Macs are a growing force in enterprise environments, and the IT professionals who are at the cutting edge of this evolution know it: 67 percent of them believe the Mac will “cut into PC share over the next three years.”
That’s according to a survey taken by JAMF Software. The survey results also indicate that nearly all IT professionals (96 percent) support at least some Macs.
It’s worth taking all of this with a grain of salt, though, since JAMF, as a company, has a dog in this fight: they make enterprise software for managing Mac and iOS system. But that doesn’t mean the numbers aren’t interesting.
At least some of the increase in Mac support is from the growing Bring Your Own Device culture in many companies — employees are bringing their Macs to work, and IT departments are adjusting to that by supporting the platform. But from there the choices grow.
“As organizations continue to implement user choice programs, more and more employees are choosing Apple devices for work because this is what they prefer in their everyday lives,” Dave Alampi, JAMF Software’s vice president, told Computer World. “As a result, Apple is seeing increased adoption in the enterprise because employees demand Apple.”
Employee preferences is one thing, but in some ways Macs can also save companies money. After IBM recently started switching many of its employees over to Macs, the firm saw a $270 per employee decrease in IT costs. Every company’s experience will vary, but it’s not hard to see savings like that adding up. For its part, and not surprisingly, IBM plans to deploy more Macs.
This isn’t to say Apple will completely replace Microsoft in corporate environments — just that the ecosystem is becoming ever more diverse. The age of Windows utterly dominating computer sales is over, as sales decline overall while alternative platforms grab more and more of the market. Which is just to say that there’s more competition, which is something every computer user should be happy about.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Google DeepMind's AI world model Genie 4 can now build interactive worlds that you can explore and reshape as they run. It also generates ambient sounds, music, and dialogue that respond to your actions.
The new world model builds on Genie 3 with improved realism, more natural human movement, and better simulations of real-world physics. It could eventually help with everything from game development to training robots.
Apple has an incredible talent for making me admire its products while simultaneously questioning what on earth it's thinking with the pricing. This isn't even something as bizarre as a monitor stand, but the audacity for starting a new laptop lineup from $2,000 doesn't surprise me.
The newly announced 14-inch MacBook Pro with M6 is just the latest to showcase this. The funny thing is, I already know that it's going to be a reliable workstation. You get a powerful new 2nm M6 processor, a gorgeous Liquid Retina XDR display, and up to 24 hours of battery life. We were impressed by the M5 MacBook Air, so the high-end M6 powered MacBook Pro definitely won't let us down.