HansaWorld gears up for Apple growth in business market

Gartner predicts that Apple's share of the computer market in the US and Western Europe will double by 2011, according to HansaWorld South Africa Country Manager Kevin Clarke, who expects to see growing demand for Mac-compatible business management systems.

Making its prediction earlier this year, Gartner said Apple's gains "reflect as much on the failures of the rest of the industry as on Apple's success. Apple is challenging its competitors with software integration that provides ease of use and flexibility; continuous and more frequent innovation in hardware and software; and an ecosystem that focuses on interoperability across multiple devices."

"We expect that as a lot of businesses turn to the Mac platform, there is going to be increasing demand for business applications," says Clarke. "There are very few decent business solutions on the market for the Mac, particularly for the segment that has 20 users or more. HansaWorld is pretty much on its own in this market, especially as we can handle multi-platform environments where different individuals or departments are working on different systems."

HansaWorld's fully integrated business management software incorporates traditional accounting and enterprise resource planning functions, as well as customer relationship management, mobility, Web content management and even telephony.

"We have a particularly strong relationship with Apple," says HansaWorld's Nils Bohlin. "We've worked closely and kept in step with them for 20 years and we take pride in many of the same things. Our selling points have always been ease of use, integration and efficiency - our customers and Apple customers tend to have the same expectations.

"From the first point and click interface to the first front USB port, Apple have always set the trend," says Bohlin. "We believe at HansaWorld we set the same standards in ERP. At the moment the big moves are in mobility technology, the ability to work from anywhere, and software as a service (SaaS). We're already leaders in mobile access and are already working on making our software compatible with the iPhone. Just like Apple, we're good at offering what people want."