This was originially published in December 2006, and was pulled from the web in 2011 in preparation for my book, The Pomme Company. I was writing about the FOSE chairs incident in a post, Signs of Power, and went searching for this post and found that it was in my drafts. Now that Apple no longer really has a federal sales force, I guess all the gnashing of teeth over federal strategy does not matter. However, I can tell Steve is no longer there. It has been a while since a product from Cupertino excited me.
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As I'm sitting here writing on my newly repaired MacBook hooked to my Bluetooth Apple keyboard, I remain thankful about a lot of Apple technology, yet I know from experience that Rob Enderele is right as he says the following.
For those of us who really follow Apple, it is common knowledge that the company you see from the CEO on down is a construct...
The entire point isn't to disparage Apple -- it does a great job owning its identity.
Apple's image is closely controlled and perhaps built more out of what Apple wants us to know than what might be helpful to know. I actually can remember some great examples of Apple fooling all of us when we assumed that selling computers was more important than controlling the pristine image of Apple that Steve wants burned into the consciousness of the world.
One of my all time favorite Apple stories is about the FOSE computer show in Washington, DC in the spring of 2004. FOSE is the government computer show of the year. The government is notoriously hard to market to because even getting literature to them is a challenge. Many government agencies don't have widespread access to the open world of the Internet so even downloading pdf files of product sheets is problematic. Also arranging demonstrations of hosted applications at government locations is often impossible since it is rare that you can get to outside computing resources from a government site.
For the five years prior to 2004, when we in Apple Federal's group where I was director had run FOSE as a field show, the two most popular parts of our booth which cost us upwards of $100,000 annually were the very comprehensive bound set of pdfs of Apple product sheets and the number of third party vendors who could talk about how their products were used in federal accounts and often do live demonstrations. For at least those two reasons our FOSE booth had been wildly popular with over 1,600 people leaving us their names during the 2003 event.
It always seemed that we couldn't print enough Apple product guides, and there was never enough room or hours available for the customers to get to the third party vendors.
When the Apple Corporate show team decided to take over FOSE, we were glad because it was a tremendous amount of work for us. Initial indications were that they were interested in learning from our experiences. In fall 2003 we had just shipped Panther OS X 10.3, and the potential security risk from Windows was at a peak. Interest in Apple from federal folks was also growing rapidly.
We were also starting to make some real progress in the federal space. After having G5 shortages hurt our finish for the fiscal year that ended in Sept. 2003, we had resumed our growth rate of 60%+ in Apple purchase dollars that we had managed in the two previous Apple fiscal years.
So it was with great expectations that we had our first conference call with the corporate events team. By the end of the first call it was clear that we in the field were nothing but window dressing and that all of the corporate folks were born with federal experience that we couldn't hope to duplicate by years of actually working with the customer and running Apple's FOSE booth.
The first thing that made no sense was that by corporate edict, there would no longer be any literature in the Apple booth. This apparently was a Steve rule because he had done it for other corporate events where he determined literature made the booths look messy. The next move was that no third party vendors or software would be allowed in the Apple booth. Immediately we became an iLife demo wasteland. There would be no more showing how Apple's own use of SAP's Java client meant that Apple products could be used to access SAP data.
It was interesting that the most expensive part of the FOSE show that year ended up being the over $100,000 lighted sign which could only be used once. I was more confused than impressed when I was told that a 3D scale model had been constructed for the powers at Apple to approve. On top of that we were told that Steve Jobs himself had approved the folding chairs that would be used in the presentation theater in our booth. Of course each of our system engineers who were presenting were carefully rehearsed so that no wayward words would inadvertently slip out of their mouths.
It was no surprise that attendance in our corporate sponsored booth was less than half of what we had the previous year. Of course part of that could be attributed to the directive from Phil Schiller banning our Apple hands from touching the FOSE standard issue card scanners that were actually Windows mobile devices in disguise. Fortunately on the second day of the FOSE event, the show staff came up with an old card scanner so we could capture customer addresses for the remainder of the show.
Perhaps the best example of Apple caring more about a carefully crafted image than actually selling computers was the Security PDF brouhaha. While Apple's brilliant software folks had managed to get a very complex software project like Panther out on time in Oct. 2003, the marketing folks had been working on a PDF document describing Panther's security features for months prior to Panther's release, but it was only in March of 2004 months after the release and just before FOSE that they finally got the document for Panther out the door. I think it was eighteen pages or so long. The Panther security PDF wasn't even the first one. We had seen one for Jaguar. I think the Panther Security PDF so traumatized the marketing folks that one hasn't been released since then.
There were other examples of Apple image triumphing over substance. It is easy to recall the challenges with all the west coast Apple customer events . Now while most non Apple marketing people would assume that a customer event would be designed to touch as many customers as possible, they would be completely out of sync with Apple marketing types who often appear to design events for as little distribution or customer touch beyond Cupertino as possible.
Our Apple office in Reston, Virginia was equipped with a seminar room that could seat over fifty people, and an executive briefing room that could seat another 20 people. For most Apple events we would get a satellite feed of the event, but it would often be limited to Apple employees. Most often we faced weeks of begging to be allowed to let our local Washington area customers view the Cupertino events from our office. Often we were dealing with CIOs and other important people whom we had to tell to save the day but that we couldn't guarantee that we could actually let them view the event until corporate approval was granted. I can remember seeing the email trail once of Steve Jobs asking Katie Cotton, the controlling goddess of Apple's image, if it would be okay for federal customers to see an event being broadcast in three or four other locations around the world. I think we won permission for that one, but we were only able to give customers one day's notice.
So the next time you see an Apple commercial and think it is all about selling computers, think again. It's more likely all about getting you to think what Steve wants you to think about Apple. If it happens to get you to buy a Mac, that's just incidental.
Image is important. After all which would you rather have, the Dell Latitude that weighs eight pounds that my son is using about two feet from me or my lightweight white MacBook which looks stunning by comparison?
Of course if reliability has in part in the equation, his Dell has had eighteen months of continuous use without a trip to the shop while my Mac Book like many others has already had a visit to Apple's repair center after only a few months in existence. Of course that's not part of the image.
Doh.
Posted by: pauldwaite | December 25, 2006 at 07:55 PM
Wow, and I thought it rather disingenuous when, as an Apple Product Professional, I was not allowed to sell to schools or government from our website or in person...because that was being handled, thank you very much.
However, no government or School District has been touched in my part of the country for years. There is no assigned Apple Rep here (Columbia Basin Region, Pacific Northwest).
And no Apple store or ministore will be opened here, as far as I've been personally told, by Apple Reps in Seattle and Portland.
So we sell via website only.
Posted by: Robert Pritchett | December 26, 2006 at 11:48 AM
Interesting account, and it sounds like you had a frustrating experience with some brain-dead practices of corporate Apple.
As far as the reliability of Macs, any large-scale survey I've seen indicates that Mac desktops AND laptops are among THE most reliable.
I know it's frustrating to have to get something repaired, but do you look at your own experience and some other experiences on the web and make a determination that Apple is less reliable than Dell? I would want to look at studies instead of anecdotal evidence.
The studies and surveys indicate Macs are very reliable.
Bot
Posted by: ex2bot | December 26, 2006 at 05:33 PM
What you're saying really strikes a chord with Apple's sadly lame attempts to establish a worldwide market for Macs out here in the 96% of humanity that doesn't live in the US.
No Mac v PC ads in Britain, despite the Apple Stores, and a crawlingly slow rollout for bricks and mortar in mainland Europe yet alone the gems in the developing world like Hong Kong, Dubai and Singapore.
It seems that two things keep the Mac down. First is the network effect of so many people using Windows out there: which makes it the default OS everywhere in the world, even in Apple's backyard. Then second is the company's own lacklustre will to actually do something about it instead of forever carry on as the boutique brand. Come on, the Mac Mini wasn't engineered by people who wanted to keep the platform inaccessible to switchers, was it? So where's the follow through? It *almost* exists in America but really doesn't at all in the world at large.
I'm not one who thinks Apple will die if Mac market share languishes at 2-4% worldwide as I know the platform has its fans, including myself, who'll keep it up for many a long year to come. But the move to Intel and of course the success of the iPod indicate so strongly that a larger market exists out there for Apple to really capitalise on. That way our software library would expand and the platform's long term survival be guaranteed.
It's not as if Dell and MS and all the others are ignoring the markets Apple chooses to do. Things may be rosy now, but without serious moves soon Apple may be sewing the seeds of its own return to obscurity.
Posted by: John M | December 27, 2006 at 07:40 AM
First to answer Robert, I'm not sure I would depend on the generalized Apple is more reliable than other brands surveys. What I would love to see is consumer reports type information on specific computer products. Apple might be one of the few manufactures which has models long enough to get data.
The Titanium Powerbook that I had when I worked at Apple was one of the most reliable products I have ever used. My Aluminum PB that I bought broke in less than two years. My MacBook was hardly out of the box before I started having problems. I'll be curious to see how Apple's quality holds up in the next set of surveys.
As to John M's comment, I couldn't agree more. But it is more than just the rest of the world. There is plenty of "white space" as we used to call the part of the US without good Apple representation.
Unfortunately Apple doesn't make it easy for small independent resellers to survive.
If Apple isn't going to give those small independent resellers a good business proposition and I don't know if they can as long as they continue to have a huge catalogue business, then Apple needs a much better online service and support attitude.
Posted by: ocracokewaves | December 27, 2006 at 08:17 AM
To me, it seems like the problem might stem from what I have begun to see as a tendency to "worship" the great leader within American corporative culture. This spreads on and we see it in Norway as well, where some CEOs have been given grotesquely sized share options - while for instance technical support is dwindling away.
Steve Jobs might deserve the credits for having turned Apple around, but if his ego is allowed to interfere too much with what of course is mostly a team's work, I am afraid the company will make a full 360 degrees circle.
Yes, there might be white spots on the US-map, but outside "there be no Tygers" one could almost say. Have a look at the situation in Brazil, for instance, the world's fifth largest country, where Macs cost up to the double of what they sell for in the US! I wonder what the strategy is there? After all, one can get a Dell for more or less the same as in Europe, at least...
Posted by: WH | December 27, 2006 at 06:00 PM
That's an interesting linked piece with some good points. However, many people tend to be suspicious of Rob Enderle, and with good reason.
I agree he's a smart writer and knowledgeable about the industry. There's an old Daring Fireball article where that Apple fan _par excellence_ John Gruber attacks his supposedly poor predictive record - in rather scatological terms.
http://daringfireball.net/2003/12/enderle
However, the last laugh is on Gruber here, since every single prediction Enderle made that Gruber crows at there has since come to pass, if not quite as quickly as he'd thought.
However, he can be way off base. Take the section in the linked article "Topic 3: Should 'Open' Apply to Open Source Folks?" really won't wash. I don't say that because I'm an open-source zealot. In fact, most of the software I run is proprietary, and I find some of the FOSS people a bit overheated. But the point is that his argument is intellectually misconceived.
The "open" in "open source" isn't some vague term ripe for elastic interpretation by Mr. Enderle but refers to a very particular feature of code - namely, code exists as both object code and source code. Source code is humanly readable but requires to be compiled (into object code) for it to run; object code can be distributed compiled and ready-to-run (as binaries) but, isn't humanly readable.
This raises very particular problems. There are many, but here are two of the most important: (1) it's not so easy to modify software to suit a particular purpose if you only have object code and can't see how it does what it does; and (2) the quality of the code can't be subject to peer-review, if it can't be read.
That people may choose to use nicknames and handles may be an issue, but it is an entirely different issue and has no bearing on the desirability or otherwise of source code (as well as object code) being available for software.
Put it this way: it really didn't matter _whose_ name was on the General Theory of Relativity. What mattered was that anyone with the requisite background in physics could read what was being said and evaluate the arguments.
That kind of peer review is not possible with computer code unless it comes in the form of source code as well as object code.
Besides, even if this were not true Mr. Enderle's assertion is false. In most cases with open source software we do know darn well exactly who is responsible for exactly what. There is a listing inside the documentation on Mac OS X that gives credit by name to all the many programmers who have worked on the open-source BSD code in the OS X kernel. (I might add, Is that true for everything coming out of Redmond?)
But I find it difficult to believe that an intelligent and knowledgeable man like Mr. Enderle, who has worked in the industry for a long time, is not aware of every point that I have (somewhat laboriously) made above. This is precisely why I am rather wary of his opinions even while I agree that he has some interesting things to say.
Posted by: Mike | December 28, 2006 at 05:47 AM
I was linked to this article from dtgeeks.com re: 10 Things Apple Could Be Doing Better. I believe what was described in this post is close to what happened and that isn't the only time a missed opportunity for increasing market share has occurred. Of course it's up to the owners of Apple to decide whether they want to sacrifice quantity for quality even if it means lost sales. They certainly have high standards at Apple and at the same time they don't fully take advantage of independents/local wisdom from those with experience in the field outside the headquarters. I understand the passion the FOSS visitors had for the previous Apple booths and I'm not sure the government market is supposed to be about aesthetics so much as the consumer market (but usability is always important) so more time should've been spent on keeping existing interest levels rather than the particular chairs used or the fancy sign. I agree for the most part with this post as far as government trade shows and to a lesser degree in other cases though I'd still like to see Apple have a much larger market share. Thanks for the post.
Posted by: Bryan | December 28, 2006 at 12:42 PM
If you haven't figured out already, I was one of the Regional Managers in Apple Federal working for David in 2004. The FOSE Booth where he mentions SAP has particular significance.
NASA was one of Apple's largest Federal customers, doing somewhere close to 10M in annual revenue. NASA was one of the more Mac friendly of agencies, particularly in the Research Centers (as opposed to the Mission Centers).
As the FCW article below highlights, NASA was well into a massive SAP migration. Apple, having gone through their own SAP migration (twice, actually, the first time they blew 100m on a failed installation), had set conditions for success that is the Apple Retail stores you see today, in addition to their logistical management of http://store.apple.com
Other government agencies, such as the Army, were headed towards much larger SAP installations. For Apple Federal, it was key to show this sort of enterprise interoperability, particularly with its Java client. I won't mention CAC /Exchange/PKI interoperability, for that is another story for another time.
The iLife wasteland that David mentions was really a sucker punch to the gut, as we had worked so hard to get the message out to Federal customers (face to face, one at a time) that OS X was ready for the enterprise.
http://www.fcw.com/article97230-01-03-07-Web&RSS=yes
Now, if I were a betting man, I suspect David Sobotta has another Applepeels story in the wings about how Michael Hardy of FCW approached Apple Federal about doing a story on how Apple was doing in the Federal government, and what our strategy was for taking market share and increasing revenues.
We had a great story to tell, but the Apple PR machine wouldn't allow it to be told. Eventually, Apple got the interview with FCW and Michael Hardy, but there was nothing about strategy or interoperability. Instead, it was all about product, product, product. Nothing you couldn't already read about on Apple's product website or PDF fact sheet. I was allowed to be in the room during the interview, but was given VERY strict instructions from Apple PR that I was not allowed to speak under any circumstances.
Posted by: Stephen | January 03, 2007 at 06:04 PM
Durng the first half of the '90s I worked for an Apple Authorized Reseller in Pennsylvania. My first job was as a higher education rep covering South Central PA, Maryland and West Virginia. (You might remember Rick Rautzhan, our Apple rep.
When Apple took Higher Ed in house, I was reassigned to government sales, primarily to the federal goverment. I'm remembering a FOSE or two where, as a reseller, I could scarcely get a nod from the Apple marketing crowd.
I'm retired now, but your recollections are triggering all sorts of memories for me.
I remain a loyal Apple user (iBook G4 now). My first computer was an Apple IIc in 1984 which I took on the road with us during a three month RV tour of the United States.
I look forward to more of your memoirs.
Bob Kelly
Key West, FL
Posted by: | January 05, 2007 at 05:05 PM
I've experienced Apple's less-than-stellar customer service firsthand. I was charged with finding displays to replace our large computer-assisted dispatch monitors in a police telecommunications center. It took some doing to get our comm manager to even consider the 30" Cinema Display. Once accomplished, I went to a brick & mortar Apple store, spoke to the supposed Government Sales liason... And then nothing. It took weeks to get a quote... And e-mails went unanswered.
Eventually, we went with Westinghouse 32" monitors and I looked like a chump for trying to get Apple involved. Shame, too. Those Cinema Displays would look sweet in here.
Posted by: El in AZ | January 05, 2007 at 05:49 PM