Macs in enterprise? Don't laugh, it's happening.

[alfredo]

http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/04/21/17FE-macs-in-business-tease_1.html

"We're seeing more requests outside of creative services to switch to Macs from PCs," notes David Plavin, operations manager for Mac systems engineering at the U.S. IT division of Publicis Groupe, a global advertising conglomerate. There are so many requests that Plavin now supports 2,500 Macs across the U.S. -- nearly a quarter of all Publicis' U.S. PCs.

And Plavin is less of an anomaly than you might think. Buoyed by increased interest in the consumer arena, Macs are cropping up in more and more organizations, in large part because end-users are pushing for them.

According to NPD Research, Apple's share of the retail market has climbed to 14 percent as of February 2008. Gartner and IDC report that the Mac's share in the U.S. as of March 31 was 6.6 percent. Alongside that home-based shift from PC to Mac is a significant uptake for Apple among businesses, as Forrester estimates organizational Mac adoption tripled last year to 4.2 percent, mainly on the backs of enthusiasts seeking approval for Apple's silver boxes in small workgroups.