"Made on a Mac" on a Big Scale

With 170 print titles -- including the best-selling German tabloid "Bild" --, some 10,000 employees, and a revenue of 2.6 billion Euros in 2007, publishing house Axel Springer group is one of Germany's leading media companies. Thanks to their recent decision to go all-Macs, they will also be one of Apple's leading customers within a few years.

Last Friday, the company announced that, over the course of five years, they will replace every one of their desktop and laptop machines with computers from Cupertino. Models planned to be purchased cover almost the whole range of Apple product lines, including Mac mini, iMac, and Mac Pro, as well as MacBook, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air, making the Xserve line the only noteworthy exception. And, yes, iPhones will be found on their purchase list, too.

In a video published on YouTube, Dr. Mathias Döpfner, Axel Springer's CEO, addressed employees (in German) to announce the decision, and he also gave reasons for this move, which is poised to make Springer the biggest Apple customer in Europe and the second-biggest in the world after Google:

• Traditionally, Apple provides the best IT environment for creative applications like layout and design
• Apple machines are easier to use than everything else
• Apple builds the most beautiful computers
• The decision also makes economical sense due to the machine's pricing and reduced maintenance costs

Even though, according to the press release, some of these machines may be running Windows XP or Vista, this deal provides Apple with a very important marketing use-case. Whenever journalists or potential customers doubt the viability of Macs for use in a corporate environment, Apple just has to point towards Axel Springer.

If a high-profile 10,000-employee company can base the bigger part of their IT infrastructure on Macintosh computers, smaller businesses would be served just as well by the products from the Cupertino computer maker.