Apple's fiscal third quarter results will be dissected in a big way after the company disappointed Wall Street. However, Apple noted a bevy of key vertical industry developments with a strong quarter for education.
In fact, there was a few minutes where Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer was talking enterprise wins as if he ran Research in Motion in its heyday.
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Among the key items on the enterprise front from Apple:
- Oppenheimer said that Apple closed its best education quarter ever. He said:
A notable large education transaction closed during the June quarter in Rutherford County, North Carolina, which has purchased 6,000 MacBooks. To support its 21st century digital learning environment in Pueblo, Colorado, K-12 staff in the 22 school districts will convert to MacBook Airs.
- iTunes U has delivered more than 14 million downloads since January and 750 new courses have been published.
- Sales of the $399 iPad 2 are "particularly strong" in education.
- A school district in Texas bought 11,000 iPads and is using them for lessons.
- The number of iPhones in the enterprise has roughly doubled.
- The number of iPads in the enterprise has tripled as companies use them to show floor plans and help sales efforts.
- Companies like PepsiCo are deploying iPhones with in-house apps. These custom apps are presumably delivered via Apple's B2B app store, which aims to enable volume purchase and allow for custom apps to be delivered. Oppenheimer said:
PepsiCo has deployed thousands of iPhones with an in-house app built specifically for their field merchandisers. This app has eliminated paper reports and provides real-time information to managers, sales teams and delivery drivers.
- He added that a German insurer is also using the iPhone and a custom app to process claims.