Martin Veitch

Many years ago I wrote a column that suggested Apple’s days of relevance to business were numbered. Back then I suggested that “Apple should concern you as an IT director not much more than your choice of corporate mouse mat design”.

A cheap shot, admittedly, and there was more: “Everybody is looking for a little romance in their lives but the next time you hear some doe-eyed dreamer telling you that Apple could be big again, do us all a favour and give the poor sap a sharp kick.”

That licence for violence should now be rescinded. It was 1998 and I was in my youthful prime and callow. What can I say?

To be fair I had the evidence in black and white. Apple’s few remaining business silos had been ripped out by Dell and what was Compaq. Cupertino owned publishing, design and marketing and was recovering on the consumer front with the iMac but if any man could be called an island it was the returning hero Steve Jobs.

Today I’m not ready to recant completely – but it’s time to acknowledge the impact for business as well as consumers of the remarkable resurgence .

First up, Apple has lost none of its heartland layout/design/pre-press dominance. A decade ago there was a substantial theory that Windows support by Adobe and others – together with the rise of PC graphics software companies such as Corel and Micrografx – would dent even this stronghold. Instead the Mac is the bankers’ choice in the print production world, the default option in video editing and a solid bet in web design. The bulwark is intact.

Second, Apple is making incursions. On the client side, its notebooks are desirable although perhaps coveted more for appearance than capabilities. Sony’s Vaio showed that plenty of execs and wannabes will be interested in a smart-looking version of a commodity box. For those using the laptop to wow with presentations, the notebook is Apple’s password back into corporate accounts.

Jobs’ product most in the news is the iPhone. This handset has so many caveats hanging over it – carriers, 3G, price, proprietary approach and means of text input among them – that the future is as clear as white lettering on a white Apple keyboard but if the company pulls off another unlikely coup it could buy its way into mainstream IT via a side-door. Also, Apple’s consumer desktop successes give it an interesting if outside shot at a return to business discussions. Users thrilled by the experience will surely pressurise procurement decision-makers.

Finally, the old Chinese walls that separated Macs from PCs are crumbling. From Windows/Mac hybrid software releases, through dual-booting, virtualisation and common elements such as Intel processors and USB interconnects, these old warhorses have never looked so similar.

There are still sizeable obstacles before Apple can take on business in a way at all comparable to Microsoft. They are cultural, administrative and economic, but Apple in 2007 is back in business or at least at the edge of it.