It does seem that Apple Mac computers are becoming more and more popular in the consumer market.  While still a ‘premium’ option for low income households, the majority of others are beginning to see Apple’s machines as a stylish option which matches their iPod, avoids the hassle of malware (for the time being at least) and won’t need to be upgraded every 6 months!  Factor that in to your equations and the affordability becomes more obvious.  There are of course lots of incredibly useful features and functions in Mac OS X (now on display in Windows Vista, which incidentally you can also run on a Mac if you so desire).

Seth Weintraub over at ComputerWorld believes that the days when only creative firms use Macs in the enterprise are about to change.  Here are a few of his reasons:

  • Years of spyware, malware and virus headaches that affect Windows XP have pushed IT managers to scramble for new options they might not have considered in the past.
  • The learning curve and disparity of Linux distributions is too high for easy general office use.
  • Many corporate applications have been ported to W3-compliant Web services that are OS-agnostic.
  • Apple’s consumer lineup is falling into the hands of business decision-makers and their families, and scoring well. What works well at home could do well at work.

I think that third point is particularly pivotal.  So many enterprise applications are being ported to web based platforms that users are no longer stuck with a particular operating system for the sake of one program–these days so long as you have a web browser you can read your mail, set appointments and even fill out spreadsheets (thank you Google).

So will Macs start to appear on more desks in more offices than ever before?  What’s your opinion?