More people than ever are using Macs at work, and IT experts think that will only increase

Macs are a growing force in enterprise environments, and the IT professionals who are at the cutting edge of this evolution know it: 67 percent of them believe the Mac will “cut into PC share over the next three years.”

That’s according to a survey taken by JAMF Software. The survey results also indicate that nearly all IT professionals (96 percent) support at least some Macs.

It’s worth taking all of this with a grain of salt, though, since JAMF, as a company, has a dog in this fight: they make enterprise software for managing Mac and iOS system. But that doesn’t mean the numbers aren’t interesting.

At least some of the increase in Mac support is from the growing Bring Your Own Device culture in many companies — employees are bringing their Macs to work, and IT departments are adjusting to that by supporting the platform. But from there the choices grow.

“As organizations continue to implement user choice programs, more and more employees are choosing Apple devices for work because this is what they prefer in their everyday lives,” Dave Alampi, JAMF Software’s vice president, told Computer World. “As a result, Apple is seeing increased adoption in the enterprise because employees demand Apple.”

Employee preferences is one thing, but in some ways Macs can also save companies money. After IBM recently started switching many of its employees over to Macs, the firm saw a $270 per employee decrease in IT costs. Every company’s experience will vary, but it’s not hard to see savings like that adding up. For its part, and not surprisingly, IBM plans to deploy more Macs.

This isn’t to say Apple will completely replace Microsoft in corporate environments — just that the ecosystem is becoming ever more diverse. The age of Windows utterly dominating computer sales is over, as sales decline overall while alternative platforms grab more and more of the market. Which is just to say that there’s more competition, which is something every computer user should be happy about.