alt Hacker NewsDo they no longer charge annual licenses for Windows Server?
On that topic, it’s always surprised me just how little Apple invest into their enterprise / business backend services. Everything about the way they integrate Macs into businesses is awkward. Apple could make so much money there if they wanted to. It’s a real missed opportunity.
The issue is that nobody (relatively speaking) uses Windows Server.
I don’t even think Microsoft is all that adamant that their customers use it.
It’s just not competitive with Linux and that ship has sailed. Linux is better and costs $0. Microsoft lets you run .NET applications on Linux and they’re better there.
I think the same thing happened with SQL Server. Nobody’s choosing it for new projects, its niche is basically legacy software.
I agree that Apple is missing an opportunity with business and enterprise but I think the issue is that they’re so far behind that catching up would be a massive investment that might never pay off.
This is similar to saying that Microsoft missed an opportunity with smartphone ecosystems. They could spend billions on getting a smartphone back on the market and it would arrive and everyone would ask the question “why am I buying this when my iPhone has X million apps on its store and is a nearly perfect device?”
If Apple Enterprise Cloud was available today who is switching and why? Apple would have to undercut established players to convince businesses to switch via a massive migration effort.