In London, we learned of the concept of the “Abilene Paradox”, where a group of people come to a conclusion that no one in the group would’ve come to individually. Everyone assumes their opinion runs counter to the group, and thus moves in the (assumed) group direction at the expense of their personal wishes.

Of course, I am only one person, but in light of my recent technology purchases I think the general concept holds:  in a series of three individual purchases, I arrived at a conclusion directly counter to the one I would’ve assumed.  Had you asked me before the iPod purchase, I would’ve scoffed at the idea that I would be the ‘Apple guy’ at business school.  And yet, here I am!

The strange thing is that I am one of many ‘Apple guys (and ladies)’ in the CCMBA program.  IIRC, Apple has about a 7-8% market share worldwide in computers.  I didn’t take a full census, but I know the number of Macs in the program greatly exceeds 7% of students.  Apple’s market share in our class should be 8 students; I can think of 15 or more of us with Mac laptops.

So given varying levels of technological backgrounds, industries and personal interests, quite a few future “leaders of consequence” have abandoned the common PC/Blackberry business combination (at least in their personal lives). What does this mean for the future of Apple products in the business world?  Has the oligopoly of Microsoft and RIM in the business marketplace been weakened?

I think that if Apple is to make significant inroads in the business world, the iPhone will be the catalyst.  The success of the App Store shows that there is a huge market for custom applications to personalize a user’s phone and that the iPhone has a robust software platform upon which business can develop their own custom apps.  However, until the iPhone becomes available on a network other than AT&T (in the U.S.), the mass adoption of the iPhone in business will be limited.  The iPhone is pretty cool, but not cool enough to outweigh the vendor sourcing issues multi-national corporations have to deal with.  But I do think the potential is there; I sit in meetings everyday watching executives play with their iPhone, leaving their Blackberry sitting on the conference table.

As far as the business desktop/laptop market, this is one area where I scratch my head at Apple’s long-term growth strategy.  As long as Apple continues its insistence on maintaining a tight control over hardware configurations and product lines, they will never have a significant presence in the workplace.  While I understand that OSX is a stable operating system because of the tight control over the hardware configurations, from the standpoint of an Apple shareholder it seems inexcusable to me to not provide a desktop solution between the Mac Mini and the Mac Pro.  This desktop doesn’t need to be assembled from the parts bin to be competitive; the stability, security, and flexibility of the OSX operating system can provide some “goodwill” to cushion the price difference between a Mac and a generic Vista machine.  But to have the only options be a built-in computer/monitor (iMac), the hard-to-upgrade Mac Mini, or $2000+ for a Mac Pro, the transition costs are too great for most businesses, especially those with high legacy costs.

So that in a nutshell summarizes my cognitive dissonance with becoming one of the ‘Apple guys’ at business school.  Choices in my personal life with respect to technology for business school have led me to a place that I wouldn’t have gone in a business environment. And yet, I’m totally pleased with my technology purchases of the last year.

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