Leader: Apple's role in the enterprise

Unless you've been hiding under a rock - or in a room with no newspapers, television or internet connection - you'll know that Steve Jobs has, with the usual fanfare, unveiled the company's first Macs running Intel chips.

The news came six months ahead of the announced schedule, though no surprise to Macworld prognosticators in the blogosphere.

We will not be the first to say this but it never fails to impress us just how much attention Apple gets - and not just in industry press but in mainstream media too - relative to its slim market share in the desktop computer arena.

A slightly different dichotomy holds true in the enterprise. Though it's the Apple hardware that gets all the press attention, it's really the software that's the key to Macs being welcomed (or at least allowed) in the office by IT directors. If Macs can't play well with group applications such as Outlook, it's game over for many Mac enthusiasts at work.

And while Apple is working on its own productivity suite, iWork, word on the street is that, quite frankly, it's pants. Steve Jobs himself hinted in his Macworld keynote that he uses Office.

For these reasons, it's the less-covered announcement that Microsoft will continue to develop Office for the Mac for at least five years that's key to Apple's role in the enterprise.

It remains to be seen whether at some point in the future this will lead to a 'Windows for the Mac'. Apple told silicon.com: "Apple has no plans to sell or support Windows on this platform but we have no plans to preclude that."

Were this to come to fruition (we're not holding our breaths), it could indeed alter the corporate landscape's traditional view of Macs - that they're OK for the 'creative types' but that's all.

As the facts stand, we don't expect Jobs' latest announcements to cause waves in IT departments - if we're wrong, do tell us by posting a Reader Comment below.

Nonetheless it's never boring to watch the industry's reigning king of spin in action.

As our local Mac enthusiast and columnist Seb Janacek commented in his response to the fact it was the iMac and PowerBook, not the Mac mini and iBook, that got the Intel chip upgrades: "In a word: flabbergasted. Nice to see that the company can still throw up some big surprises."