Two of the foremost consumer tech vendors, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), are making some serious inroads into enterprise computing, but it is not necessarily via direct routes. Two blog posts at CNET look at the indirect ways in which the consumer tech giants are influencing enterprise IT.

While Google remains heavily focused on consumers, the company is simultaneously "redefining the enterprise," writes Dave Rosenberg.  The search giant's massive efforts to develop technologies for its own business have made it an exemplar in a new form of enterprise computing.  

Google AppEngine exemplifies the new paradigm, in which businesses can augment their IT resources without adding more infrastructure. The major software vendors should take note, Rosenberg advises: While corporations will likely continue building and implementing most applications themselves, the Google model might be a sign of things to come.

Apple has made a number of concerted efforts to establish roots in the enterprise market, but for the most part they haven't been very successful. In part, writes Gordon Haff, this is because Apple has never been very quick to provide the features that businesses want and need. But in an ironic twist, businesses are beginning to take on more Apple technology through its consumer products.

As employees are given greater latitude in the devices and technologies they use, and as corporate applications have web portals that can be entered from a browser, Apple is slowly edging its way into offices. "That it makes consumer products is no longer a critical impediment to business sales when those buying client products are consumers," Haff writes.

For more:
- see David Rosenberg's post at CNET
- see Gordon Haff's post at CNET

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