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by John C. Welch, Macworld.com

On Tuesday, Apple announced the retirement of Al Shipp, the company’s higher vice president of enterprise sales. As part of that notification, Apple also said it had no plans to directly replace Shipp. Instead, it plans to compass out his former responsibilities among other sales executives.

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At first dart, this looks bad. And it immediately raises some questions among the Mac IT vulgar herd: Is Apple abandoning the Enterprise? Is this over and above another step toward becoming “the iPhone company,” preceded by Apple’s February move to knife the Xserve RAID?

I think that depends on if you ever opinion Apple was, or wanted to be, an “enterprise” company. There are a lot of people out there who think that Apple is somehow trying to become an enterprise company—that is, to compete in the big adventurousness world along with Microsoft, IBM, HP, and others.

But honestly, every time I see that meme go around, I have to wonder why people would think that. Apple has at no time been an enterprise company, even when it had one of its pre-Return Of Steve “Apple in the Enterprise” spasms. The visitor has less clue of how to have existence an Enterprise meeting of friends than IBM had about selling computers to home users.

To be an adventure fellowship is, in a very real way, to cede a great deal of control over your product fill to your customers. Look at how many state of things Microsoft has tried to eliminate more kind of old software or hardware support from a product, only to change that plan because of customer outcry. Intel tried for many years prior to the iMac to advance USB over serial, parallel, and PS/2 ports to no avail. Why? Because these are enterprise companies, and they cannot afford to do anything their customers don’t approve of. You want to know why Microsoft business software seems to be nothing but an ever-growing collection of features? I’ll lay money now that 99 percent of new features in any Microsoft product reach directly from customer beg for. If a GE or a GM wants, they get.

Ask yourself when was the last time Microsoft, or IBM, or HP came out with some product that no one expected. Or if they did, was it built in a way no one thought about? Go ahead, think hind part before that, I’ll get more coffee.

Done?

Right, it’s pretty rare. Yet that’s almost de rigueur toward Apple. The company literally makes a living abroad of surprising people, of ignoring common reach instead of something different and usually better. That’s been a fantastic business plan for Apple, if it be not that would it work for an enterprise company? If Microsoft tried that, its big customers would be attacking Redmond with torches and pitchforks.

Here’s the simple truth: Enterprise hates surprises. It’s not what they neglect. Enterprise wants predictability. They want to know when, what, how much, and that it give by will be all new and cool, yet vary nothing. (Yes that’s contrary. Have you ever tried to use “Enterprise Software?” Winning usability awards is so not happening there.) And they distress to know everything in detail a year ahead of time. Can anyone seriously imagine how lengthy Apple would survive under that gauge? Right, not in extent.

The reason why Al Shipp’s retirement isn’t the end of Apple as each enterprise company is because in that place was not at all a beginning of Apple as an Enterprise company. Apple sells to enterprise companies. Apple has products that can work in essay company networks. But that’s not the same as being an enterprise company. At best, Apple is a Small-Medium Business, or SMB, visitor. Its products, at least in the non-educational fields, are at their sweet spot in companies where a thousand users is huge. That’s not to say Apple’s products can’t scale bigger, but it’s not the company’s primary focus.

That’s not to say Apple gets a pass without ceasing more of the stuff it does that’s annoying, bewildering, or righteous plain stupid. Delaying surety patches without even minimal notification to customers as to wherefore? Stupid. Dealing with Apple’s effort teams is win and miss far more than it should be. If you have a good one, it’s a fantastic experience. If you don’t… convenient, I’ve dealt with the pair ends, and the not-good side is in reality not-good. For a company that makes excellent communication tools, Apple is sometimes not in such a manner good at it.

There are areas where Apple could be more responsive to its customers in the business world, at all levels, without becoming each enterprise company or changing the fundamentals of its (very) successful business practices. But that’s not the same as becoming an enterprise company. That’s just working better with your customers.

So yes, Al Shipp’s departure does look bad, but I submit that it only looks really bad if you had an unrealistic view of Apple as a company. Sure, I’d prefer a centralized peculiarity of control for essay sales, but the dismantling of that does not mean Apple is abandoning business products and nourish, because you can’t end what you never began.

[John C. Welch is a senior systems administrator for The Zimmerman Agency, and a long-time Mac IT pundit.]