Apple has not had much of a history with respect to enterprise computing, but an analysis of second quarter sales shows Apple making big gains in business and government sectors. According to Needham analyst Charlie Wolf, sales of Macs to large businesses in particular grew far more than overall sales of PCs in the same timeframe. The specific reasons for the uptick aren't clear, but Apple could sustain the growth with a more proactive enterprise strategy.

In a research note, Needham compared growth in shipments between Macs and the PC market in general in several market segments. Macs grew less than the overall PC market in education—traditionally one of Apple's stronger segments, but one that has sagged recently with tight education budgets leaning in favor of cheaper Windows boxes. In the home market, Mac sales outpaced overall PCs by a slight margin, in line with Apple's consumer focus and the success of its notebooks.

These slight variances seem inconsequential when looking at the business and government markets, though. Mac shipments to businesses grew 50 percent in the second quarter of 2010, beating the overall market growth of 16 percent. Sales to government organizations were up a whopping 200 percent, 16 times the overall market growth of 12 percent.

Breaking down the business segment further, Needham noted that Mac growth among smaller-sized businesses—somewhere Apple has typically done well—is outpacing the rest of the industry by a factor of three to four. However, Mac growth in "large" and "very large" businesses—the traditional Windows stronghold—is around 100 percent, while the rest of the industry grew about 20 percent in these same segments.

It's hard to say what factors contribute to such growth, as Apple has historically not made the enterprise a priority in its product mix, sales efforts, or service areas. Recent low-end iMacs and compact Mac minis may be tempting IT departments with a lower TCO. Apple's adoption of Intel processors has also made dual-booting or virtualizing Windows a viable option when critical applications can't be replaced with a Mac OS X equivalent. And the rise of Web-based applications—increasingly being built using modern, cross-platform standards—makes choosing between platforms less of a factor when choosing computers for enterprise use.

Another factor may be a sort of enterprise halo effect caused by the iPhone. While the iPod seemed to put Apple's computers in the minds of consumers, the iPhone may be having a similar effect in the enterprise. As more business users adopt the iPhone as an all-in-one mobile device for business and personal use, they may be requesting an Apple desktop or laptop for use at work as well, a request that "consumerized" IT departments may be more inclined to go along with.

With Apple so intensely focused on the consumer market, it doesn't offer the same kind of appeal to traditional enterprise infrastructure. Still, these results for the second quarter show that there is interest in Apple products in the business sector. Perhaps the time is right for Apple to leverage the renewed attention it's getting and be a bit more proactive about targeting the enterprise.