Thursday 21 July 2011

The Pros and Cons of using Apple products in hotels

While using Apple devices at the consumer facing front end is a smart choice for hotels, using them at the back end is expensive and potentially risky


The trouble with a new technology all of a sudden gaining momentum is that there is a lot of enthusiasm and eagerness that lets many people race ahead without assessing the pros and cons first. This is particularly so when it involves popular gadgets such as Apple’s iPhone and iPad, which have recently graduated from personal communication and entertainment devices to all round marketing device for hotels.  
Apple is of course a unique success story and we stand in awe in front of Steve Jobs who not only came back to turn the company around after years in the wilderness, but moved on to single handedly revolutionise the way we consume media today. Apple consumer products come with a beautiful, minimalistic design, superior functionality and a seemingly impenetrable cool factor that is streets ahead of its competitors. But aside from the iPod, Pad and Phone, Apple also sells computer software and hardware which includes the Mac Mini, a sub-desktop computer and server which enjoys popularity for its small form factor and light weight compared to regular desktop PCs and has become specifically popular for use as a server in a small network and, due to its sleek design, as a home theater solution.
But things get blurred when it comes to using Apple products in a commercial environment, for example to power the in-room entertainment services in a hotel. In fact, the understandable aim to catch the rays from the All-Things-Apple sun could put hotels in danger of falling into an IT trap that will, at best, cost them a lot of money to implement and at worst severely limit its possibilities to migrate to future technologies. Aside from limiting itself and its travelers to Apple products and updates for the coming years, the investment hotels have to fork out for an all-Apple hotel is staggering. Given the strict regulation Apple imposes on distributor, reseller and end user pricing, there isn’t much room for Systems Integrators or hotels to receive a better discount. So equipping all rooms in a 300-key hotel plus headend with MacMinis is quite an investment, even if the integrator gets a good discount of the list price of roughly US$700 a piece. The cost of the MacMini of course reflects that this is a piece of hardware that was primarily designed as a consumer device, and not for commercial use.  
Don’t get me wrong: I think Apple devices are extremely useful in a service environment such as a hotel, particularly at the consumer facing front end. The ‘Second Screen’ entertainment solution my company offers for hotels is tremendously popular as it lets customers stream live TV and VoD content on their iPad or iPhone wherever they are in the hotel, access facilities and room service info and use it as a navigation tool to facilitate eCommerce applications. But you don’t have to have a MacMini in each room to facilitate these services; there are more robust options in the market that are also easily upgradeable and do not limit accessibility to a certain brand. And they are considerably cheaper, probably as much as 60% compared to an all-Apple solution. Count on top of that the direct and indirect cost incurred by the ongoing maintenance of a PC/MAC in a hotel room and you end up with a price that is way beyond what’s justifiable. 
If significant cost savings are not enough, consider latest figures showing that popularity of Android-based tablets has risen from 13% to 46% in the 6 months from November 2010 to April 2011 which indicates that the race to tablet dominance is far from decided. Just remember that just 2 short years ago the tablet market did not exist and you can literally hear the next ‘big thing’ snapping at every gadget’s feet. Another point to note is Connected TVs, which will significantly impact the hotel industry in the medium to long term and will further erode the window of opportunity for a MacMini solution in a commercial environment like a hotel, at least at the current price point.
Hotels have to seriously look at the consequences of exposing themselves to these potential risks. So rather than following short lived trends and marketing gains, they should carefully assess the cost and long term viability of their IT investment to ensure they can implement changes and additions to their core services easily and with minimal investment.

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