Macs continue to grow and take market share off all the main players like HP, Dell, Lenovo and the rest. The PC market is no longer a price sensitive, high competition market - Apple have redefined the way to sell.

How did Apple do it? By winning the hearts, minds and wallets of real users through innovation, ease of use and entire new ways to buy products and applications. Incredibly, real users have gone back into corporations and not asked but demanded that their tablets, smartphones and, now, Macs be attached to the network even if they foot the bill themselves.

Microsoft, HP, Dell, everyone, never saw this coming that not just Apple but their operating system would take a massive chunk of the world dominated by the PC. Recent figures released by Microsoft show that they can no longer rely on consumers for their profit - now they are being squeezed in corporations.

The pace of change is incredible and none of the mighty companies saw it coming. Apple is the No. 1 client in corporations.

Pinch yourself, it's real.

The Cloud? Nah, it'll never take off

The Cloud? Nah, it won't happen. People still want to have their cosy Microsoft Office environment on their tight knit and safe Corporate network.

In less than two years something odd has happened. In more then one major quoted company I have worked with, over 10% of the user community now use Apple Macs as their PC of choice. These companies are not fuzzy designers or lovey media types they are plain old IT companies with rules and regulations on what PCs they buy and what applications the company network runs. They even have rules and regulations on internet use and social media restrictions during work hours. They are completely normal.

So how the heck did these Apple Macs get in there?

That Steve Jobs is a canny sort. He reinvented a company that was almost dead, out of cash and ideas and not just saved it but turned it back into a being vibrant, successful company again. And in doing so he changed the Corporate world. Central to all of it was The Cloud - without it he could never have achieved it. You see, Jobs took gadgets and made them the must-have devices of choice of businesspeople. First iPods - no threat to the IT status quo there. Then came iPhones and suddenly we had a funky device that linked to a shop online that also backed up your data and you could buy tons of applications easily - and cheap as chips.

It was first in the wave of clever smartphones that we all wanted. But surely these things were leisure devices? These were not serious contenders as business productivity tools? By the time the iPad came and the new wave of mobile innovative computing had took hold, many vendors had woken up and smelt the coffee. Via the back door, Apple had set a new agenda for computing. By getting executives and workers alike to buy effectively gadgets with their own money, an upsurge of revolt against the IT rules occurred in companies across the globe. IT managers wept as CEOs relented and allowed iPhones and iPads to be bought and for users to express choice and buy Apple Macs as their PCs of choice.

Apple came back into mainstream Corporate computing via the back door - from left field. And nobody saw it coming. Using the Cloud as the tether not the network, Apple totally revolutionised the way in which we bought applications and the price which we paid.
Executives not only had Macs and iPads but they had tens of small applications running on them, some business, some leisure which helped them to do what they wanted. You could now just flip open your computer and quickly dash off an email wherever you may be via the phone or WiFi network while listening to music and without all the rigmarole of linking to the home network. The Cloud made it all happen easily.

Computing has got innovative, exciting and sexy again. Luddites and Victorian minded companies like Microsoft are trying to pour scorn on these upstarts like Apple and Google. They can never challenge Microsoft on business-grade computing. People love and need Microsoft Office on their PCs, USB ports to tether to devices and strict rules governing what productivity tools they use. They need Office because that's the Corporate standard across the globe. Don't they? The Cloud is what Microsoft will define it to be and it's just a bit of extra connectivity but the good old lumpy, maxed-out PC is still the business workhorse.

The revolution has already started. The Cloud - no - the internet is the platform and it's giving people the power to do things unimaginable. All those years ago, Microsoft gave us that power to be individuals in a business world full of rules by opening up possibilities. Now it's being the matronly old lady that tells us that we cannot have fun and do business at the same time. The Cloud and companies like Google and Apple say that it's different and people - business people - agree.

Apple is back in mainstream computing. Google is on the business scene. A whole new raft of exciting new companies are innovating as if we have emerged from a computing Dark Age. The future is new and exciting and it's fun.

On the same device a 16 month old kid can have fun with a 70 year old man swiping through photos and playing the virtual drums while the same machine receives corporate email and be a mobile computer. Suddenly, the world of business and leisure has merged and laptops need not be left to whir forlornly over weekends as the family goes for a picnic. The computer gets invited along too.

The Cloud has opened up the corporate network. The next logical step is for companies to reassess their use of business productivity tools in the light of what is going on around them. The Cloud isn't for everyone but every small business in the world today will be thinking how to maximise their sales not run their IT. The Cloud gives them the freedom to do just that. Being fast moving, agile, accessible, innovative and competitive is what business is all about not being restrained by networks and rules. Using The Cloud will help small businesses be leaner and win. It helped a big company like Apple to flourish again.

It's a competitive world out there and technology is changing by the minute. Companies can now share in the freedom of making decisions about IT that are not about 3-5 year windows but 6 months or less - they can adapt to the changing world much, much quicker. They can embrace social media on the fly to maximise business, they can answer phone calls on a virtual PBX while sitting in cafe at the Station just the same as if they were in the office. The power of what can be done is no longer limited by the purchase of a server or dedicated device to do it.

Just do it.

You see, The Cloud is being made out to be some mysterious, ethereal intangible plume of vapour into which data descends and gets lost. It isn't. It's a high grade network into which companies have poured billions to make it the communication vehicle for everything from voice to data for the future. It allows us to not just do business with people everywhere and make small companies look big but has given us a voice and platform to increase our personal footprints. It has also done the same for business. It has also allowed us to share in the economy of scale of expensive hardware and software by not making us purchase the whole caboodle to do it but join others who have knowing there is plenty of capacity for us all.

The Cloud has given people and small businesses scale. Use it to make yourself bigger and pay for only what you use. The Cloud is like having a high speed train service that doesn't just stop at stations but stops at your door step or wherever you are and takes you exactly to wherever you want to go, and is cheaper than buying and using your own car and getting caught in jams.

The Cloud is not just the superhighway for the future, it is the future of computing for small businesses.

Why Should I Care?

You may be a sceptic or a true non-believer but let's assume for the moment that climate change is happening and that due to human intervention things are not going too well for the future for Planet Earth. The question is: should we modify or change our behaviour accordingly?

I read a letter in New Scientist from a Tom Dixon of Bristol in the UK. It was concise and well written - his answer was basically, why should he sacrifice his lifestyle for the good of the future when he has only a small window of time in which to live? In short, why should he care? And for the record, he doesn't.

It's an interesting point as I am a believer that in the brief history in time that man has lived on this Earth, we have impacted the environment in an extraordinary and unprecedented way. I am sure in my own mind that since the dawn of industrialisation we have done things to our environment which have profound and long-lasting effects on the Earth and particularly its atmosphere. I also believe that it is likely that we are actively shortening the potential opportunity for life, as we know it, to endure on Earth.

An asteroid may hit tomorrow. Super volcanoes may erupt in California and lay a black cloud over this earth for a century. The poles may swap ends. Something natural will occur to wipe us out anyway or change the environment we live in so profoundly that we will not survive. Or the incredible 'balancing act' that is nature is going through one of her long cycles and will 'right herself' again and the effect that humans have within it will be but a pimple on a gorilla's backside.

Both assessments could be true. One argues that we should look at how we live as it is humans who are having some kind of effect on the Earth while the other argues - hey, that's nature so make the most of what you can while it all lasts.

To have a concerted effort to change the way in which humans live would be a monumental task and it also pre-supposes that everybody agrees with the changes, thinks there is a problem and feels any kind of conscience that implores them to join in. This assumed 'Brotherhood of Man' may well not exist and it will be very hard to get widescale support to drive any such large-scale 'Green' policies to be implemented effectively to make the changes we think will help.

One thing that cannot be argued with is that we are depleting the earth's resources very quickly. Fossil fuels, on today's estimates, will last less than a few decades. There are no really good alternatives on offer - wind energy harnessing is both unsightly and equally damaging to the environment as well as not yielding enough energy to suit our needs. Nuclear energy has been descaled and now contributes less than 20% of the electricity to the National Grid. Solar energy is seen as the domain of cranks who deface their homes for no real gain.

Yet so much of our time, effort and brain power goes into sustaining or bettering our lifestyle in the present at a time when wealth in the developed world is at it a new height - and after a minor technical blip, will be back on course to grow. Profit and growth comes from exploiting the needs of the people now - having long term 'Green' strategies will inevitably mean that profit opportunities decrease and economic growth is limited, even negative. Many economists believe that you can sustain economic growth and have 'Green' policies but I am as sceptical about that as most climate change denyers.

Of this 'Brotherhood of Man' that Tom Dixon talks of which he asserts does not exist, you do not have to look far to see stark evidence of what he means. As the gobal financial crisis unfolded, it was pretty much every man for himself despite talk of concerted global action. Countries pumped varying amounts of money back into a system they understood as much about as they do nature itself and hoped for the best while other countries focused their cash on specific things that they estimated would help sustain them through the crisis. The results have been obvious - those who invested less in the global money system and more on their internal economy, have survived this crisis better. Look after yourself and things will get back to normal in a while.

When 9/11 occurred, almost without thought of the enormous financial, environmental and human impact the West engaged in two major wars which it still fights, eight years later. People will argue the reasons for the war but one obvious comment about Iraq was control of the region which supplies the most oil globally at a time when China is about to overtake the United States as the largest consumer of fossil fuels. It was 'aggressive' protectionism as Iraq's ability to wage war on anyone other than its own people had all but ended. Conflicts arise because countries believe their interests are compromised - there is no collective consciousness when it comes to seeing your lifestyle or freedom being threatened.

And as the developed world clamoured to pile trillions of dollars into sustaining its way of life into a system that had nearly ruined it, the developing and undeveloped worlds sat there and looked on incredulously as a mere fraction of all that wealth might have helped feed its starving inhabitants.

When it comes to understanding human nature rather than nature itself, we are still basically animals for all our intelligence. Survival of the fittest is the underlying culture and for all our altruistic ideals and thoughts, in reality there are very few of those who extoll them who are prepared to really sacrifice their way of life to ensure that everybody benefits. Indeed, from a political viewpoint even those with a scocialist ideal believe there is no issue in having people incredibly wealthy while others suffer. They have no issue with the exploitation of the less fortunate when it becomes personal but their ideas and ideals win votes and give them power because 'spin' is just plain old marketing when you analyse it and has little to do with real values and ways of life.

Yesterday, between meetings, I took a trip on a boat around the harbour in Hamburg and saw the vast empty dry docks of one of the former largest shipbuilders in the world. One new boat was being built of any consequence - it was 170m in length, had its own submarine and cost to date around €500m to build. It was a private yacht, commissioned by one man, who already has one of the largest private yachts in the world plus his own football club in the Premier League. There is incredible wealth in the hands of an incredibly small percentage of the population of the world while billions are below the poverty line, are mired in disease and can't feed themselves. And we just went out and saved them by propping up a financial system that rewards exploitation and penalises those that stop growing to look after others.

In the US some 47m people cannot afford medical care at all. The President is having to tour his country to persuade people it would be a nice idea to somehow provide for them when the same people are happy to pump $billions into sustaining a foreign policy that has made the US look like the world's school bully rather than the prefect.

I could go on but frankly when we live in a world where the impact of non-delivery of the latest iPod will have a more dramatic effect than more food to starving Africa, then you know that Tom Dixon in Bristol is right. 'The Brotherhood of Man' is no more than a former Eurovision pop group - a totally dreadful concept at that.

I could ask Tom Dixon and his followers why do we change anything? He did not invent the IPod yet he has one. He would not be pleased if he used a toilet where the previous users soiled the seat and did not clean up after them. He would not be pleased if there were no laws in this country stopping people just walking up and taking your possessions whenever that person feels like it. He would not be best pleased if Sky Sports was not made available to homes in the UK because Rupert Murdoch suddenly thought only Australians were worthy of it. He would not be happy if when run over by a car and he lies bleeding in the gutter that an ambulance is not available to help him.

All these things actually come from a collective drive to make the place in which we live a better place - without them our lives would not be the same and we would be worse off. Taming the Wild West was necessary for everyone to get a fair crack of the whip but Jesse James might have disagreed.

So what of the future? Do people like Tom Dixon not have children? Maybe not - if so, there is no point in providing education for them as well as nuturing them and giving them rules and culture if we do not believe that we have a role to play in the future. What is the point of doing all that and even providing them a legacy in a Will if we really do not care? The fact is that we actually do care. As animals, our biggest instinct beyond survival is to procreate new life. In fact, just about everything in nature prepares current life to create new life. Nature understands that our time in this world is very short and so it has set itself up as a long-term survival mechanism and each unit of life has a function to create new life while it lives.

Tom Dixon is not right - humans have enough intelligence to know that we can change our ways and it will have an effect on the chances of survival of our offspring. We can change the conditions in which we live today to make a future for our next generations - our own descendants.

In fact, as any good parent, it is our responsibility to do so as we owe our children the same chance to live as we got, if not more.

Would it kill us if we did not get the latest iPod every year or more of our fantastic brain power which goes into to designing ever greater and more complex risks in the financial market were channelled into finding the cure for cancer? Would it kill us or him if Roman Abramovich did not have so much money that he can commission the biggest private yacht in this world and the money were sent to Africa to help feed people? Would it kill us to have less lights on at night, less electrical devices in general, slower but more efficient cars, to not have electric advertising hordings in Times Square or Piccadilly Circus or Virtual Reality?

It probably wouldn't kill us. But it may kill our children if we don't do something about it.

Cost Savings Actions in Isolation

I read a recent snippet by an academic, Mitchell Lee Marks of the San Francisco State University, who said of the vogue policy by US CEOs in the face of the recession to enforce pay cuts rather than redundancies on staff that, 'Initially, this sounds good to people because we're all chipping in. There's a sense of loyalty. But what if you don't win the war?'

It's a great point. It was illustrated recently by US giant, FedEx, who, in December, asked senior Executives to take a 7.5% pay reduction and US based salaried workers a 5% cut in salaries. It affected 36,000 staff in all and CEO, Fred Smith, promised that it would see them through the bad times. By April, things had got worse and sure enough, FedEx let go 1,000 staff this month.

Fred Smith was dutifully trying to save jobs by avoiding making redundancies. He stripped out a good portion of the payroll cost and still it was not enough to save the jobs. In fact, Mitchell Lee Marks would argue that this actually has a bigger destabilising and demoralising effect on the company. It leaves staff with the rightful feeling, 'Why did we make that sacrifice? What did it achieve? Do management know what they are doing?' Further, studies have shown that while salary cuts are termed as short term measures, too often the money is not given back at a later date.

Cost Cutting in Isolation

It's a noble thing to join staff into the problems that business face particularly in the recession. It is also a noble thing to avoid redundancies if at all possible and asking or even forcing staff to take a pay cut is better than losing jobs.

Or is it?

The problem here is what is trying to be achieved. When executives abdicate responsibility for their actions to accountants and cost-cutters, then only numbers hold any credence. The role of the cost cutter is to 'cut the cloth to fit' and that's exactly what they do. But there is a problem here. If all that you do is cut cost and do not adjust or re-align your business then you are only risking prolonging the inevitable - either you sink or you have to make bigger cost reductions or the dreaded 'death by a thousand cuts'.

What I mean is, if you do not change the goals of your business, then all you are doing is reducing your capabilities which becomes a self-fulfilling spiral downwards in terms of the business. There is a real risk that you bring on more bad news rather than avoid it.

Aligning Your Business in a Recession

There is a risk of repeating myself from past blogs but there is a lesson to be learned even from a clever giant like FedEx of how to do things poorly.

The very first step you need to make before you make decisions on costs is to know your business thoroughly and that means to have a handle on every deal, every customer and to properly understand how your market is performing, what the salespeople are doing, what the marketing effort is achieving and where it is targeting, and how the business is set up to support it. You need to be clearly aware of what your Value Proposition is to every client in a recession and why they should buy form you.

The biggest competitor to any sale in a recession is NO DECISION and this arrives when either your Value Proposition is weak or the way you articulate it is.

There is zero point in having a salesperson selling into a batch of clients where, say, over 50% of them are struggling in the face of recession and the Value Proposition does not deliver instant impact to their business, preferably to the bottom line. Think about it - if you are asking someone to pay incrementally for something it has to have a positive and instant impact to the business.

You would not try to sell a Ferrari to person laying off staff.

The very first thing that will come out of a detailed analysis of your business is that you can instantly see if the current forecast pipeline of customers are going to buy from you or not - you will see if they are open to the Value Proposition - talk to them personally to reassure yourself. You need to understand who is buying from you and when, then clone that success in more clients who match their profile. Make sure your salespeople are ACTIVELY changing their focus away from clients you have identified will not buy and refocus their efforts on the profile you know that will.

Make sure that your marketing effort is 100% aligned to the goal of the salespeople. The PR, collateral and lead generation engines need to be targeting the customers you believe are open to your Value Proposition so that there is a ready supply of warm leads - and shut down all ancillary marketing efforts which do not support these goals.

Changing Strategy

Sometimes a recession will smack you straight in the face and your realise that the good times are over.

'What we are selling is simply not what the market wants'.

I remember back in the late 90's a company that had made a fortune on the back of detecting issues relating to the mythed 'Millennium Bug' issue of embedded dates in software. They did extremely well. But after the date changed, they simply did not have a business. It seemed pretty obvious to me but they honestly thought that major problems would still exist and their clever software would continue to sell in the same volumes. The senior executives were really surprised when it didn't.

Kudos to them. They recalled all their key executive staff from all over the globe, they shut down their marketing machines and kept a skeleton salesforce and then sat in a building and quite literally re-invented the company with a new set of products, a new set of problems they could solve and an entirely new strategy. They had accrued enough reserves to get by while they did this but then they took their new plan to their VCs and because they had delivered previously, they got more money and started again. Utilising pretty much the same people with a few attritions from those not used to having to sacrifice commissions because of no sales, they not only started sales up again but they actually became a profitably, fast growing company again.

It's an extreme example but when markets change, there is no point in trying to keep doing what you have always done if it is no longer as compelling to clients. It's why many old businesses who fail to adapt to changing markets quite literally Hit the Wall and whither or get bought, if they are lucky.

As I blogged yesterday, recessions can be rewarding in that they can force change, make people think, cause innovation and creativity and can set a business on a new, more lucrative and sustainable pathway. That takes courage and determination and what many businesses will find in such times is that their management are simply not capable of thinking that way and taking those sorts of risks.

For them, cost cutting is simply the only option - batten down the hatches, survive the storm and all will be ok.

New Recession, New Opportunities

It comes as no surprise that many clever start ups arise in the middle of a recession - Facebook, Cisco and my own client, Theorem Inc, did so. Jay Kulkarni, CEO at Theorem, will tell you that the Value Proposition he trades on was honed during a recession. His business supports online marketing and guess what, it is one of the few areas of the Hi Tech market enjoying real growth during this recession. Theorem, because they were born with a recession in mind, are thriving because their Value Proposition resonates with every major business in their market right now.

There are plenty of examples of how companies have re-invented themselves in the rocky grounds of downturns and you do not have to look for to see Apple. Here was a company stuck in a war with Microsoft and Intel and had only a clique of marketshare at around 9% for arguably the best computers in the world. But they were addressing specific needs best and not the broad market where harmony of applications and cost were the vital selling factors. Steve Jobs, on his return to the company, set a new course and looked at how the whole market for mobile media was going to change and bet everything on it. The iPod and iPhone are now almost history but Apple could not be doing better as their strategy has changed to support the whole market.

Strong Message

So the message is clear - do not cut costs just for the sake of it whether that is just switching off lights to salary cuts to jobs. Make sure you are addressing your customers and that your Value Proposition stands the test with clients before you go down that path. If nothing else, you owe it to your employees.

If you do not have the internal creativity, innovation, skills, courage or appetite to do this then it should be your management that suffers first but get help in fast. All that I blog about depends on your understanding of your customers - how and why they buy, how they have changed and their new needs - then aligning your resources to servicing these needs or to find new clients where your products and services resonate.

For those with the courage and energy to do this, cuts will be the last resort while re-aligning your strategy and resources will set you fair for the future. Further, for those with the strength to do this, there is more than enough cash in the market to support you. You just have to know where to look.