Can Apple provide an enterprise grade experience?
- Summary:
- In all the excitement over the launch of the Apple Watch, has anyone considered whether Apple can now call itself enterprise grade? Not on my watch.
[sws_grey_box box_size="690"]SUMMARY - In all the excitement over the launch of the Apple Watch, has anyone considered whether Apple can now call itself enterprise grade? [/sws_grey_box]
While the Silicon Valley was swamped in Apple mania yesterday I was far more interested in hearing how businesses as diverse as Wells Fargo Wholesale Banking, Seattle Childrens Hospital and Seattle Sounders FC are doing in the world of hefting vast amounts of data to better understand their business and get ahead of the competitive curve.
What I learned was both fascinating and a useful introduction for those considering the use of so-called Big Data to manage their businesses.
First and foremost, hefting data in a meaningful manner is hard work. Everyone I met said the same thing - data types, streams and data quantities are changing so quickly that keeping up let alone getting ahead is a Sysiphan task. Wells Fargo for instance said that with 90 products across 23 lines of business, understanding how to tag all the weblog data alone was a task that will keep them busy for years to come. I've written about the Seattle Sounders' experience in some detail elsewhere and will return to the hospital case in a later article.
Second, creating a culture of data driven decision making isn't trivial. It's all very well handing out the monthly report packs but when LOB managers start asking tough questions then building credibility is crucial. Perception is reality and if using loaded terms like 'predictive analytics' carries meaning all of its own that has to match expectations and outcomes.
Third, the IT units building this 'stuff' have to own it all. One data analyst told me that data use and re-use from multiple sources means building a business architecture that can only be realistically attempted when it's in the hands of a single group. It's not about building empires but about management and control in a fluid environment.
Where does Apple fit into all this? It doesn't, at least not in the eyes of my enterprisey colleagues. Already I see the jokes coming in at Apple's expense. See the image at top from my buddy Julio Fernandez. And then there are the more considered responses from those who have more than a passing knowledge of the wearable topic.
For myself, I worry that Apple's deliberate marketing of the Apple Watch as a health and fitness device runs perilously close to making claims that will capture the imagination but fall far from fulfilling the promise. And then there is the outright conflating of wellness - to which many aspire - and health, about which Apple has no business poking its nose into. Leave that to the professionals.
All that has the air of a company that thinks it can carve out any market with whatever marketing schtick it wants. It's a form of corporate arrogance that a cash pile augmented by short and long term securities that stood at $164.5 billion in July will do that.
And then there's the examination of Apple's ability to be considered enterprise grade by my old buddy Jason Perlow. He does a solid job dissecting the many ways in which Apple misses the enterprise grade mark:
...it's clearly evident that perception-wise, the idea of Apple doing anything that could be remotely considered enterprise-grade is laughable...
...It doesn't help that that IBM, Apple's key enterprise partner was a no-show at the event, either. I think many of us would have liked to have seen the big, beautiful iPhone 6 Plus with its huge 5.5-inch screen showing some really compelling enterprise apps on it, such as data visualization.
Perlow then goes on to offer some examples how Apple could have showcased the IBM partnership in ways that would be meaningful to enterprise types. To me, there was a certain irony given what I was witnessing at the Tableau Data 2014 event.
Surprisingly, Trustev was less than glowing in its analysis of Apple Pay as part of the play (sic.) I say surprising since CEO Pat Phelan is usually a glass half full guy on anything Apple related. From the company's blog:
A number of large merchants signed on to accept Apple Pay in stores and online, but most don’t, and it will be quite some time, if ever, before they do. Some retailers actually have incentives not to add Apple Pay — for example, Starbucks has a hugely successful app that handles payments, and may not want to be disinter mediated by Apple. Same for Square, which controls many point-of-sale transactions and may not want Apple muscling in.
Of course those of us who dare question Apple's munificence are instantly labelled as haters by the ignoramuses who pose as armchair quarterbacks on topics about which they're usually clueless and who fawn at the gates of Infinity Loop (Apple's corporate address.)
For my part I wonder how many of my colleagues would have devoted more than a scant column inch to a company that announced a product that by all accounts is playing not so well executed catch up and won't be available for another six months. And if they did, then I'm sure they would have pilloried said vendor. I would.
But then this is Apple we're talking about. A wildly successful company that so many others wish to emulate.
In the meantime, I'd like to repeat the memo I sent to CBS when I was on ZDNet and we were under the gun to write anything and everything about the iPad Mini. Can anyone tell me the value of the millions of eyeballs that likely gazed upon the gazzillion words written about a product that doesn't exist? I already know the answer.