Macs End Up Costing 3 Times Less Than Windows PCs Because of Fewer Tech Support Expense, Says IBM's IT Guy (yahoo.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report on Yahoo (edited): Last year, Fletcher Previn became a cult figure of sorts in the world of enterprise IT. As IBM's VP of Workplace as a Service, Previn is the guy responsible for turning IBM (the company that invented the PC) into an Apple Mac house. Previn gave a great presentation at last year's Jamf tech conference where he said Macs were less expensive to support than Windows. Only 5% of IBM's Mac employees needed help desk support versus 40% of PC users. At that time, some 30,000 IBM employees were using Macs. Today 90,000 of them are, he said. And IBM ultimately plans to distribute 150,000 to 200,000 Macs to workers, meaning about half of IBM's approximately 370,000 employees will have Macs. Previn's team is responsible for all the company's PCs, not just the Macs. All told IBM's IT department supports about 604,000 laptops between employees and its 100,000+ contractors. Most of them are Windows machines -- 442,000 -- while 90,000 are Macs and 72,000 are Linux PCs. IBM is adding about 1,300 Macs a week, Previn said.

Comments

How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

I have never seen a company so good at breaking functional OS installs with updates.

Re:How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[NatasRevol]

Who else's fault would it be that Windows requires 3x more support?

Re:How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[ShanghaiBill]

Who else's fault would it be that Windows requires 3x more support?

TFA does NOT say that Windows requires 3x more support. It claims that the TCO is three times higher. That is not the same thing.

Let's do the math:
I buy a low end Mac for $1000 and you buy a low end Win-PC for $500.
I need $500 worth of support from the Genius Bar, bringing my TCO to $1500.
If your TCO is three times that, then it is $4500, so you needed $4000 worth of support.
That is EIGHT TIMES as much.

Re:How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[tripleevenfall]

I'm thinking they could reduce this if they stopped pushing people toward things nobody wants.

(Windows after 7, IE, Skype, etc)

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM developers get high end thinkpads or retired Na MacBook pros.

Re:How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[__aaclcg7560]

As an I.T. Support contractor, we call that job security.

Re:How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[NatasRevol]

Being inflexible while IT moves forward is not a good solution. Regardless of the tech or problems.

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

Could be partly hardware issues related to cheap laptops and such, but mostly windows problems like viruses and malware I'm sure.

Re:How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what else isn't a good solution? IT constantly throwing buckets of shit at the wall because it neither understands the business process nor the piles of crap "solutions" it's buying from vendors at ever escalating fiscal and productivity costs.

Re:How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

ShanghaiBill: Please define TCO for those of us not in Accounting or IT. PS: it's Total Cost of Ownership. You're welcome.

Re:How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[jedidiah]

A lot of what you just described are costs required to run the business regardless of platform.

I worked for IBM. My windows laptop was not what I would have preferred but it never gave me any real trouble.

What it cost the mothership to maintain is an entirely different matter. I don't think I ever did anything to maintain or upgrade it.

You have to spend a LOT on other stupid things to just begin to catch up with the cost of an Apple product.

Re:How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[Applehu Akbar]

I have never seen a company so good at breaking functional OS installs with updates.

After installing any new version of Windows, all PC users get used to having a small percentage of Windows Updates fail to install. As time goes on, 'update rot' causes an increasing percentage of updates to fail, always for some reason the user knows nothing about. Windows Update even has a 'hide this update' feature intended to prevent endless attempts to install a failed update.

Eventually, update rot on some PCs eventually turns into total update death, in which every boot of the system begins with the message "Installing Windows Updates..." You have to watch the machine grind through half an hour of installing the same series of updates that all fail, followed by restore from a pre-update restore point. This is generally when the user starts budgeting for a Mac to replace the cursed thing.

Re:How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[macs4all]

You have to spend a LOT on other stupid things to just begin to catch up with the cost of an Apple product.

IBM's "sample size" is undeniably large enough to be classified as "Statistically Significant".

They are not in the business of "shilling" for Apple.

They have run the numbers.

You are dead wrong. Period. And we Mac owners have been saying this for over 10 years. It's high time that somebody with some serious IT infrastructure took an honest look at the numbers.

And they did.

Now, Witness the Result.

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[macs4all]

Could be partly hardware issues related to cheap laptops and such, but mostly windows problems like viruses and malware I'm sure.

I think that IBM purchases Lenovo laptops exclusively for their Windows-Saddled (and possibly Linux-Hobbled) employees and contractors. So, unless all the Slashdotters on here that continually sing the praises of Lenovo hardware are lying, it shouldn't be the hardware that is the issue.

But it is a factor, when compared with Apple.

Re:How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[macs4all]

As an I.T. Support contractor, we call that job security.

And therein lies the REAL problem with the placement of Macs in the Workplace: Fear of the Computer Priesthood.

Do not even try to deny it. I have had more than one Windows Admin. tell me exactly what you said.

Re:How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[__aaclcg7560]

And therein lies the REAL problem with the placement of Macs in the Workplace: Fear of the Computer Priesthood.

The most common compliant I ever got about Macs is the preference file for iTunes becoming corrupt. Deleting the preference file fixes that problem. But I'm also obligated to remind users of corporate policy that they're not supposed to have terabytes of personal media files on their system. However, it's the PC users who screams bloody murder when the hard drive dies and the only copy of their media library is gone.

Do not even try to deny it. I have had more than one Windows Admin. tell me exactly what you said.

The current network I'm overseeing has 80,000+ workstations. Out of a team of 35 people, one specialist handles ~2,000 Macs workstations and another specialist handles ~2,000 Linux workstations. Everyone else handles Windows workstations. Having one person to handle Macs and/or Linux is fairly typical in most Windows shops I've worked for. If Macs ever did overtake the workplace, I'll get a Mac certification and keep on working.

Re:How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[Gr8Apes]

You have to spend a LOT on other stupid things to just begin to catch up with the cost of an Apple product.

It depends upon what you're comparing. For a while, a Mac Air was the cheapest ultra light notebook you could buy by a long shot. MacBooks and MacBook pro's are pretty cost competitive just on initial purchase, much less the rest for comparable hardware. Can you buy cheaper windows hardware? Yes. Is it less capable? Yes.

Re:How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[CAOgdin]

TCO = Total Cost of Ownership

Customarily computed over the useful life of the product in actual productive environments.

Re:How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[Nunya666]

Being inflexible while IT moves forward is not a good solution. Regardless of the tech or problems.

It sounds like you are trying to say that regardless of the problems caused by change, all change is good.

I vehemently disagree.

Re:How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[UnknownSoldier]

> MS office (because stupid people can only use outlook for email),

I dislike Outlook just as much as you, but what cross platform mail client and server handles shared calendars across Windows, and OSX ?

Re:How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[macs4all]

As an I.T. Support contractor, we call that job security.

And therein lies the REAL problem with the placement of Macs in the Workplace: Fear of the Computer Priesthood. Do not even try to deny it. I have had more than one Windows Admin. tell me exactly what you said.

Oh look, I got downmodded for that entirely factual observation. How utterly predictable...

Re:How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[DeBaas]

Zarafa , Open-Xchange to name a few. Not that I'm against Outllook. It is quite useful, except for the fact that the search functionality leaves a lot to be desired and the pst files really must go.

Re:How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[Cramer]

Actually, you've pretty much always been able to get better (newer) hardware in the windows market, for the same dollar. Apple is invariably one to two generations behind on processors, graphics chips, and (non-"retina") displays. Of course, almost all modern displays are just f'ing TV's these days (1920x1080)

Re:How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[gweihir]

Sounds entirely reasonable. By now, Windows users have to treat the OS vendor as a malicious adversary...

Re:How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[UnknownSoldier]

Thanks!

Yup, Outlook's search is crap.

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[Type44Q]

Thinkpads are no longer manufactured by IBM.

Re:How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[gweihir]

Rejecting trash is not "being inflexible". It is being flexible and reacting to the situation. Upgrading, no matter what utter trash the vendor puts out is inflexible and stupid.

Re:How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[gweihir]

Same here. It requires a special kind of stupid to associate "new" with "good" unconditionally.

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

Selection bias.

The sort of person who is going to demand a Mac will be the sort of person who doesn't need as much support.

Same as people who use alternative web browsers -- if you know enough to care, you are probably the sort of person who doesn't need help.

The data is only relevant if the people getting Mac and the people who get PC are chosen at random.

Re:How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[__aaclcg7560]

Oh look, I got downmodded for that entirely factual observation. How utterly predictable...

What did you expect from offending the computer priesthood? No more computer time for you!

Re:How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[macs4all]

Oh look, I got downmodded for that entirely factual observation. How utterly predictable...

What did you expect from offending the computer priesthood? No more computer time for you!

Exactly!

Re:How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[Gr8Apes]

Macbook pros have been using the latest released CPUs and are ahead on SSDs. Their screens are also incredible. I'm sure that by now Dell et al have managed to come close. The XPS-15 with QHD+ screen and SSD comes in around $2100, which is very similar to the 15" retina MBP. If you add the Apple Care Service and the closest you can get from Dell, the XPS-15 actually costs more than the MBP. Since you can drop Linux on one of these, IIRC, we won't discuss software. I've owned and worked on a number of laptops from Dell, IBM (now Lenovo), Toshiba, and HP (work and family - gotta love being the family tech). Absolutely none hold a candle to the MBP in build nor component quality, and haven't for the past 10 years.

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[random coward]

So what you're saying is that companies shouldn't hire people who like to use Windows? Windows users require more overhead? That is even worse.

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[Lije Baley]

Hmm, based on your numbers, you support more Windows machines per support employee - about 2300. Good to know - I'll steer clear of those Macs and Linux boxes.

Re:How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

Even calendaring isn't all that hot in outlook (at least in 2010). Want to send an invitation to a person who you don't know if they have outlook or even a calendar? You can configure outlook to send either a blank email with an .ics file OR a human-readable invitation but not both leading to a lot of people complaining they got a blank email with some attachment they can't open.

Not as big a deal now that everyone uses gmail and has a calendar, but if they use yahoo and don't have a calendar, well, it's not exactly a great impression when you email a potential customer an invitation to a product demonstration and they can't read it.

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

Those intel chips in the macbook pro retina as of 2015 were from 2013...

Not all that ahead of the curve.

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[scifiman]

Actually a lot of the described cost occurs on the front end with imaging and device preparedness. On Mac, they are leveraging DEP and handing out managed Macs that are still in the shrink wrap. It was a very good presentation.

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

It could be your annoying attitude.

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[bjhavard]

No, they shouldn't hire people who don't care or don't know the difference.

Re:How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[Khyber]

The result is an obviously incompetent IT staff at IBM. That's all there is to it. If they haven't locked their systems down after getting everything to work flawlessly like any smart business would do, and then things like updates come along and break shit, that's IBM's fucking fault, not Microsoft. This kind of thing is expected from Microsoft as it has been an issue since Windows 95. If IBM hasn't learned this lesson in over two decades and done due diligence to prepare for it (and the solution is way cheap per license, keeping the TCO way under anything a Mac costs) then they likely never will.

When I worked at Flextronics, we had far, far, FAR more problems with your Apple servers hosting OS images than ANY of the Windows Servers in the same building. Literally the TCO in lost time alone from the Apple server trumped the cost of every computer on the repair floor.

You've been shilling it all these years, but someone who's worked both the hardware and software side of Apple, like myself, knows far better.

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[Khyber]

IBM's sample size isn't statistically important because it's not randomized, and it's not representative of anything other than IBM and their failure at managing Windows systems and them not learning how to lock down systems once they get everything working.

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect they are using lotus notes.

Re:How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, whatever. I have never need support for any PC and you can do about a hundred times more things with a Windows PC than with a Mac and its anaemic software library and limited hardware.

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you got modded for being an arrogant, pretentious, smug, condescending, elitist.

Nobody gives a shit about what you had to say.

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, that is 2 generations of MS Office ago. It' improved significantly since then.

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking as both a pc and mac user, you are fucking clueless. In 20 years of using Windows I've never experienced whatever bullshit you just pulled out of your ass.

Re:How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[dbIII]

Yes, it's IBM wearing the little red skirt that is the problem not Microsoft dragging her into an alley. IBM was obviously asking for it.
Yes I think your argument was THAT stupid and almost as offensive.
Am I supposed to have heard of Flextronics and be awed? Sorry it doesn't ring a bell.

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[__aaclcg7560]

Hmm, based on your numbers, you support more Windows machines per support employee - about 2300.

When I worked the Google IT help desk in 2008, I was supporting 3,000 users. Not an unusual number for Fortune 500 companies. As a system admin in my current job, I rarely interact with end users. On the few occasions that I have, they called security because they thought I was a hacker.

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

Like what?

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

"what cross platform mail client and server handles shared calendars across Windows, and OSX ?"

Google does.

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[dna_(c)(tm)(r)]

Same here. It requires a special kind of stupid to associate "new" with "good" unconditionally.

It's actually quite a common kind of stupid called 'inexperienced'. Never experiencing the fallout of bad decisions, makes the hipsters try any idea, good or bad.

Re:How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[tacarat]

What I'd like to know is if this information will make writing malware for Macs more tempting? I don't think anybody here believes the old "virus proof" bit for Apple anymore, but it's still generally held that it's been too niche to bother with. Will this be changing if only for the challenge? And yeah, you mention Linux. What if they factor in chrome books and boxes? I'd love to slap those onto some computers for the way they're used. What's the sense in paying for so much more than what's needed?

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

- Browse random sites and get infected with a few fresh malwares.
- Automatically join a botnet
- Get to wait for 30 minutes, while being late, when shutting down because of forced installation of patches.
- Get to say that Microsoft is the best and other systems sucks because MS has put down so much money into the system...... Just before you downloaded it from your local torrent-site.
- Have random changes of UI pushed on you for every update, and as soon as you are used to the new things it all changes again.
- Get forced into reinstalling the system every 2 years because it slows down for no apparent reason.
- Get locked into the MS bubble and stop being buggered by having multiple different systems running within a company.
- Get good feedback the next performance review.. Because "Nobody has been fired for using Microsoft products".

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[KenHansen]

The current network I'm overseeing has 80,000+ workstations. Out of a team of 35 people, one specialist handles ~2,000 Macs workstations and another specialist handles ~2,000 Linux workstations. Everyone else handles Windows workstations.

So let me see if I've got this right:

80,000 workstation all together, along with 35 dedicated support staff for those workstations.

About 2,000 Macs are supported by one technician.

About 2,000 Linux workstations are supported by one technician.

The remaining 76,000 or so PC/Windows workstations are supported by the remaining 33 technicians.

So Mac, Linux, and PC support techs each support about 2,000 desktops - how does that prove Macs/Linux workstations are cheaper to support, or requires less technical support?

The reason your entire Mac and Linux populations can be supported by one technician each is because of the shockingly low percentage of your user base that uses them.

BTW, I suspect your Mac and Linux workstations rely on a windows network infrastructure to authenticate users, provide file storage, email, perhaps backup solutions and other services - do any of those 33 Windows technicians do double duty taking care of tech support calls on shared infrastructure issues?

Re:How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[Khyber]

"Yes I think your argument was THAT stupid and almost as offensive."

Then you must not have any critical thinking ability. Good day!

Re:How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[dbIII]

Funny - that's exactly what I thought when you wrote "The result is an obviously incompetent IT staff at IBM". It's a pity you didn't get the message despite the overblown and unsubtle way I presented it. How blunt do I have to be next time? Red text and BLINK tags?

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[__aaclcg7560]

So Mac, Linux, and PC support techs each support about 2,000 desktops - how does that prove Macs/Linux workstations are cheaper to support, or requires less technical support?

If the number of Linux and Mac workstations were doubled to 4,000 each, we would still only have one dedicated tech for each platform.

BTW, I suspect your Mac and Linux workstations rely on a windows network infrastructure to authenticate users, provide file storage, email, perhaps backup solutions and other services - do any of those 33 Windows technicians do double duty taking care of tech support calls on shared infrastructure issues?

With 76,000 Windows workstations, you "suspect" that it might be on a Windows network infrastructure? You must not work in IT. The domain team handles all issues related to the Windows network infrastructure.

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[Gr8Apes]

Those intel chips in the macbook pro retina as of 2015 were from 2013...

Not all that ahead of the curve.

Don't make this so easy Core i7 4980HQ was released Q3 2014 and is in the 2015 MBP.

Re:How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[higuita]

also try http://www.zimbra.com/ , it have several good features

you can always use Thunderbird+Lightning addon for the client and calendarserver for the server: https://wiki.debian.org/HowTo/...

you can replace exchange with http://www.zentyal.org/ or replace outlook and keep exchange with http://davmail.sourceforge.net... as a proxy for other clients

on windows you can also replace outlook with http://www.emclient.com/ and on mac, use their own clients, most mac users prefer then

you can try other apps/servers in this list:
https://alternativeto.net/soft...
https://alternativeto.net/soft...

What?

[beastofburdon]

I call bullshit.

Re:What?

[gweilo8888]

This. And frankly, if he's doing that poor of a job configuring his machines, he should probably be looking for another career.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

its probably true, its probably also not because apple is that much superior. its probably a combination between less virusses and crapware and available settings and people using the macs not being completely retarded when using pcs.

i do wonder though, why the linux numbers werent listed.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Same here. Where I work, we're split 50/50 between imacs and desktop Windows machines with a few linux workstations. The iMacs cook their drives to the tune of about 1 dead HDD per 25 machines per year, and the Windows machines have a much smaller rate of drive failure (maybe 1/150) due to better airflow design. The older Mac Pros were powerhouses and never lost a hard drive, but I'm betting the newer trashcan style Mac Pros will lose drives to heat with their compact design.

Now for user assistance tickets, it's a toss-up, but the Mac users are more annoying because it's about stuff they should know how to do but they can't understand a simple explanation without someone physically present walking them through it (and ARD does not cut it).

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

I call bullshit.

Yeah, it probably costs TEN TIMES more to keep Windows boxen running.

Remember - IT support costs a company over $100/hr.

But hey, Microsoft has trained an entire army of MCSEs, and that army has their entire livelihood dependent on Windows sucking up hours and hours of IT support time.

And then entire companies that employ Windows tech support people are dependent on Windows being an IT support black hole.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

And thank you for your insight. I think chocolate milkshakes are the best kind of milkshakes.

Maybe you'd contribute more if Slashdot allowed memes.

Re:What?

[scsirob]

Lotus Notes / Domino and other IBM software that is mandatory on Windows laptops is to blame for much of this. Mac OS users are much more on their own, are not bogged down with all the company cr*p and just do their job.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux numbers weren't listed because the test users were unable to complete even simple tasks using Linux to establish a baseline, effectively rendering Linux infinitely more expensive than Windows.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Trashcan macs don't have hdds. If you want or need a hard drive with them, it is external.

Re: What?

[Anonymous Coward]

When sales of Macs are tanking, IBM has to force its own employees to use them to massage the sales figures.

The current Mac lineup is an embarrassment. Most of the hardware is over three years old and they are still asking full prices from three years ago for it.

Of course they do not break when the only thing the Mac division does is keep patching and updating OSX.

I would not be surprised if Apple drops out of the PC market completely to focus solely on their mobile products and apps. The only thing I can see them retaining is the MacBook due to its iconic status.

Re:What?

[tripleevenfall]

Well, why don't those users modify the code themselves and compile their own version of Linux in order to enable them to complete those simple tasks? /Slashdot

Re: What?

[Anonymous Coward]

When sales of Macs are tanking, IBM has to force its own employees to use them to massage the sales figures.

What would the point of that be? Macs use Intel chips and have not used IBM PowerPC processors in years.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. They are offering Macs out to people who want unix-like systems, that is mostly engineers. They don't allow Macs do be used by some groups that have legacy software requirements (some old windows shit in financing and contracts).

You can't legitimately compare technical folks with newer machines and office drones with old machines. Convert them all over, wait 5 years, then make a comparison. Otherwise you have to count all the linux users who never ask for support.

Re:What?

[ColdWetDog]

If you are in an environment where Lotus Notes is mandatory then you have a whole bunch more problems that machine support.

In fact, if the PC is dead, that could well be a feature, not a bug.

Re: What?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think one of the main reasons is lower apple market share means less virus writers. Also windows has to support a lot of legacy crap which creates vulnerabilities.

Re: What?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is notes for mac which sucks more than the one for windows. Fortunately there is a web interface.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, anyone who has a PC eligible for replacement can get a MAC. But a small minority of people who opt'd for a MAC had to purchase a Windows/VM License because some non-IBM proprietary applications are only fully supported on Windows. BTW, Lotus Notes Client is supported on MACs and MACs also run a similar set of 'protection utilities' as a Windows PC.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lotus Notes is available and widely used on Mac computers. I wish more people would fact check before making statements with little to no truth

Re:What?

[chipschap]

Looking at the numbers, 72,000 out of about 600,000 are using Linux. That's a much higher percentage than the general populace. And all of them "can't complete even simple tasks"?

Re:What?

[Applehu Akbar]

"its probably true, its probably also not because apple is that much superior. its probably a combination between less virusses and crapware and available settings and people using the macs not being completely retarded when using pcs."

I see two reasons: OS X (now macOS) is Unix based, like Linux but not fragmented into a brazillion distros all pulling in different directions, and the small number of standard Apple hardware platforms. Each PC is, in contrast, a snowflake slightly different from the rest. Though Windows is written to do a tolerable job of supporting the myriad slightly different PC hardware configurations, it's going to bluescreen when it encounters some combination of an unfamiliar graphics card with an unfamiliar mouse.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's even worse than I would have thought.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been using a Mac so long I assumed Lotus Notes was dead.

Re: What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hahahahahahaahahahahahhahahahahahahahhahaha...

Hahahhahahahahahhahhahahahaha

Hahahah

Ahhhh..

You sir made my day. Thank you.

Re: What?

[donaldm]

I think one of the main reasons is lower apple market share means less virus writers. Also windows has to support a lot of legacy crap which creates vulnerabilities.

That is big talk from someone (ostensibly) using an OS (Linux) with many times more malware than OS X/macOS has had (there isn't even a Wikipedia Article for OS X Malware!) in its sixteen-year history, but with far less marketshare. Kinda blows the "Security through Obsurity" meme out of the water, doesn't it?

You have not looked very hard, have you? For your edification . You could also try the following search in a decent search engine "OS X Malware". Using Google I get close to a million hits.

Re:What?

[donaldm]

its probably true, its probably also not because apple is that much superior. its probably a combination between less virusses

Excuse me. That's not less (self-replicating) Viruses. That's none. Zero. Zip. Nada. For the entire sixteen years of OS X. Not one "Virus" on OS X (macOS) that can propagate without the User's knowledge and consent.

Writing a virus for any operating system is fairly easy and no operating system is safe. In most cases, viruses are propagated with the user's consent or ignorance, although crackers commonly use what is called social engineering to achieve their ends.

A simple web search will prove you wrong "OS X viruses". I get over three million hits.

BTW. Please don't think I am hating on Mac OS which is a BSD Unix derivative because I am not. BSD Unix was the first Unix operating I worked on over 35 years ago. Even then we knew that you never worked as root . With "sudo" we never allowed user root privilege since an attacker only needed to compromise the user who had this so all activity that required root required the user to also know the root password.

Re: What?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Excuse me. That's not less (self-replicating) Viruses. That's none. Zero. Zip. Nada. For the entire sixteen years of OS X. Not one "Virus" on OS X (macOS) that can propagate without the User's knowledge and consent."

In case anyone has not noticed, the above statement is a misinformed lie.

And the devs and engineers...

[johnsmithperson123]

All run Linux on POWER9 workstations. At least that's what I would want.

Re:And the devs and engineers...

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the mac user likely using the machine for vs the windows user? Of course a person using just a web browser and email doesn't need as much tech support; which is what the average corporate mac user is using the machine for. If that's the metric then you should just switch everyone over to chromebooks.

Re:And the devs and engineers...

[Anonymous Coward]

A-fucking-men!

I remember the last time a user asked for a Mac. She was the "social media manager" at my last company. Bitch got one too, and then did nothing but email, web, (ie Facebook,) and fucking Twitter all day long.

The people doing the actual work cranking out code, or keeping the books, or selling product, were using PCs.

Re:And the devs and engineers...

[Lord Apathy]

What I find is when people are trying to get "real work" done on a Mac in a "production" environment they are usually doing that work in a VM running Windows. I wonder if they took the cost of having to maintain Windows in side a Mac as apart of their analyst?

Re:And the devs and engineers...

[BasilBrush]

That's because you work for a company that depends on Windows. In 13 years of Mac use personally and as a developer, I've never once had call to run Windows on it.

Re:And the devs and engineers...

[BasilBrush]

Nice stereotype. What you don't realise though is that Macs are the most popular computers with developers.

Re:And the devs and engineers...

[war4peace]

That's because you work for a company which depends on something other than Windows.
See... same argument.

Re:And the devs and engineers...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, really not. He might actually work on something that works on more than one single system.
I work on software that runs on Linux (many versions, RHEL5 still supported, as is Ubuntu 16.04), Windows and OSX.
It probably would run fine on FreeBSD and a few others with minor tweaks as well, but we don't have that at work.

Re:And the devs and engineers...

[BasilBrush]

So you admit your experience of Macs is limited to being that of a Windows shop. As useless as a person't experience of using a PC in a Mac shop.

Actually worse, because Macs can run Windows just fine. But most Windows PCs can't run OSX.

Were the users randomized?

[JMZero]

I mean, I'm sure our Linux users overall require the least tech support. But that's a function of who they are more than what they're using.

I don't doubt that Macs require less support, but 40% vs 5% says that something else is going on - and I doubt that sort of ratio will hold once people are converted in bulk.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[gander666]

90,000 is a pretty statistically relevant number.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[ColdWetDog]

No.I'm sure he's correct. I use a Mac at work in a Windows environment. If I have a question, I get 'duh, we don't know, we don't support Macs, figure it out by yourself'.

So I do. Costs the system a lot less.

Macs for the win!

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Junta]

But likely to be self-selected sample.

So it's going to be mostly mac enthusiasts. Similarly, the Linux users are self-selecting. If a random person is there and is given a random laptop, they are probably given Windows.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's not cherry picked users. The cherry picking doesn't have to be intentional either.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if the combination of your wages and the company's time you spend figuring out your problem is less than the cost of a low-level IT guy.

Re: Were the users randomized?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's true. Macs require less support. There are two kinds of Mac users:

Type 1 doesnt need support because they run out and buy a new Mac everytime Apple tells them to just like good little fanboys. Usually with less features for more money, kinda like the iPhone 7.

Type 2 keeps their Mac for many, many years. They actually do need tech support but never ask for it. Suff all over the place, hardware literally coming unglued because somehow glue is an acceptable structural element in a computer now, half their software doesn't work and the only discernable reason why is a stupid emoticon graphic, non-replaceable battery won't charge, doesnt matter. Half are too dense to know they need help and the other half are still paying off the machine they can't afford.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Chris Mattern]

90,000 is a pretty statistically relevant number.

Not when you have a selection bias, it isn't. If your sample selection is consistently biased, no sample size will be large enough.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[barc0001]

The problem is that not everyone is you. At a former job I supported PCs and then the director of marketing decided that he liked Macs so he unilaterally switched his group to Macs. Anecdotally I'd say the users had just as many problems that needed my help as they did when they were on PCs, and in addition had additional problems they needed sorting out in the first couple of weeks following the switchover due to their lack of familiarity with OSX. Most of their day to day problems were software related, so the underlying OS didn't factor into that one way or the other, and these peoples' self troubleshooting skills were practically nonexistent so it meant just as much work for me, and in some cases more as I was also then tasked to find them alternate software to do a given task.

For the average users, once you get past the enthusiasts skewing the numbers the IT savings will probably not be as significant as this article makes them out to be. People are still going to be having trouble mapping a drive, sharing a folder, logging into an SFTP site on Windows or OSX.

Hardware wise, the Macs generally use decent hardware that lasts, but also charge a premium for that. If offices used PCs that weren't the cheapest thing that fell off the turnip truck they'd see as good or better failure rates than the Macs. And Apple hasn't been 100% immune to shitty hardware slipping out the door so spending more on the Mac isn't a bulletproof guarantee either.

Re: Were the users randomized?

[Anonymous Coward]

By that logic, close the help desk and let everyone figure out everything for themselves, you'll save the company even more!

Re:Were the users randomized?

[NatasRevol]

They're not self-selecting at a rate of 1300 people per week...

The IT dept is migrating them.

Don't act like you have more insight into IBM's support issues that the head IT guy at IBM.

Re: Were the users randomized?

[NatasRevol]

Yes, I'm sure the 100,000 users at IBM fit perfectly into your binary selections.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[rholtzjr]

Agreed, Windows was meant to be targeting people who really shouldn't be allowed to use a computer (you know, "my cup holder is broken" type).

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Bigjeff5]

That actually costs your company a lot more, then, not less.

The trick, of course, is that it's a hidden cost that is virtually impossible to tally on a spreadsheet: your productivity is lost while you fix that problem. Did it take you an hour, where a tech might have taken 10 minutes? Did it take you several days when a tech might have had it cleared up in an afternoon? Who gets paid more for their time, you or the tech? That's a cost that's really hard to quantify, and so gets completely ignored.

My favorite example of this is when I worked as a hardware depot manager for one site of a huge global corporation. IT management issued a mandate that said hardware depots could only keep X amount of stock on hand at any given time and could only order new stock when it was gone. New stock orders also required the personal approval of the #3 guy in IT management.

I regularly went through my stock in about a week, week and a half, and it would take two weeks or more to receive a new pallet of computers to refresh my stock. Furthermore, as you might expect, the #3 guy in IT is a pretty busy guy, so he would sometimes take up to a week to approve my stock orders.

In the end, IT saved millions globally because their stock orders were drastically reduced, yet on the local level you had engineers being paid upwards of $1000 a day to twiddle their thumb while they wait for their $500 computer to arrive. But IT doesn't see one dime of that cost. In fact, unless a department gets hit with a flood of new hires who need new computers, it's likely none of the local departments will see a big enough impact on their budget to formally complain to IT about the process. Yet the company's cost saving methods caused a $500 computer to cost upwards of $20,000, and all of it is hidden from the bean counters.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Kjella]

Not when you have a selection bias, it isn't. If your sample selection is consistently biased, no sample size will be large enough.

Agreed, but outside math class you have to look at the percentage and make an educated guess about how special they realistically could be. If you have a thousand employees your number one is probably a genius and your very worst a moron. The 10th from the top is also probably pretty smart and 10th from the bottom pretty stupid. The 50th smartest isn't aren't all that special though, if he can be more efficient with a Mac well it seems worth trying the top 100 or 200 too. It could of course theoretically be that performance drops off a cliff because it takes some minimum skill and understanding you just dipped below, but realistically if that happens it's probably the kind of thing only 1% or 0.1% of your employees grok. If 5% can use a Mac so can probably most of them.

Re: Were the users randomized?

[ColdWetDog]

By that logic, close the help desk and let everyone figure out everything for themselves, you'll save the company even more!

You're hired! (We've been look for a CIO.)

Re: Were the users randomized?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was at IBM until recently. There's some things you need to keep in mind.

One, the Linux numbers are *all* elective. There's almost as many Linux users as Mac, which means the Mac sample is largely being reported based on the people who explicitly requested it. They may have embarked on forced migration after I left, but the numbers are based on an opt-in pilot that was available when I left the company for greener pastures.

Also, ibm had long been using their internal IT as marketing collateral. When IBM had a big deal with Toshiba in selling their retail store business, they forced their users to start using Toshiba laptops as part of that arrangement.

Recently they've partnered with apple and microsoft is a bigger rival than ever. So their IT is tasked with supporting that partnership in technical and marketing capacities.

When dealing with any of these big companies, there's always an agenda that taints the messaging. It's really frustrating bring in this industry knowing that 99% of endorsements carry huge caveats and are motivated by marketing motives target than technical merit.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[angel'o'sphere]

Of course numbers will hold up, facepalm.
Why the funk should a Mac need tech support in the first place?
I never had a Mac that magically forgot where the printer is, lost its IP adress, forgot how to connect to the DSL modem, refused to boot and waited 45 minutrs until it gave up to find its 'domain controller' (what is that actually?)
Sorry, unless a user needs to configure something, and does not know how to do it: a Mac does not need tech support.

I owned over the years like 15 Macs, the only tech support they got was replacements of harddrives, and in one case a motherboard (to a newer/faster one).

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Trailer Trash]

I mean, I'm sure our Linux users overall require the least tech support. But that's a function of who they are more than what they're using.

I don't doubt that Macs require less support, but 40% vs 5% says that something else is going on - and I doubt that sort of ratio will hold once people are converted in bulk.

I see you don't have a computer-using parent. I put my foot down about 10 years ago and told the parents that one of two things was going to happen:

1. The get a Mac
2. They quit bugging me about computer issues

There was no third option. They chose #1. The ratio of problems before and after is far larger than 8:1, probably more around 20:1. You think 8:1 seems like a large ratio - I'm wondering why IBM isn't seeing an even better average. My guess is it's because they already have a significant firewall/anti-virus setup to minimize that set of Windows headaches.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the guy who has a vested interest to make sure his changes look good?

Re: Were the users randomized?

[Archangel Michael]

In the world view of CxOs wanting to outsource IT everything ... we're experiencing an issue with a couple of our vendors who are under a DDOS attack and nothing is working. Their 99.9xx% uptime promise is long gone at this point.

Oh wait, they are up, we just can't get to them, so .. their service level agreement is fine.

With proper IT infrastructure, this can be mitigated against.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[avandesande]

Yeah, like they didn't start with the low hanging fruit.....

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Archangel Michael]

Properly managed IT dept would see that cost. It would show up in Ticket Wait Times, which are actionable and quantifiable. Of course, you have to be measuring ticket wait times to get that kind of information, but most IT ticketing systems have that kind of ability built in.

You are correct in that you cannot know the cost unless you're measuring for it. There is a cost, it can be measured, and in a large enough organization, it should be measured.

Re: Were the users randomized?

[NatasRevol]

There's almost as many Linux users as Mac, which means the Mac sample is largely being reported based on the people who explicitly requested it.

There's no logic here.

They may have embarked on forced migration after I left, but the numbers are based on an opt-in pilot

Yeah, I think TFA says they have left the pilot stage.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Archangel Michael]

I help manage a fleet of older Windows PCs (around 4000) and almost all of those issues you named off are not a problem. We have systems in place that certain people logging into certain PCs get mapped to certain printers (fairly dynamic) and just work. Lost IP does occur, but not on PCs (mostly network attached devices like Cameras), and most of those have to do with poor design of those devices. We don't have a DSL modem we have a 10GB network and redundant pathways out.

Just about everything we (IT) needs to configure is done by a management tool of one kind or another, and is very systematic and predictable. And that is the key to providing excellent IT service. These systems aren't always cheap, but they are cheaper that hiring more IT staff to run around putting out fires because nothing works the same way anywhere.

As for Macs vs PCs, Macs require as much attention as PCs, but they are managed not by IT, but by the End User. Because that management is outside of the measurables IT can deliver, you don't see the actual costs associated with them.

Here is the real question, would you rather have Macs, that require 100/hr user trying to figure out whatever the problem is for 3 hours (not measured) , or a system that is managed (and measured), and can be diagnosed by a $20/hr tech that can be fixed in 1/2 an hour? You can PCs require more IT work and that is true, however the unmeasured costs are much much worse.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Anonymous Coward]

They're not self-selecting at a rate of 1300 people per week...

The IT dept is migrating them.

Don't act like you have more insight into IBM's support issues that the head IT guy at IBM.

They are self selected. When you are due for a refresh you can pick a PC or a MAC, end of story. No one is being forced to move to MAC or stay on PC. It is completely up to the individual.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, I've never had a PC that did any of that stuff, but I HAVE seen a Mac that decides it doesn't want to connect to a network, magically forgot a network printer, or refused to boot.

Both our anecdotes, sample size 1 each, are worthless. We've both been lucky with one platform, and unlucky with the other.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[SvnLyrBrto]

In most places I've worked, if you were allowed to use Linux as your desktop OS at all; you were on your own and completely unsupported by IT, whether you needed it or nor.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[kaatochacha]

And yet, Just yesterday I fixed a mac that "forgot where the printer is",
Last week one fell off the domain and lost it's IP address.
I've got a pallet of repair returns that refused to boot, just white screened then funny symbol.All went out for repair and except for ten or so had no software problems, just needed to be re-imaged.
They're not magical fairy devices, they're computers. Which screw up. PC or Mac.

Plus, did you really just ask what a Domain Controller is?

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when is the walled garden, (which is what allows your parents to have fewer problems with a Mac than a Windows PC,) an acceptable solution?

Maybe you should be educating your parents not to do stupid things on the internet.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[jedidiah]

> I see you don't have a computer-using parent.

Bullshit.

Tried that. It didn't work because the technically inept parent still had just as much problem with the Apple product. It turns out that you can't idiot proof something.

A Mac won't magically cause the technically inept to stop having problems.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[aardvarkjoe]

My first thought, as an IBM employee, is that the users that moved to Mac are probably the ones smart enough to know that calling the IBM helpdesk is utterly pointless.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[guruevi]

The user base (IBM) seems to have been people that switched over from Windows to Mac by company policy, after the switch, the company sees less support calls. The people haven't necessarily changed much, they just switched their computers around and decreased their tech support.

I see the same thing, My time ratio on desktops is roughly 40/50/10 between Windows, Mac and Linux although we have a ratio of 15/80/5 of actually deployed machines. The problem is that Windows is just very time consuming and requires much more intensive support. This isn't due to viruses or security problems (anymore) but due to the requirement of heavy virus scanners for Windows (vs. built-in security to Mac and Linux), the higher prevalence of requiring admin rights on Windows machines and primarily because Windows drivers and functions just randomly fail to work. The other day, devices with Realtek drivers on Windows 7 and 10 switched from analog to digital because of a Windows update, just randomly, do an update, defaults output mode to digital.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Maxo-Texas]

I have never had those problems or had anyone on my team of 9 and my team of 15 have those problems on windows PC's either.

However, I agree the Mac has a more polished operating system. That's usually been at a higher initial cost however. I went to PC's in my personal life because Mac's were 3x to 4x the cost for less capability. The ratio is much lower today but even five or six years ago, macs were still significantly more expensive.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[kurkosdr]

Considering how X.org keeps breaking gpu drivers with every upgrade and how easily "the community" inserts breaking changes to the desktop API (such as shipping pulseaudio in distros before it even got 100% compatibility with alsa), I 'd say no. Unless you show me a desktop linux distro that keeps the whole API and the ABI stable for years and can still run the newest desktop linux apps, I am not buying what you say. BTW, I agree wth you that the 40%-5% ratio won't hold. The really dumb users will get migrated last and change the ratio. What did those users need support for anyway (assuming Windows 7 or above) The thing pretty much updates itself and has its own antivirus (MSE, not great but better than ClamAV or OSX's Xprotect). Also, this is how PHB's spend billions without noticing. Some Mac fanboy wants the whole of IBM to go Apple, waves some fraudulent statistics and bang! the company is facing a full on desktop computer replace with expensive boutique hardware.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Anonymous Coward]

Work for IBM we have the choice of going with a Lenovo laptop or a Mac for our PC refresh. In my department we are required to run Linux or Mac so Mac it is.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Costs the system a lot less.

If you are paid less than the helpdesk folks, yes.

Re: Were the users randomized?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the Linux users are not all elective. A few years ago there was a security incident and from that point on all users that had "privileged" access to certain systems were required to do their work on Linux workstations. From what I hear in my area, there are quite a few people that are electing to get a Mac when their workstation refresh cycle was up. I, personally, will be sticking with Linux. In general what I see is developers and very technical people are going to Linux or Mac and most everyone else is sticking with Windows.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[angel'o'sphere]

Sorry,
Macs don't need any endusers or tech staff to figure out what is wrong and fix it.
Your idea how stuff works is bollocks.
You configure them once and then they run, just like any ither unix box does.
So your idea bout costs is just bollocks, too.

The only stuff I need google for to 'fix' something on my Mac is when an AppleScript does not work as expected.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when is macOS a walled garden?

Re: Were the users randomized?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Linux numbers are *not* all elective. There's entire swaths of the company that are required by corporate security policy to use Linux. That's one unhappy population, since the Linux deployment has long been full of bugs.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[angel'o'sphere]

Yes, I really asked what a domain controller is.
Neither Macs, nor any other computer, unless it is windows, uses/needs them.
Obviously ... white screens and such ... hardware fails regardless if brand, facepalm.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[David_Hart]

Yes, I really asked what a domain controller is.
Neither Macs, nor any other computer, unless it is windows, uses/needs them.
Obviously ... white screens and such ... hardware fails regardless if brand, facepalm.

In Linux it's usually a LDAP Directory Server. And yes, for any decent sized organization with LINUX or Windows, you do need a Domain Controller / Directory server to manage user accounts and permissions. Otherwise you are creating local user accounts all over the place with no control over access.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Tool Man]

Of course they had lots of issues still, they're *marketing*. Across all my years' experience in a few companies, I have never seen a group more technically inept than them, except perhaps for sales. Sure, there's an occasional bright light, but the field sure attracts the techno-peasants.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Anonymous Coward]

First it was, "well yeah, nobody uses them".
Then it was, "oh but those people only use email."
Now it's, "Oh but it's self-selecting for more competent users."

We've always known that osx is objectively far less problematic, in every way. How much dancing are we going to do around this?

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Lord Apathy]

That there is a very valid point.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[dwywit]

You must have made a deal with the devil. My mac customers had to switch back to ethernet cables because their wi-fi was SLOW (connecting to an Airport time capsule, not the ADSL router), they sometimes forget their shared printers, and experience other problems familiar to Windows users.

I tell anyone who asks that Apple computers have issues less frequently than Windows, but cost more (complexity, parts, time) to fix.

It's not the hardware, or the OS, or the software, it's the whole package, and how much it costs you over its life.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Lord Apathy]

Don't you just love it when a Mac user losses their shit when you drag them out of the wall garden of appleness and put them in the real world?

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Lord Apathy]

Okay, I'm going to assume you are not working in IT since you don't know what a domain controller (DC) is. If you are working in IT, you should find some other line of work.

Yes, Mac and other computers, need to be plugged into a DC just like any windows box in a working environment. I'm sitting 5 feet from a mac on a DC just like all the windows and Linux boxes in this organization. Modern computer administration is all about central management of resources. And that is usually done from a domain controller.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Darinbob]

I've seen lots of macbook hardware issues. We had several with the faulty batteries, and when they switched to not having user replaceable batteries or a removeable battery cover, a swelling battery bent the entire case of one unit. Part of the problem is that Apple is aggressive about reducing size and cramming more hardware into a smaller space, whereas the larger Dell laptops tend to last longer overall from what I've seen.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[war4peace]

Could be other reasons for the difference in TCO.
I'm assuming IBM, much like all other large corporations, uses a standardized (customized across the entire organization) OS image on the machines. Those OS installations come with bundled software (say, encryption, monitoring, license analyzers, etc). Tools to help and automate things.
Now, it could just as well be that the tools themselves are shitty.

There's a paradox here. Windows OS can't really tightly integrate tools because everyone would yell "Monopoly!", so Microsoft simply doesn't include lots of tools that come preinstalled on Macs. And if one or more of these third party tools are deployed for the whole organization, as a mandatory installation, those tools might generate a lot of cost. Is this end users' fault? Unlikely. It just might be that whatever encryption or AV tool some big shot suit picked just sucks. It crashes often, corrupts data, loses saved credentials, desyncs with the policy server, etc. So this generates cost, and Microsoft / Windows / Users are blamed.

While I don't dispute the claims, I am sure the TCO reasons require some digging.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Darinbob]

Oh, so there is actually a properly managed IT department somewhere in the world, or is this hypothetical?

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Darinbob]

However there's another effect. It takes 5 minutes to help out that user and explain what the cup holder is. The average question from the average user is probably only 10 minutes of work. But there are the HARD questions that take hours or days to resolve ("help, I'm getting an incorrect DNS response from corporate LAN in building A but it's working fine in building B"). The power users that can solve the simple stuff themselves often are the ones with the really complicated issues.

Ie, I upgraded office on the mac, then I hated how the new outlook worked and it was slowing me down so I restored the original Office from backup. This started some problems rolling along under the scenes. Later when I wanted to upgrade again with more time to deal with the issues, it didn't work. Took it to IT asking if they could upgrade office for me, and there was a lot of head scratching going on and it was half a day before I got my mac back.

Re: Were the users randomized?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Toshibas are being phased out as fast as possible. The docking stations were horrible as was reliability.

The Lenovos offered as an alternative to Toshibas are O.K., just a bit bulky - the current Lenovo docking stations are so so. Given most of these where I work are used as desktops docking stations do matter.

Personally I can't understand why anyone likes the Macs (I was one of the earliest Mac users in IBM - porting software) and it was an absolute bitch to do anything beyond that which Apple wanted you to do. Hate to badmouth my peers but I think there's an amount of "Oh shiny !" in going to Macs. Welll and anything BUT Windows because Windows is painful to use because of the forced AV software, try building something with a 1000 object files when the AV software is signature checking every created file ;).

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Anonymous Coward]

not really in this situation. Most of the problem at IBM is IBM software and legacy shit that is deployed and used on windows machines. To convert to a Mac you have to get rid of that dependence and hence don't have the IBM shitware weighing you down.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure about that. At that rate assuming all 1300 were new users not including replacements it still would take 6.5 yrs for them to migrate. If they are migrating people over they are taking their sweat ass time about it.

3X: the cost of machines would be my guess approximately equivalent because they are probably using lenovo X1s or T series and the like for windows machines. Multiple probably closer to 2X if you were to use other business level, but not necessarily Lenovo machines ex HP or dells.

Also: does it compare productivity? Maybe the mac users are using office suite and web apps but win desktop people have more complicated software that also needs suppport. Saving 3X on support costs for users that only use GDocs isn't exactly a win if the windows users are all devs, electrical engineers and the like. Yeah more demanding computer users will demand more user support (even if you figure out more stuff by yourself you are still more likely to say: hey way is my proxy redirect rule not working with ... which ends up eating up a shit ton of IT time to figure out). I'm not against mac hardware just think it is also kind of bullshit they haven't updated their laptops for 4yrs and people still treat them like they are a reasonable alternative. They not only sell over priced machines, they sell obsolete over priced machines. (if you want a Mac IMO buy it right after a refresh because they never discount so the deal gets worse over time not better where as the PC market seems to always competitively price the machine specs as the model ages).

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. My guess: sales types selling to "creative industries" opt for a Macbook to fit in with their customers for running their Salesforce on. Techincal guys that need to code or whatever opt for linux or windows. Maybe most of them opt for windows and then dual boot meaning linux numbers are higher than reported. They need more help because they are actually using their computer not just a browser.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Khyber]

You fail at some of the finer points of statistics. Randomized samples are the standard, not self-selected internal departments.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Khyber]

One I'm independently-contracted to has an awesomely-managed IT team, it's the other departments doing shit we tell them not to or not properly communicating a time frame or message that fucks everything up.

Re: Were the users randomized?

[Khyber]

The actual solution is fire everyone that has no expertise doing their own troubleshooting and hire people that possess these capabilities, company-wide.

*THEN* you can get rid of the help desk, and downsize all the other departments (including IT) because there will be far fewer support requests coming from the other departments, and the people at the computer are likely to be faster and more productive. They're also likely the kind to help you find even MORE efficiency to gain, and let you know FREELY about it. They might even have the system already designed and an implementation ready for you to try!

That's how you run shit as CIO. You get the CEO, CTO, and COO on board with that plan and go. Real lean, you can pay the fewer people remaining more money AND still manage to pocket a good chunk of money on the side.

I have no clue why the fuck anyone needs a degree to figure this out.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Jeremi]

it's a hidden cost that is virtually impossible to tally on a spreadsheet: your productivity is lost while you fix that problem. Did it take you an hour, where a tech might have taken 10 minutes?

Not really an issue at my employer, where the IT department will always take at least 48 hours to respond, followed by an additional 8 hours to diagnose, only to conclude that my Mac "must have come down with a virus" and recommend that I reinstall Windows on it.

(only mostly kidding)

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Jeremi]

Tried that. It didn't work because the technically inept parent still had just as much problem with the Apple product. It turns out that you can't idiot proof something.

Sometimes you gotta up the dose. If a Mac isn't simple enough, switch them to an iPad. If they can't handle the iPad, then there's no hope, you'll need to migrate them back to pen-and-paper.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[fuzznutz]

In most places I've worked, if you were allowed to use Linux as your desktop OS at all; you were on your own and completely unsupported by IT, whether you needed it or nor.

Same here. They were clueless and I loved it. They weren't all up in my box all the time and I got my work done despite their "best practices." One time, they even sent out a flunkie to check out why my IP address was refusing when they pushed Windows updates. I had a good belly laugh over that one.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Gussington]

They're not self-selecting at a rate of 1300 people per week...

The IT dept is migrating them.

Don't act like you have more insight into IBM's support issues that the head IT guy at IBM.

My experience of IBM was getting them in to quote on a migration piece for our SAN, The quote of $50k ensured we never did any business with them ever again. I end up doing the work all by myself in less than a week. Maybe their Windows support guys charge out at a similar rate?

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Gussington]

Hardware wise, the Macs generally use decent hardware that lasts,

Such as? The Hardware is all made at the same factory. CPUs, RAM, SSDs are all the same stuff regardless of label on the box. Or do you seriously think an Apple Intel CPU is more reliable than a Dell Intel CPU?

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Anonymous Coward]

Two words: Active Directory

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Shane_Optima]

The size of a number has no bearing on its statistical relevance. A sample of 90 would be entire sufficient, if it were a high quality sample with zero bias. And a sample of 90,000 would be worthless if it was a poor quality sample with no attempt to correct for bias.

The differing demographics and use cases for Mac vs. Windows users are the obvious potential biases here. The people who are allowed to use Macintoshes at IBM are not likely to be a random sample of employees. I suspect many divisions at IBM don't offer Macintosh workstations as a option for their employees.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Shane_Optima]

They're not self-selecting at a rate of 1300 people per week...

The IT dept is migrating them.

Don't act like you have more insight into IBM's support issues that the head IT guy at IBM.

The IT department is migrating who? Everyone? Do you honestly believe they're drawing names at random out of a hat, from all the divisions combined, without regards to the kind of software the people in question are running and need to run? Do you think the mid to high level executive with little technical expertise and the mission-critical stuff stored in the 20 year old macro-heavy spreadsheet of doom is going to be migrated in the same manner as everyone else?

There's a hell of a lot more to statistics than large sample sizes being generally preferable.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[barc0001]

Problems with their Macbook Pros only acknowledged after a class action lawsuit:

http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/mac/widespread-2011-macbook-pro-failures-petition-lawsuit-repair-programme-3497935/

Another video card recall, this time in the 27" iMac:

https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT203787

Hard drives too:

https://www.apple.com/support/imac-harddrive-3tb/

I do like how they say it's a "small number" of units and yet set up an entire program to handle that one component's replacement.

Those are the ones that immediately came to mind but there are also others I recall with their Kleenex box Mac Pro and more. It's interesting how it's usually the more expensive hardware that has the big problems with them. Nothing like sticking it to your biggest customers?

Re: Were the users randomized?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems like a common story. IT was (is?) still stuck at Ubuntu 14.04, so I actually went with 16.04 on my own without IT support and I end up having fewer problems than the people sticking to the supported system.
A lot of it is also stupid things, like others have only the domain server at the main office configured, but not the local backup, so every time the WAN link goes down they can't log on or sudo.
Lots of 1-minute fixes that are missing to take it from a crappy to a great experience.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[angel'o'sphere]

A domain controller is not an LDAP server ... it is something different.
No idea what it actually does.

Obviously if you want a directory service for user management you need LDAP or a similar thing: (*facepalm*). That is a no brainer.

E.g. my latest Win2000 machine stopped booting at some point in time ... waited 45 minutes until it gave up to "find its domain controller" ... it never had one. I had to google and switch a toggle in the registry to fix it. Guess what? The problem reappeared every few weeks (before that the machine run just fine for 5 years)

Re:Were the users randomized?

[angel'o'sphere]

On a Mac thee is no "walled garden", you mix up iPhons/iPads with Computers.

And what actually do you lose "in the real world" is beyond me.

I'm lucky I have not to cope with computers that "don't work" ...

It is pretty dumb that people consider themselves superior because they get computer working "that don't work" ... I expect my computer to work and not to change "behaviour" unless I change some settings.

When I change settings, I know how to change them back. On a linux/unix box all settings are in git anyway ... no way to do that on Windows.

So good luck with your ignorance.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[angel'o'sphere]

Depends what you call IT.

I do software architectures and hence have a close contact to IT. And for my work I do not need to know what a domain controller is.

As you where not able to give a three sentence explanation, I strongly suspect: you don't know either.

No, Macs and Linux machines don't need to be plugged to a "DC" ... perhaps you mean an LDAP server for user and rights management?

Re:Were the users randomized?

[epine]

Or do you seriously think an Apple Intel CPU is more reliable than a Dell Intel CPU?

Never heard of Xeon? At least half of a high-end chip's reliability comes from the post-manufacture test procedure and binning standard.

At Apple's scale, they can negotiate any production standard with Intel that they wish to have. This isn't even uncommon, as companies like Google and Facebook are already negotiating custom Xeons for the datacenter, which certainly involves tweaking some internal chip firmware (e.g. changing cache allocation policies or thermal envelopes), all the way up to possibly adding specialized instructions and/or execution units.

Finally, far more problems arise from the mainboard and assembly quality than the underlying chip quality, but at the end of the day it all adds up.

Welcome to Supply Chain 501. It's not your father's Supply Chain 101.

That said, Apple (the company) is a cult-like Black Box of the highest order. When it serves their agenda, they make good products. When their agenda shifts with the winds of fashion—so long, sweet Mini—caveat emptor.

The New Mac mini is Quickly Turning into a Disaster
Mac Mini 2014 Review: A Terrible Shame

Once upon a time, a very nice product, too bad about the "greatness" removal tool presiding from the glass office.

Re: Were the users randomized?

[Junta]

You forgot installing weird things like asset management software and anti-virus, on top of being based on an enterprise distro with poor desktop support to start with, and *then* holding back updates on top of that.

Funny thing was, the anti-virus software at the time *only* supported detection of signatures of Windows viruses. They supported linux with the use case of a Samba file server to protect Windows clients, but they put it on all the linux desktops and sucked down tons of resources and brought things to a crawl.

It was the moment that I got a 'blessed' configuration of Linux to run on my laptop that I finally had some sympathy for Microsoft and how their platform is treated by vendors and IT departments and how much of MS 'badness' is due to preloads and IT department loads being very stupid. Of course Microsoft hasn't done any favors with poor QA on updates causing that mindset in the first place, but the avoidance is worse than taking the updates.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Lord Apathy]

Microsoft Active Directory (AD) service is usually what a DC is running. AD back bone is LDAP, to put it simply. Basically a LDAP server could be called a 'domain controller' as it serves the same function as a DC.

Just to correct your assessment. You should have said "Macs and Linux machines don't have to be plugged in to a DC". This would be correct, and nether do Windows machines. Depending on the size of the environment these machines do need be plugged in to a DC.

If you have a only a handful of machines, say less than 20, then its fine to go along with out a DC. But even in this environment its better to have one. In a medium or large organization having a DC forest set up is essential. I would almost say required.

Since you do not work in IT this would be a good thing. Please do not move into this field, less people will hate you in life and I doubt you would be happy there.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Lord Apathy]

Call me ignorance, that is a laugh. You where the one that doesn't know what a domain controller is.

Dude, mixing in iphones, ipads and macs only? That is a walled garden. That is the exact example of one. One where one set of devices made by on manufacture interact with each other by specifications set by said manufacture. In this case apple. That is the exact definition of a walled garden.

Re: Were the users randomized?

[Some_Llama]

i would think 200 people being paid 10% more because they can do their own IT would be more cost than the relevant IT needed to support 200 who don't (1 tech and 1 manager).

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Some_Llama]

Took it to IT asking if they could upgrade office for me, and there was a lot of head scratching going on and it was half a day before I got my mac back."

did you tell them you had tried to upgrade it yourself and then reinstalled the old version?

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Some_Llama]

i support an environment of 40% mac and 60% pc and the macs do all of the above, plus they lose searching in outlook, they drop bluetooth support needing SMC restarts and removal of ALL usb devices, they can't properly sync with AD, they have problems with WIFI profiles.

they are just as bad as windows and a little bit worse because anything you can typically rma and cross ship with a PC supplier you have to go and sit at the apple store for support. and after 2 hours there they RMA the device anyways.. but don't offer any type of data transfer.

not to mention all of the crap that is widely discussed in PC forums is on lockdown in the apple forums and receive no answer.. just a random fix from apple x years down the road with no acknowledgement or word as to why it was borked in the first place.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[VisceralLogic]

My company has a "Computing Down Time" charge line.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Some_Llama]

my mother has used macs ever since they began, she had an original apple (the little square box with the keyboard and mouse). she has upgraded her mac every 3-4 years or so, she hates windows.. as the years have gone by she has gotten increasingly more frustrated with apple and it's OS, saying it is more like windows.

she now has issues with the OS all the time, i have had to go and have apple reimage the system every couple of years because it is completely unusable by that time.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Darinbob]

Yes. Though it wasn't a reinstall, it was a rollback in time machine. I think problem was that unlike native OSX apps, Microsoft kept some vital data outside of the applications folder.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Uberbah]

Problems with their Macbook Pros only acknowledged after a class action lawsuit:

And Samsung phones are blowing up on airplanes and setting people's houses on fire - but nobody GAF because it's not Apple. The problem for Hatebois is that Apple has been at or near the top of reliability surveys since the Paleozoic era of computing.

No, that doesn't mean they're flawless, Hateboi canards to the contrary. It means their shit is more reliable than everyone else's shit.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[barc0001]

Hateboi? What are you, 12? And you're definitely acting like a massive Mac Fanboy here. Replying to a 3 day dead article to say "but but Note 7!" when we're talking about PCs and laptops. But hey if you want to bring phones into it, I'll totally acknowledge Apple was the visionary leader in phones catching fire:

http://www.phonearena.com/news/iPhone-6-Plus-catches-fire-in-mans-bed_id77021
http://bgr.com/2016/10/03/iphone-explosion-fire-6-plus-student-pocket/

and their latest batch doesn't seem to be immune:

http://abc30.com/news/fresno-woman-says-her-iphone-exploded-and-caught-on-fire-in-her-bedroom/1543292/
http://fortune.com/2016/10/21/apple-iphone-7-explodes/

Should we now shift the goalposts to some other area? Perhaps cars? Ford totally pioneered the exploding car tech with their Pinto...

Re:Were the users randomized?

[angel'o'sphere]

Well, then obviously you are doing it all wrong.
What is a Wifi Profile and why do you think a Mac needs one?
Why and what should a Mac synch with AD? The AD is needed to hold his info and password, thats it. There should never be any reason to synch something up to AD.

OTOH, the OS is going downhill. Mysterious "suddenly it does not work anymore" is happening now quite often. Either intentionally by Apple when they ditch something the old OS could do easily or due to bugs.

I would prefer they fixed bugs instead of issuing new versions of the OS now every 6 months.

Re:Were the users randomized?

[Uberbah]

What are you, 12?

Your projection is noted.

And you're definitely acting like a massive Mac Fanboy here.

Whining at the fact that Apple has long been at the top of hardware reliability surveys is a pure Hateboi reaction. As is losing your shit and throwing your kitchen sink at the effigy of Steve Jobs you've constructed.

Replying to a 3 day dead article

And what do you think you're doing, Slick? And what do you mean, "dead"? An article isn't dead until comments are closed. Your elevator isn't going to the top floor...

to say "but but Note 7!" when we're talking about PCs and laptops.

Because you pulled a random search for recalls out of your ass, err, Google. Classic Hateboi nutpicking. Guess what, you can find Honda recalls too - doesn't change the fact they're more reliable than other car makers. You want to talk about PC's? Okay, lets talk about:

Dell recalls 4 million 'exploding' laptops

....and how it was a complete non-issue, because it wasn't Apple.

http://www.phonearena.com/news/iPhone-6-Plus-catches-fire-in-mans-bed_id77021

Read your own link? "The two main culprits that cause a malfunctioning cellphone battery are physical damage or use of a low quality, unauthorized charger." When Apple has a crisis so bad they recall an entire line, factory supplied chargers included, do let us know.

Should we now shift the goalposts to some other area?

Says the Hateboi who hasn't bothered to address the fact that Apple took the top spot in reliability, as the usually do. Specifically on laptops, when you wanted to wank on about....PC's and laptops.

People are shocked by this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple lends itself to forcing a specific way of doing things on users, so the software side is much easier to support. The default applications are, in many cases, good enough - sidestepping the usual Windows problem of everyone and their mother having their own special snowflake favorite program to do X.

And the OS is still comparatively attack vector free. Yes, you can get viruses these days on a Mac. But there's far less to worry about if you're supporting people who insist on opening every e-mail and accompanying attachments without even bothering to see who's sending it.

The hardware quality is in all honesty diminished from what it was a decade ago - but it still kicks the crap out of random PC components strung together without reasonable compatibility or quality testing.

There is something to that...

[MindPrison]

...my neighbor had a PC, shes 70 years old.

I supported her for several months on a weekly basis because of her virus woes and constant update and install issues. I was noticing that her computer was getting old and dated, and suggested for her to get a new computer. I suggested an iMac. (And interestingly enough, Im an Apple hater, I really hate macs!).

Why did I then suggest her one of those overpriced thingies? The darn thing cost her 2500 USD and didnt even come with an SSD in 2016. But the thing was, I knew she wouldnt get more worms and viruses...because Mac is like 10 percent of the worlds PC sales, and the viruses usually dont survive that far when the percentage of ownership is that low, so I thought...that ought to get her off my support case...

The only thing she ever contacted me about after that, was the bluetooth keyboard running out of battery juice after 3 months of not being plugged in, we fixed that and she was back to happy.

See the picture here? PC and old people = trouble because of the numerous technical issues, updates, plugins, viruses, worms etc...with her Apple...all she had to do is ...well..use the damn thing.

Me? I still prefer PC, and I still hate the Apple company with a passion...but at least they got their audience right, idiots that cant figure out the slightest thing, and they pay the premium for it too!

Re:There is something to that...

[Austerity Empowers]

idiots that cant figure out the slightest thing, and they pay the premium for it too!

Because of this, PCs continue to race to the bottom and are a source of trouble even for expert users and will never get better because those users suck every dime from system vendor margins. Mac's make Apple some money because, as long as they "just work", they can charge a premium and be part of the food chain.

Re:There is something to that...

[ahabswhale]

"The darn thing cost her 2500 USD and didnt even come with an SSD in 2016."

The hard storage used in 2016 MBPs uses PCIe, which is far superior to SSD.

Re:There is something to that...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your hatred of Apple is bizarre. Seek professional help.

Re:There is something to that...

[MightyYar]

To be fair, some of us like Macs because it's a super-easy way to get a smoothly operating unix laptop. The hardware is generally within +/- 10% of equivalent Windows gear - though that calculus got difficult for a while when Apple fell behind the Intel upgrade curve. I run Linux all day, every day, but it's in a VM, so at the end of the day I don't really care what the underlying OS is.

Re:There is something to that...

[Anonymous Coward]

Make sure the person has 2 accounts. One account as a standard user that he/she would regularly use and the other as an Administrative user which is used to elevate privileges for installing software. Better yet, if the person only needs to surf the web, email, light office work, music, movies, etc... you can install any linux distro on the her old machine or even new one. Just show and ask the person which DE he/she would prefer.

Re:There is something to that...

[Anonymous Coward]

The darn thing cost her 2500 USD and didnt even come with an SSD in 2016."

The hard storage used in 2016 MBPs uses PCIe, which is far superior to SSD.

He claims she paid $2,500, which probably means she got a system with a Fusion drive. It's not an SSD, but it'll be a lot more performant than a standard HDD.

It seems the grandparent doesn't know much about computers to begin with. It sounds like a lot of that woman's woes could have been solved with some basic virus/malware scanning software and setting her up as a limited user, but I guess he didn't think of that.

Also, she didn't *have* to pay $2,500 for an iMac. If that's what he suggested to her he did wrong by her. She could have spent ~$1k or less by buying a refurbished model, get an education discount, buy it used, or even get a different Mac like the Mac Mini or a MacBook Air. But, nope, had to buy the most expensive base iMac they offer.

Re:There is something to that...

[Anonymous Coward]

Truth is, the majority of people don't need a pc, a tablet or smartphone would do just fine.

Re:There is something to that...

[Ash-Fox]

I supported her for several months on a weekly basis because of her virus woes and constant update and install issues.

I would argue that you didn't seem to know what you were doing either. It takes very little effort to lock down a system sufficiently without hindering the user in Windows. A few security options and GPOs is trivial compared to doing the same in OS X.

I knew she wouldnt get more worms and viruses

All the scummy confusing malware ads for cleaning your mac and crap that is still super common today when you visit websites and you really want to make that claim?

Sorry, I don't believe you. I've seen way too many Mac users with problems you describe to know it.

Re:There is something to that...

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyway, everything is pretty much moving to the Cloud. Programming(Visual Studio), Accounting, Office Suits, Communications(Skype), Movie/Music streaming services, etc... So i think smartphones and tablets without MS and Apple Desktops will rule the tech industry

Re: There is something to that...

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh ? Most of my pcs are windows and I have year after year of no problems whatsoever.

I'm sure I could use any OS without any problems though.

Re:There is something to that...

[Anonymous Coward]

its still ssd son.... ssd with a pcie interface vs ssd with a sata interface.

Re:There is something to that...

[ColdWetDog]

Next time you do that, save everyone time and money and get grandma an iPad (or Android equivalent, it really doesn't make much of a difference). Back it up to iCloud (well, the iPad, Android users have to let the NSA do it). About the only thing you're going to have to worry about is replacing the power cord when it gets lost.

Re:There is something to that...

[svendsen]

A lot of university research labs use a high percentage of Macs. Labs I have personally seen (couple dozen easily) usually have a ~80% (macs) /20% (pc) split. A lot of reasons they use them is the lack of issues PC's bring with them. My wife's lab is 90% macs and the only PC machines she has are the ones that came scientific equipment she bought because some vendors don't develop for macs.

I have seen a lot of PCs hooked up to scientific equipment go down because a windows update failed, anti-virus software causing problems, etc. making those machines (some of them $1M+) be completely useless for long periods of time. In fact I have NEVER seen a scientific piece of equipment down that was run by a mac because the mac itself had issues.

So yes macs cost more only if compared to a single point of time. The hidden/soft costs of PC's come up in the medium/longer run.

Also why did Grandma need the 2500 version of the iMac? You can buy one for $1100. Unless grandma was hardcore into games or data processing?

Re:There is something to that...

[angel'o'sphere]

Isn't it a complete waste of mental and emotional energy to hate something that leaves you completely alone?

Re:There is something to that...

[Anonymous Coward]

You should have suggested a chromebook.

Re:There is something to that...

[Megol]

He mentioned iMac - not MBP. He also mentioned a specific sum and that this configuration didn't include an SSD. SSD stands for Solid State Drive, it doesn't imply a specific interface. So no, the MBP doesn't have a superior storage solution compared to SSD - it uses an SSD with PCIe connection (hopefully NVME - but Apple likes their "special sauce"). A solution which also is available in less costly PCs.

So how is this in any way relevant?

Re:There is something to that...

[angel'o'sphere]

PCIe is a connection/connector standard.
Not a storage technology.

Re:There is something to that...

[Trailer Trash]

but at least they got their audience right, idiots that cant figure out the slightest thing, and they pay the premium for it too!

Or smart people like me who realize that they have better things to do than fuck around with cleaning up viruses...

Re:There is something to that...

[Translation Error]

but at least they got their audience right, idiots that cant figure out the slightest thing, and they pay the premium for it too!

So... a product that doesn't require knowledge of the underlying system and just works smoothly and quietly while the user can just focus on what they actually bought the product for? Yeah, those Mac users are real suckers--I can't believe they actually think that sort of thing is worth paying extra for!

Less sarcastically, if I buy a car, I don't want to have to learn mechanic skills and spend time constantly tweaking things to keep it running smoothly. I just want to put in gas and drive. In addition to that, at most, I need perform minor maintenance or pay someone a small fee to do so--and when the car needs some, it tells me! Why are Mac users idiots and suckers for wanting that sort of experience with their computers?

Re:There is something to that...

[wisnoskij]

Yes, this is best thing to do with old relatives. My Grandmother now spends like every other day in a Apple Genius Bar trying to figure out how to use her computer, but that is what they are there for.

Re:There is something to that...

[Just Some Guy]

because Mac is like 10 percent of the worlds PC sales, and the viruses usually dont survive that far when the percentage of ownership is that low

That has zero to do with the relative dearth of malware on Macs. (Pausing for a moment for a pedant to point out the one or two Mac bugs they've read about. Yes, we know. It's still proportionally much less than Mac's market share so move along.) Macs are initially more expensive, but that also means there owners tend to have more money and therefore the machines are more valuable targets. There are also still tens of millions of Macs out there in the wild. Even if there are more PCs, there are still a hell of a lot of Macs to be owned for anyone interested and capable. The fact that they're not is an indicator that building a nice interface on top of a solid Unix platform is a good way to end up with a stable, secure desktop.

Re:There is something to that...

[Anonymous Coward]

"The darn thing cost her 2500 USD and didnt even come with an SSD in 2016."

The hard storage used in 2016 MBPs uses PCIe, which is far superior to SSD.

Better tell him to upgrade his V.92 modem to a V.2016 model for increased internet speed too!

Re:There is something to that...

[Anonymous Coward]

> basis because of her virus woes and constant update and install issues
> but at least they got their audience right, idiots that cant figure out the slightest thing
> I still hate the Apple company with a passion

So, by your own logic, the market for PCs are idiots who like getting viruses and spending all their time dealing with installers.

I'm not sure that's what you meant to say, but bigots, especially ones that admit it so clearly, often post stupid things.

Re:There is something to that...

[Anonymous Coward]

Irrational hatred of Macs or of PCs just means you've limited your options. I work on Windows, OS X, and Linux Unix. They each have a purpose and they each have their plusses and minuses. I use them all and hate certain things about each platform.

You also had her overpay for the iMac. It shouldn't have cost that much, because she's likely only surfing the internet and checking email. I hope you've installed antivirus software on the Mac. With the announcement from IBM about their workforce switching to Macs, they've basically told virus writers to target Macs. Windows is actually more secure than Macs. It's just that there's plenty enough users that are going to click on links and install junk. Macs have only survived, so far, because they haven't been really targeted. Imagine what will happen now when they do target Macs. You can actually backdoor a Mac much more easily than modern Windows systems.

Windows has actually had years of attacks to improve their security. That alone will give them a boost once the attacks on Macs begin.

Re:There is something to that...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it's different in the lab, but at the manufacturing places I do support for, the PCs running the equipment don't connect to the network, and thus, are never updated.

Re:There is something to that...

[guruevi]

The problem is the 'premium' has been largely debunked in enterprise settings. If you ever get to price out a Dell or HP machine with the same features as a Mac, you're ending up paying more than a Mac. Sure you can get a 5 year old CPU in a brand new Dell and pay $500 but if you care about 3 year hardware support and somewhat modern hardware, you're paying a good chunk more to Dell than to Apple.

Re:There is something to that...

[Anonymous Coward]

PCs can do more, good and bad. Macs are locked down in a walled garden. If your lab people don't know much about technology and don't need to use any but the most basic of features, use macs. If they need something more, perhaps they ought to hire a tech department...

Re:There is something to that...

[svendsen]

Which is the real smart thing to do. Depends on the vendor who sold the equipment and what the internet requirements are. Sometimes there is no choice which sucks.

Re:There is something to that...

[unixisc]

Right. Although the GP probably meant a SSD w/ a PCIe interface instead of a SATA interface

Re:There is something to that...

[Type44Q]

...a smartphone with 640K, no doubt.

Re:There is something to that...

[Type44Q]

You've got "SSD" and "SATA" confused.

Re:There is something to that...

[Anonymous Coward]

You could have gotten her a Chromebook, saved her a pile of money, and had the same effect.

The point is, she's using it for web browsing and email, I expect... you don't need a Mac or even a PC for that. Simplify it down to a Chromebook and those very same problems are addressed... for FAR less money.

Re:There is something to that...

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's just email and web browsing she does, she could have bought a ChromeBox.

Re:There is something to that...

[Anonymous Coward]

A while? Like 4 freaking years?

If Apple wants to let Macbooks die a slow death that is fine but they shouldn't keep charging the same premium for a 2012 computer. They are so worried that offering discounts would tarnish their premium image but they don't give two shits about actually offering a premium product. I don't mind Macs but would never recommend one unless it has been refreshed within the last 6mths or so. Otherwise you are not only paying a 10% premium but a 10% premium on an obsolete machine. Fortunately it sounds like we should get something hopefully making it less of a ripoff in a week or so.

Re:There is something to that...

[Altrag]

Depends on your definition of "waste." Its definitely not constructive, but it must benefit us in some way since people everywhere have been spending energy on hating things that otherwise wouldn't affect them for basically all of recorded history.

Of course, it may be among those things that were handy back when we were running around dodging tigers and just hasn't had time to de-evolve now that we no longer need it so much in the modern world. Who knows.

Re:There is something to that...

[Altrag]

From my experience, Macs work great .. as long as you only ever want to do the things Steve Jobs thought you should want to do. Which admittedly, is a good fit for most non-techies that just want email and a web browser.

As soon as you try to break out of the mold though, things tend to take a nosedive very fast. Just try sorting your iTunes list by path/filename. Yeah no juice there. You use Apple's library system or you piss off. There's no third option.

Or Flash. Sure Flash might be terrible in many ways, but you _still_ can't access like half the video sites on the web from a mobile phone. Because Apple decided that breaking the web was a good tradeoff in order to boost their battery life marketing by 10%. I was super disappointed when Google followed suit on that one.

And of course, there's the age-old issue of lack of software for Macs. Definitely nowhere near as bad as it was 10 or 15 years ago, but you still don't have to go too far outside of the mainstream to find software that's Windows-only. A particular problem for gamers where its much more common to want to purchase and use a wide range of products.

Re:There is something to that...

[Altrag]

It's still proportionally much less than Mac's market share so move along

That's not really something you can move along from. There's a critical mass issue involved. Both a critical mass of users and a critical mass of third-party software:

- Users: Nobody, including bad people, are going to intentionally choose a market that's only 10% of the total when its just as easy to target the other 90%. I don't know what the critical mass percentage is, but its definitely higher than 10%.

- Third-party software: I'm not going to try and claim that the Windows kernel is as secure as the BSD one, but even in Windows the vast majority of exploits are enabled via third-party software (well, and IE..) The bigger the Mac software library gets, the more targets there will be for finding back doors.

Now, for the moment at least, "less viruses" indeed is a valid reason to choose a Mac. But "less possible viruses" is something we can't possibly judge until/unless Mac starts breaking some of these critical points. Whether or not Apple will be able to avoid the cat and mouse game that Microsoft plays with the virus writers and other villians other remains to be seen.

I personally suspect that if Mac ever manages to get close to parity in the market, Apple will end up with just as much of a malware issue as Windows has. Because software is hard no matter how good your marketing department or how zealous your fanbois.

Re:There is something to that...

[Gussington]

I supported her for several months on a weekly basis because of her virus woes and constant update and install issues.

I hear these stories all the time but can only guess that you (or they) are doing something horribly wrong.
I've given out various Windows machines to my family ranging from children to grannies and the extent of issues are maybe every year or two a fresh OS install.
I simply can't see how you need help every week unless you are really stupid and click on those "You the 1 millionth visitor!" type things every single time.
I would give them Macs because I do agree they are easier, but they are ridiculously expensive. My kids have $200 laptops, the Macbook equivalent is over $1000.

Re:There is something to that...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ten to one you set her up running with an account in the admin group. That means her "support team" was/is a fucking idiot (ID10T) So now with OSX do you have her run as root?

Fucking Jerk

Re:There is something to that...

[angel'o'sphere]

There are no SSDs with PCIe interface.
That would not make any sense.

My Macs most certainly all have a standard SATA interface :D as it clearly shown in "About this Mac" > "System Report ..."

A PCIe slot is about the size of your edge of your palm, in length and thickness.

Re:There is something to that...

[Anonymous Coward]

> Macs are locked down in a walled garden.

No, they aren't, ignoramus.

Re:There is something to that...

[Anonymous Coward]

> There are no SSDs with PCIe interface.
> That would not make any sense.

Heh. Oh really ?

Re:There is something to that...

[MightyYar]

Agreed, it has been far too long for the refresh on the Pro models - and it's very hard to recommend them at their current price.

With that said, they might not be letting them die a slow death, but rather been unhappy with that particular generation of Intel mobile chips in a "Pro" model.

Re:There is something to that...

[hvdh]

If you ever get to price out a Dell or HP machine with the same features as a Mac, you're ending up paying more than a Mac.

That's partly because Dell does't let you select consumer GPUs for workstations*, and partly obscene pricing for extra RAM, disk and CPU. The last workstation I needed, I was required to buy from Dell (company-forced), and when giving my build order to the IT guy, I complained how expensive Dell is. He replied, don't care, when ordering by phone and mentioning you buy lots from Dell, the price goes down to a rerasonable level.
He was right, the 2500€ shown in Dell's web shop was reduced to 1600€..

* For a development project a few years ago, I needed the GPU to support a specific pixel shader version, and DL-DVI for the 2560x1600 screen. but not much graphics power, and no CAD support. A 100€ entry-level passive-cooling gaming card would have been a good choice, but was not configurable. One only had the choice between close-to-obsolete underpowered CAD cards (150€, not supporting the pixel shader level), and power-hungry CAD cards with noisy fans (800€+).

Re:There is something to that...

[Uberbah]

Nobody, including bad people, are going to intentionally choose a market that's only 10% of the total when its just as easy to target the other 90%.

Then why did most web server exploits target IIS when Apache had more marketshare? Because it was never about marketshare, it was about products with shitty security.

Re:There is something to that...

[Uberbah]

From my experience, Macs work great .. as long as you only ever want to do the things Steve Jobs thought you should want to do. Which admittedly, is a good fit for most non-techies that just want email and a web browser. As soon as you try to break out of the mold though, things tend to take a nosedive very fast.

Hatorade.

Just try sorting your iTunes list by path/filename. Yeah no juice there. You use Apple's library system or you piss off. There's no third option.

1) No one cares 2) nothing stops you from using another music player. Do you think Zombie Steve comes for you in the middle of the night if you install VLC and make some m3u playlists?

Or Flash. Sure Flash might be terrible in many ways, but you _still_ can't access like half the video sites on the web from a mobile phone.

Name five.

And of course, there's the age-old issue of lack of software for Macs

Name a product category where software isn't available for OS X.

A particular problem for gamers

BootCamp has been out for a full ten years now. Why don't you complain about the single button mice and lack of preemptive multitasking while you are at it?

Where do I sign up?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd love to get paid twice the price of a Windows PC to get a free Mac

My personal Mac anecdote

[Espectr0]

I purchased a 12" 2003 Powerbook. Within a few months, the hinge started to come loose, also it scratched the cover, the battery went dead in just a year, and the HDD went dead in less than two. It costed 1700$ plus tax, never mind that the processor was slower than 700$ PC laptops and included less RAM and HDD space.

I have never had an issue with PC Laptops, everyone has lasted until i got newer versions and sold them.

Why i got the Powerbook in the first place? I wanted to try MacOSX 10.3 Panther, namely because of a nice GUI and a UNIX background.

2 months ago i bought a refurbished Lenovo i7 with 8GB ram, 1TB HDD, 1080p screen and included discrete video card. Only costed 430$

Re:My personal Mac anecdote

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember 2003, I got a Sony Vaio that still works today; the Powerbooks were woefully underpowered (pre-Intel, no G5) and I did not consider them.
Now, why in the world would you get anything with a HDD and not SSD these days?

Re:My personal Mac anecdote

[ahabswhale]

Wow, your anecdotal experience from 13 years ago is so relevant today...

Re:My personal Mac anecdote

[ColdWetDog]

Gee, I have, lets see, a 2008 MacPro that's still running strong, a 2011 17 inch MBP that had a motherboard failure that Apple replaced in 2015. For free. A 2009 15 inch MBP that worked well until my wife's Jack Russel Terror spilled a Grande Latte on (never feed JRTs expresso....). The used replacement is still going strong. I have a one year old iMac that is just silently working.

I have a lot of issues with Apple. Both the Mac Pro and the 17 incher are really getting old and Apple's support of the apparently small market that likes powerful computers is rapidly waning in favor of this weird approach to making computers thinner as the populace widens.

But hardware support and build quality isn't among Apple's big problems despite the Sturm Und Drang this and every other Internet forum engenders.

Re:My personal Mac anecdote

[guruevi]

If that were true, why did you not simply return it for a replacement under the warranty?

Re:My personal Mac anecdote

[guruevi]

PowerBooks had G4's never G5's (sadly) and depending on your usage, the G4/G5's were way more powerful than contemporary Intel's.

Re:My personal Mac anecdote

[Anonymous Coward]

P-P-P-Powerbook!

Re:My personal Mac anecdote

[Espectr0]

I did not care much about the hinge,and i used it mostly on AC, didn't notice about the battery until the HDD went dead. Also, i bought it in the US and i live in Venezuela, where Apple doesn't operate.

My point is that i think the hardware isn't less prone to failure than PC, and since if it a lot more expensive, it ends up costing more overall

Re:My personal Mac anecdote

[Megane]

2003? The "Aluminum" era of Powerbooks had cases that were total crap. I owned three of them (one G4, two Intel) and the worst part was that the optical drive mount would go out of alignment and it couldn't eject disks. Also, the skin oils in the palms of my hands etched the surface of the case like crazy. They were just bad, but I had a "Pismo" G3 from 2000 that was even worse about falling apart inside.

I'm currently using a "Late 2011" 17" MacBook Pro that I got in 2012 when Apple announced that they would be discontinued. The "Unibody" cases are much more sturdy. Mine has been through a lot of bumps and scratches, and the worst thing that happened was I dropped it on the corner by the power plug and the video connector came loose and had to be re-seated. The second worst thing was after four years, gunk accumulated under the edges of the trackpad and it wouldn't click properly anymore. I fixed that too. (I'm aware that some of that series had GPU problems that were probably due to lead-free solder, but not mine.) Quad i7, full-HD 16:10 LED-backlight display, upgraded to 16GB RAM and SSD. It's been a fucking workhorse. I still feel like all the Retina models so far would be a downgrade.

So "Crappy model of Powerbook is crappy." Who'd have thunk it?

Re:My personal Mac anecdote

[ChrisMaple]

Almost all non-desktop computer battery chargers are either too stupid to handle batteries properly, or their intelligent charging profile tries to maintain too high a level of charge. Either destroys batteries. Although the best technique varies with battery technology, if you seldom use the battery but want it available for occasional use, do this: Don't have the battery installed whenever the computer is plugged in. Once a month, attach the battery and bring the charge up to 50%. Only charge the battery fully when you know you'll need an extended period of battery usage soon.

Bad Data

[Anonymous Coward]

I call BS, The issue is the people who are asking for MAC are most likely better at using a PC and are able to solve many issues on their own. The people who take whatever they are given tend to be the high support people. So leaving all the high support people in the PC group skews the support costs. Also the PC group tends to be supplied with Lowest Bidder cheap crap laptops and desktops which have cheap components and have more support issues. If the IT dept purchased better devices (ie as they are forced to pay for a higher cost Mac) those support issues would go down also.

What they dont cover is the support cost and time lost on the fact the 2 different Office suites (mac vs PC) are not feature parity, so you have issues there. No real macro support for automation in Mac office, so you now have 2 different automation support needs. Not an issue for all but an issue for some power users.

Issues with file servers, Mac uses SMB2 but doesn't support it fully, lots of file lock issues and lack of search ability. only fixed with 3rd party utilities on the file server to support AFP shares.

So if you use a Mac at home Mac at work is a good thing, but if you are a Low end PC user and having to learn MAc at work will drive those support costs up.

I run a marketing dept so I have both Mac and PC devices that need support.

Correlation != Causation

[subanark]

Maybe those that use macs are mostly graphic artists or whatnot. And maybe they run into fewer issues than your standard software engineer.

Re:Correlation != Causation

[Anonymous Coward]

The assumption that Mac users are mostly "graphic artists" or designers is a terribly outdated one. I work in the Enterprise Systems department of a Credit Union and my boss and several of my colleagues who manage Power servers, large storage subsystems and the like have Mac laptops. Now your assumption that they may need less support because of their technical proficiency might ring true in that example but in our organization many managers and non-technical users have Macs too. I still have a Windows laptop primarily because there are a number of applications I can't get for OS X that I don't want to run under a VM or compatibility layer due to them being a critical part of my job, that and I'm really not a fan of Mac keyboards, which I can solve at my desk but on the run if I need to spend extended time using the built-in can become rather frustrating.

Macs are PCs now anyways

[Anonymous Coward]

Previn is the guy responsible for turning IBM (the company that invented the PC) into an Apple Mac house

So what, IBM hasn't given a crap about selling PCs for quite some time now. Besides all of the Macs being sold are Intel x86 cpus. They're all PCs now. PC != Microsoft Windows.

Re:Macs are PCs now anyways

[Blaskowicz]

At last, they got their "CHRP"! Albeit it runs Windows NT, Mac OS, Linux and BSD but AIX and OS/2 are nowhere to be seen.

"Times Less" Makes No Sense

[danaris]

I don't know if it's just me, but I feel like I've seen this construction a lot more in recent weeks, and it really bugs me.

"X Times Less" is mathematical nonsense. "1/X As Much" is usually what is meant by it, and is both mathematically and linguistically correct.

So while I presume this headline means that Macs cost a third as much as Windows machines, that's not what it actually says.

Dan Aris

Re:"Times Less" Makes No Sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Totally agree (sorry, no mod points). My guess is that the people who write this stuff are functionally illiterate and innumerate.

Re:"Times Less" Makes No Sense

[squiggleslash]

It costs approximately $15,000 a year to support each PC user, while Mac users actually give their tech services departments $30,000 a year, for no reason whatsoever, and never call for support.

Re:"Times Less" Makes No Sense

[Bigjeff5]

It's a semantics thing, 1/x is definitely better, but most people understand that when someone says "x is 3 times less than y", they mean it would take 3 x's to equal 1 y.

And it does make some sense logically. 1/3 y is still multiplication, so "3 times less than y" is just a slightly odd way of denoting that the multiplication is inverted, saying "1/3 times y". Just like "3 times more than y" is kind of an odd way of saying "3 times y".

Actually saying these things in the most correct way sounds the strangest in conversation, IMO. "X is 3 times y dollars" just makes you sound a little off.

Re:"Times Less" Makes No Sense

[avandesande]

Yeah I wonder if it is just a matter of their Windows support team full of crusty dead weight and their new mac support team being cheap.

Re:"Times Less" Makes No Sense

[mark-t]

It seems to me that since 3 times Y is 200 percent more than Y, 3 times more than Y would be 3Y, while 3 times less than Y should be -Y. This probably isn't what is meant, so the construction is wrong.

Re:"Times Less" Makes No Sense

[poofmeisterp]

I don't know if it's just me, but I feel like I've seen this construction a lot more in recent weeks, and it really bugs me.

That's usually an indication that it's working in someone's favor. It gets more attention because people don't understand the fallacy of its logic; lack of understanding leads to more use/support of it to try to prove to others that they know what they don't.

I don't know why that condition exists. When I don't know something, I say, "I don't know."

Re:"Times Less" Makes No Sense

[j-beda]

I don't know if it's just me, but I feel like I've seen this construction a lot more in recent weeks, and it really bugs me.

"X Times Less" is mathematical nonsense. "1/X As Much" is usually what is meant by it, and is both mathematically and linguistically correct.

So while I presume this headline means that Macs cost a third as much as Windows machines, that's not what it actually says.

Dan Aris

I'm with you!

Of course, in an attempt to improve the headline, someone might say "one third less" which would mean it cost two thirds of the other price, unless it means it costs 3/4 of the other price, since one thrid of 3/4 is the 1/4 price difference.

Combining multiplication (or division) with subtraction (or addition) in one statement in phrases such as "One third more" or "one quarter less" leaves some question as to what is meant. I always encourage people to stick with just one math operation "$5 more" or "twice the price" or "half of".

Re:"Times Less" Makes No Sense

[Grunschev]

Not just you.

A costs $100.
If B costs 1 times less than A, it would be free.
If B costs 2 times less than A, shouldn't I get $100 back?

Re:"Times Less" Makes No Sense

[Attila Dimedici]

No, the reason they say "3 times less than X" rather than "1/3 less than X" is because the former sounds like a bigger difference than the latter. With the former we subconsciously think 3 times X. It is similar to why you sell almost the same number at $0.99 as at $0.98, but see a marked drop off at $1.00.

Re:"Times Less" Makes No Sense

[Anonymous Coward]

But how fucking hard is it to say 'X cost one third of Y'?

Why?

[SuperKendall]

Why call bullshit? Macs generally require less user intervention to run, and don't have automatic updates to screw things up at inopportune times. Program installation and removal is generally much simpler.

The hardware is also of much better quality than most "enterprise" computer builds, so it would last a lot longer and not have glitches...

The only people who doubt this story are those that have never used both Windows and Mac computers extensively.

Re:Why?

[Oswald McWeany]

If 40% of his windows machines needed help desk support then his organization is doing something seriously wrong.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why call bullshit? Macs generally require less user intervention to run, and don't have automatic updates to screw things up at inopportune times. Program installation and removal is generally much simpler.

The hardware is also of much better quality than most "enterprise" computer builds, so it would last a lot longer and not have glitches...

The only people who doubt this story are those that have never used both Windows and Mac computers extensively.

Yes, companies tend to buy crap quality Windows computers and then complain they suck. Spend Mac level money on hardware and lock the suckers down and manage them correctly and its not an issue.

Re:Why?

[NatasRevol]

The only people who doubt this story are those that have never used both Windows and Mac computers extensively.

I'd put one caveat.

*supported Win & Mac extensively.

I worked at a newspaper. We were 2/3 Mac, 1/3 Win. Windows users were at least half the support time, if not more.

Re:Why?

[avandesande]

Have actually worked in a real enterprise environment? They disable automatic updates and push their own patches. If they are having that much of a problem their IT department is incompetent.

Re:Why?

[Joe_Dragon]

What about when it's dumb users who can't even turn the systems / displays on or other stuff like can't work the web and need to call to get basic help?

Re:Why?

[phishybongwaters]

as someone who works in the field and actively tries to support windows and macs in an enterprise network, I can say that you literally have no idea what you are talking about. In the full sense of the term "literally".

Re:Why?

[SuperKendall]

Sure, but since a company will never do that given the option, buying Macs removes that option and thus improves support costs and length of use.

Re:Why?

[ShanghaiBill]

Windows users were at least half the support time, if not more.

Perhaps, but is that because of a deficiency in Windows, or a deficiency in the users?

If the employees were given a choice between a Mac and a WinPC, I think it is reasonable to assume that they would self-sort by IQ.

Re:Why?

[SuperKendall]

Not sure why you think there is any distinction between patches Windows downloads automatically and the updates IT pushes out automatically.

In past experience, both have broken systems I was trying to use for work.

Basically Windows updates are just not always well behaved to the system; it matters little how they arrive.

Re:Why?

[CrashNBrn]

We have both in our household. I've bought two laptops ($450 HP, used for ~4 years; $750 lenovo), replaced my desktop monitor ($200), upgraded the desktop CPU ($150), upgraded the desktop GPU ($150), replaced the desktop motherboard ($100), added more harddrives ($225)...Totalling $2025.

Yep still cost less than the wife's 2007-2008 macBook Pro ~$2300.
Within 2 years, the MacPro's headphone line went out. According to Apple, fixing that requires... wait for it... a new motherboard: $500. Anectdotal of course, but three different members of the family have taken Macs in for inspection|repair, and every damned time are told "motherboard" $500+ to fix. In one case all that was *actually* required was a new power supply.

Re:Why?

[__aaclcg7560]

What about when it's dumb users who can't even turn the systems / displays on or other stuff like can't work the web and need to call to get basic help?

When I worked at the Google IT help desk, I had to talk a recent computer scientist graduate student through the process of turning on his own workstation since no one was standing around to turn it on for him like they do at the university computer labs.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

We have both. We came so close to getting rid of our Macs. But now there is a new influx of them. And they all need to run a VM for the software that we use that has no version that runs properly on Mac.

And EVERY time one of our Mac users does a system update (which we are not allowed to prevent) it breaks things. Most recently Sierra seems to have an issue with some of our security software which is pretty much bricking the machine.

Re:Why?

[NatasRevol]

They were not self sorted. Computers were assigned by department ie finance, circulation & marketing had PCs, ads, news & prod had Macs. There were strong & weak users in every dept. So user experience is averaged out.

It was the OS.

Re:Why?

[Joe_Dragon]

what school and wow ITT is better then that.

Re:Why?

[__aaclcg7560]

If the employees were given a choice between a Mac and a WinPC, I think it is reasonable to assume that they would self-sort by IQ.

When I did a PC refresh project to replace old Dell workstations with new Dell workstations, quite a few engineers wanted Macs. That drove the Dell project manager up the wall.

Re:Why?

[__aaclcg7560]

what school and wow ITT is better then that.

Stanford. Which is ironic considering that the founders were Stanford CS graduate students and reportedly wouldn't hire Stanford CS graduate students during the early days of Google.

Re:Why?

[saloomy]

Windows, definitely a deficiency in Windows

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

So in short, you mitigated a manufacturing defect by switching OSes, (and the defect is obvious, since you still have "motherboard lockups,") and blame Windows for the hardware issue?

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

The only people who doubt this story are those that have never used both Windows and Mac computers extensively.

I've used both extensively, and I would strongly disagree.

I used to be a Mac guy through-and-through. M$ was the devil. Bill Gates was Hitler. And Windows made the baby Jesus cry. I had a succession of Macs from MacOS 8.1 through Mac OS X 10.5. I subscribed to MacAddict magazine, and frequently tried out the fun stuff on the disc it came with. I bought Mac software at CompUSA. I flashed the firmware on a Voodoo3 card so it would work in my G3. I ran servers on several Mac Minis.

Then I got a dev job that needed some .Net work done. No biggie, I thought, it's just Java with a splash of evil-sauce. Then I started learning how Windows works, and more importantly, why it does things the way it does. You see, .Net development is pretty straightforward until you need to do something with video, so with anything involving video, you have to dig into p/invoke stuff and COM interop. Suddenly, you start finding out a LOT of stuff about Win32 in general. Then you start thinking back to your Mac programming days, and then it hits you: Mac programming was always janky crap that makes Win32 look like a vacation and .Net like a frickin' paradise.

TL;DR: Apple sucks. And I'm a former Mac guy, so you can trust me on that.

Re:Why?

[avandesande]

While I agree there will always be possibility of issues with updates, it's difficult to believe it's contribution costs 3x more than a mac. I'm having a hard time remembering personally experiencing any significant issues with 20 years experience.

Re:Why?

[unixisc]

Hardly! Spend the amounts one spends on a MacBook Pro and buy high end ThinkPads, and you'll still have the same issues from Windows updates that users of low end laptops have

Re:Why?

[gfxguy]

We can get pretty much whatever we want where we work... provided whatever we want runs the software we're required to run. In other words, really not much choice in a lot of cases, and most people with Mac laptops run Windows on them anyway (and thus require just as much support as everyone else).

Re: Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is exactly what's wrong with PCs.

You blame people for being people!

What matters is the whole system: unless you are proposing a fix to the PC system.

Re:Why?

[kaatochacha]

oddly enough, I support mixed mac/win environments, and find the issues to be roughly equal.
both systems have their WTF issues, that are different.

Re:Why?

[angel'o'sphere]

Actually 40% sounds like a relatively low number.
Regarding your argument 'they are doing something wrong', obvioulsy that was ocer the course if a year. So it is completely reasonable that over the course of a year 40 of 100 windows users have issues that require tech support.
I actually allways have a windows issue when I come into a new company and only have a windows machine, so that can add up to 4 - 10 times a year.
No idea why windwos simply does not work ... none of the unixes I work with ever had any issues unless I did a mistake myself, which I usually can fix myself.

Re: Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Agree. Just try to update the printer's IP-address, as it got a new one from the DHCP server. This took me hours on Windows, less than 10 minutes on Linux and about 10 minutes on OSX.

Re:Why?

[angel'o'sphere]

So you want to imply smar users use a Mac?
Puh .... I'm so glad you put me into the smart bracket :)

Re:Why?

[jedidiah]

...except this is IBM and IBM did not buy 'crap windows machines' when I was there. I'm not even sure what a "crap windows machine" is supposed to be. I've had little trouble from most of the office PCs I've had. This includes crappy Dell laptops that ran Linux very well.

Re:Why?

[unixisc]

The hardware issue could be solved if IBM looked into the Hackintosh approach, and took the optimal PCs they could get anywhere - Lenovo, Asus, Acer... and then wipe Windows off those boxes and install OS X instead. Then run those things

Re:Why?

[HydrusZ]

Not sure why you think there is any distinction between patches Windows downloads automatically and the updates IT pushes out automatically.

Because IT doesn't push out patches automatically. They test them in their environment first. It also gives them the ability to not push non-security updates, driver updates, etc.

Re: Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

The only trouble I've ever had with a Mac was when IT installed crap like Norton or Jamf. They didn't do it for my benefit.

Re:Why?

[ilsaloving]

Agreed. 100% of windows machines need helpdesk support.

Re:Why?

[RatherBeAnonymous]

I manage both Macs and PC's and I call bullshit. It's true that I get fewer urgent help desk calls from my Mac users, but that doesn't mean they take less work to keep running. It is much easier to push out configuration changes and software to the PC's, and there are a wealth of mature add-on management utilities that work really well with PC's. The Mac tools are just not as polished.

There are also a bunch of undocumented networking compatibility issues on the Macs that I have to work around, and Apple just doesn't seem to care about. Each iOS update brings new compatibility problems, just like with Windows. Apple won't let me install OSX server in a hvpervisor not hosted on Apple hardware so I can run the management tools on a real server.

I get just as many hardware bugs with the Apple machines as I do with the PC's.

Physically, the PC's I buy are much easier and cheaper to repair. Mac hardware keeps getting harder and harder to repair. One upon a time, I had some G4 iMacs that I could replace hard drives in under 10 minutes. All it took was loosening a few screws, the back popped off, and all components were laid bare. The entire PPC Mac line was beautifully designed for easy repair. The first generation Intel iMacs took me 45 minutes to replace a hard drive, and that was after I was practiced at it. More recently I had to replace a keyboard on a late model Macbook Pro. There were 55 screws holding the keyboard in. Just the keyboard. That's not to include the work involved dismantling the entire laptop first. I have pictures to prove it.

On top of all that supporting the macs takes longer because the user base is so much smaller. Virtually every PC problem I come across has been solved already. All it takes is a simple google search. I can't always do that for Mac problems.

Mac external ports change with every generation, so I have to keep buying new adapters to support each new fleet of laptops.

That brings us to Apple's planned obsolescence. I had an x-serve obsoleted after 3 or 4 years because Apple didn't want to support its boot loader. They did about the same thing in 2014 when they dropped support for some macs that were just 5 years old. On the other hand, Windows 10 supports 10 year old hardware, with no planned obsolescence. I have Mac pros at work that are obsolete for OSX, but they still Windows like a champ.

Costwise, he has a point about the Macs not being much more for base-line configurations. But, that cost delta grows quickly as you start upgrading components, especially considering that I can selectively upgrade prices on PC components, even if I have to go off the reservation and buy after-market. The cheapest macs with discrete graphics as an 27" iMac for $1800 or a Macbook Pro for $2,500.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not a Mac hater. There are a lot of great things about OSX, and it has Windows beat in a lot of ways. The Mac build quality is the best in the business, and I never get an out-of-the-box failure. But, you could call my an Apple hater. I despise they way Apple segregates their product lines, and I swear they purposefully try to make their products harder to support.

Re:Why?

[macs4all]

If 40% of his windows machines needed help desk support then his organization is doing something seriously wrong.

Yes, and the problem lies in Redmond.

(You walked right into that one)...

Re:Why?

[macs4all]

Why call bullshit? Macs generally require less user intervention to run, and don't have automatic updates to screw things up at inopportune times. Program installation and removal is generally much simpler.

The hardware is also of much better quality than most "enterprise" computer builds, so it would last a lot longer and not have glitches...

The only people who doubt this story are those that have never used both Windows and Mac computers extensively.

From what I understand, the way IBM deploys Macs, a technician doesn't even have to touch the machine, neither physically nor remotely.

They plop the machine down on the person's desk. When it boots up, it automatically downloads a corporate image from a NetBoot server (something OS X has supported since I think the very first version), then the User simply browses the internal Jamf "App Store" to download and install whatever Applications they require. Typical time: 10 minutes from unbox to productivity.

It seems like the User must be responsible for initial login; but most people at this point can handle entering a username and password into a login dialog, I'd imagine.

Re:Why?

[macs4all]

What about when it's dumb users who can't even turn the systems / displays on or other stuff like can't work the web and need to call to get basic help?

When I worked at the Google IT help desk, I had to talk a recent computer scientist graduate student through the process of turning on his own workstation since no one was standing around to turn it on for him like they do at the university computer labs.

That's because a "Computer Science" degree doesn't usually teach you practical stuff. Seriously.

Re:Why?

[macs4all]

Yes, companies tend to buy crap quality Windows computers and then complain they suck

While I agree with you, we're talking about IBM here, and they apparently only (or most often) buy Lenovo hardware.

Re:Why?

[macs4all]

oddly enough, I support mixed mac/win environments, and find the issues to be roughly equal. both systems have their WTF issues, that are different.

You are an outlier.

Or just a plain liar.

Re:Why?

[macs4all]

If the employees were given a choice between a Mac and a WinPC, I think it is reasonable to assume that they would self-sort by IQ.

When I did a PC refresh project to replace old Dell workstations with new Dell workstations, quite a few engineers wanted Macs. That drove the Dell project manager up the wall.

Good!

Did the company relent? Or did they continue to torture their employees?

Re:Why?

[Gr8Apes]

reportedly wouldn't hire Stanford CS graduate students

Having interviewed a couple of hundred recent CS grads (both BS and graduate) over the past few years myself, I wouldn't hire them either, Stanford or elsewhere. I don't know what happened to CS education, but the last 15 years or so the "graduates" might as well have played video games for whatever time they spent in school. They might know more.

Re:Why?

[Gr8Apes]

If 40% of his windows machines needed help desk support then his organization is doing something seriously wrong.

The other 60% must not be able to access his help desk support web site.

Re:Why?

[macs4all]

While I agree there will always be possibility of issues with updates, it's difficult to believe it's contribution costs 3x more than a mac. I'm having a hard time remembering personally experiencing any significant issues with 20 years experience.

It's not just the updates. It's all the "every day a new problem" propensity that Windows has always had.

Don't you remember the old Haiku?

It worked yesterday.
It doesn't work today.
Windows is like that.

And my experience with my work Win 7 laptop, and the 10 or so various versions of Windows Server I have to deal with on a daily basis certainly bears that out.

Mapped Drives on my laptop that just "won't connect" one day, that have been connecting for (literally) years. Nothing fixes it but a reboot. One day I'm a Domain Admin and can do nearly anything without challenge; the next day I'm ostensibly still a Domain Admin (at least that's what AD says); but now I have to "Get Permissions" (or whatever it says) all over the place. Same Server. Same Login. Same Operations. Nothing changed except the day of the week...

I could go on and on...

Windows is a rickety, chewing-gum-and-bailing-wire-based "system". It's remarkable that it even boots three days in a row.

Re:Why?

[Gr8Apes]

Generally, OSX doesn't push out features in their patches, only fixes. The core also happens to be relatively tight and properly layered.

Conversely, MS pushes everything and the kitchen sink into an originally monolithic minimally layered system, so it's no surprise to anyone that deals with systems programming that this latter approach causes all sorts of headaches.

Re:Why?

[Gr8Apes]

Because IT doesn't push out patches automatically. They test them in their environment first. It also gives them the ability to not push non-security updates, driver updates, etc.

You haven't seen the Win 10 license then. When it was announced is when IBM started going Apple. I can't imagine why.

Re:Why?

[__aaclcg7560]

Did the company relent? Or did they continue to torture their employees?

That particular PC refresh was put on hold by Dell since the client company couldn't provide accurate data on which employee still had old workstations that needed replacement. It didn't help that they were moving whole buildings of employees around at that time. AFAIK, $1M in workstations is still sitting in a warehouse in China.

Re:Why?

[__aaclcg7560]

I don't know what happened to CS education, but the last 15 years or so the "graduates" might as well have played video games for whatever time they spent in school.

They're too busy designing the next app that will make $1B, which happens to be a popular thesis for the Stanford MBA program.

Re:Why?

[macs4all]

Within 2 years, the MacPro's headphone line went out. According to Apple, fixing that requires... wait for it... a new motherboard: $500. Anectdotal of course, but three different members of the family have taken Macs in for inspection|repair, and every damned time are told "motherboard" $500+ to fix. In one case all that was *actually* required was a new power supply.

Um, those things would require a "new motherboard" on a Dell, Lenovo, HP, Acer, or any other laptop, too.

It's called "Module Level Repair", and every PC manufacturer's service centers do it. NOBODY does "Component Level" repair like that. EVENTUALLY the mobo gets onto a bench where somebody troubleshoots and repairs at that level; but that person is working on a whole stack of "defective motherboards", including yours.

Where else do you think Factory Refurbished products come from?

And for the record, I have been using Macs since they were called Lisas, and I don't think I have ever had a mobo replacement. No, I take that back. I had a PowerMac 8500 tower that mice got inside of and peed on the motherboard (don't ask!), with the expected consequences. But I simply went on eBay and in about ten minutes, found a replacement for $25 and replaced it myself in about an hour (8500's are kinda difficult to work on).

But if you're going to take your "car" to the "dealer", don't expect to have him offer to put in a junkyard starter for you...

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

So how many iDildos do you currently have up your ass? Apple must pay you nicely to shill. Everything you've said demonstrates your incompetency and why you need a "my first computer" OS.

Re:Why?

[macs4all]

Did the company relent? Or did they continue to torture their employees?

That particular PC refresh was put on hold by Dell since the client company couldn't provide accurate data on which employee still had old workstations that needed replacement. It didn't help that they were moving whole buildings of employees around at that time. AFAIK, $1M in workstations is still sitting in a warehouse in China.

Now THAT sounds ENTIRELY believable, LOL!!!

Re:Why?

[Hognoxious]

Macs generally require less user intervention to run

What's that got to do with anything? According to TFS, it's "Because of Fewer Tech Support Expense".

Now whether that putrid blister on Shakespeare's tongue is due to mansishDavidmashesHD or IBM is, sadly, too close to call.

Re:Why?

[macs4all]

So how many iDildos do you currently have up your ass? Apple must pay you nicely to shill. Everything you've said demonstrates your incompetency and why you need a "my first computer" OS.

I have to Admin those 10 Windows Servers, and hold an SQL Admin cert.

I write Windows ERP Software for a living.

So I'd normally tell you to kindly blow it out your ass; but too late. You already have...

Re:Why?

[pete999tete]

Why call bullshit? Macs generally require less user intervention to run, and don't have automatic updates to screw things up at inopportune times. Program installation and removal is generally much simpler.

The hardware is also of much better quality than most "enterprise" computer builds, so it would last a lot longer and not have glitches...

The only people who doubt this story are those that have never used both Windows and Mac computers extensively.

The one fact which throws off the original figure is that the technical staff at IBM prefer Macs, whereas the sales/marketing team generally order what they know and have at home; Windows. The first group comprises the software engineers, support professionals, and escalation engineers. They are all far more technically savvy than your average sales person, and rarely call the help desk as a result. The sales / marketing non-technical employees are far more likely to need a help desk, hence call much more often.

Re:Why?

[Hognoxious]

AFAIK, $1M in workstations is still sitting in a warehouse in China.

Really? Maybe the boxes (as in the cardboard ones, not boxen) are.

Re:Why?

[__aaclcg7560]

Really? Maybe the boxes (as in the cardboard ones, not boxen) are.

The Dell workstations were manufactured and stored in a Chinese warehouse near an international airport, where 125 workstations and 250 monitors were shipped every two weeks.

Re:Why?

[thegarbz]

Why call bullshit? Macs generally require less user intervention to run, and don't have automatic updates to screw things up at inopportune times. Program installation and removal is generally much simpler.

So you have just mentioned all the things that aren't remotely relevant in the discussion.

Mac and PCs don't require any user intervention to run in an enterprise environment. If they do, fire your IT staff.
They also don't have automatic updates to screw things at inopportune times. If they do, fire your IT staff.
Program installation and removal? I make a phone call and the program just appears installed on my compute, silently in the background. If it's any more difficult than this, fire your IT staff.

Re:Why?

[macs4all]

We have both. We came so close to getting rid of our Macs. But now there is a new influx of them. And they all need to run a VM for the software that we use that has no version that runs properly on Mac.

And EVERY time one of our Mac users does a system update (which we are not allowed to prevent) it breaks things. Most recently Sierra seems to have an issue with some of our security software which is pretty much bricking the machine.

Sounds like either you and/or your management is incompetent.

For example, do you really think you are "not allowed to prevent" a "system update", or is that by Management Decree? Because OS X/macOS has fairly fine-grained controls to control more or less exactly what "classes" of "Updates" you want, and whether you want them automatically downloaded only, automatically downloaded and installed, downloaded and installed completely under manual control, or ignored completely. A lot of corporations that are actually competent run a local Update server, which both saves bandwidth, and allows for even greater Review/Control over updates. But with your obvious bad attitude toward the entire platform, I'm sure you've never taken the initiative to look into that yourself, have you?

And the issue with your "Security Software" is that Vendor's problem, not Apple's. If there is one thing across all platforms that more or less typically "breaks things", it is most often with Security changes/updates. So, if you really had any experience, you (or someone at your organization) would have already been on the phone with your Security Software Vendor, asking when they would be patching their software, and also asking why they didn't pay attention to the Developer Pre-Release that would have allowed them to be READY for the change. So, they're incompetent as well.

And if you are running your software in a VM, that implies a "Guest" OS that isn't OS X/macOS. Perhaps some of the problems you are having are actually there. Ever think of that? Again, not Apple's fault.

Re:Why?

[macs4all]

Mac Notebooks are nice, but I recall when enough of them went dead early-mid00s due to a motherboard where the expense was already enough to brick them if they were older than 3 years. Now the integration and heat issues are even tighter.

Sounds like the exact time when everyone was having the same problems, due to the (ridiculous) fast-tracked RoHS initiative, which didn't give the industry sufficient time to adjust their components and production methods to deal with the unholy lead-free solder. If you look around, I would bet you would find other manufacturers that had much the same problems at much the same time.

But my biggest with Mac is the GUI/software. I fucking hate it. Things jumping up and down and flashing at random. Shit doesn't work like I expect it. AND IT JUST DOESN'T GTFO of my way! It's not intuitive and simple things like renaming files/folders are aggravating slow - can't even tab to the next like Windows. I read a review on the bottom line difference between iOS and android and it went something like "Android makes simple things tedious and difficult things easy. iOS makes simple things simpe and difficult things impossible". When talking about messaging and torrenting on a mobile device and the like. Same thing with Mac's OS.

You are truly a dullard.

The ONLY thing that "Jumps up and down" is a Dock Icon. That can be disabled.

As far as other "Notifications", I freely admit that macOS has been getting a bit more "in your face" by default in recent years; but all, or nearly all, of that behavior is controllable, either through the GUI, or at worst, by editing a line in a simple XML preference file. Look it up. Learn something.

Shit doesn't work "as you expect it" in ANY OS that you don't bother to learn. Try out Windows' "Modern UI" for a REAL shocker!

What is so slow about Renaming a File? You're just looking for stuff, now.

And here's a Present for you: Command-TAB to rotate between active windows. Been that way for the past SIXTEEN YEARS. Do try to keep up. And Expose can be used for even more advanced window-selection.

Any more memes you'd like me to disprove/dispell/educate you on?

Moron. Hater Moron at that.

Re: Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

For a mass market OS and general purpose computing, its the OS's fault at those percentages.

Yes there will be occasional users who are unskilled and don't want to learn, but that's a tiny percentage.

Re:Why?

[Bigjeff5]

If you've ever used Lotus Notes then you know where most of that support comes from. What a steaming pile of crap.

IBM uses a ton of custom in-house applications that they can't sell to other companies because they're such garbage, and I'll bet 90% of that crap doesn't work on Macs.

Buying a bunch of Macs is probably one IT group's way of getting out from under another IT group's crap.

Re: Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

First... Why is your printer getting a dynamic address? Second, how did it take you hours to go to your printer in devices & printers, view its properties, and change the port to point to the new IP? Third, why are you doing it by IP and not name? Finally, have you had children? If not, please neuter yourself immediately. Preferably with a steamroller. If you have had children, please neuter them. Definitely with a steamroller.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Enterprises don't have automatic updates screwing things up either. If they really had 40% of PC users with constant need of helpdesk support that is an indictment on IBM's IT operations as it is way above normal, but given past dealings with IBM it isn't suprising either.

Re: Why?

[scifiman]

While this is from Previn's presentation, he said they have found 78 out of their 3000+ app catalog not work on the Mac.

Re: Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah - and my 9 year old MacBook is still going strong. I guess to get a better sense of total cost of ownership more generally, we'd need some massive multinational company to tell us what works for them and their 90000 computers. If only such data were available...

Re: Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen the windows 10 enterprise license. It still supports hand picked updates.

I sincerely hope you're not in charge if anything important isf you didn't know that.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously you don't or have never used a Mac. Macs indeed have auto updates. Mine updated to Sierra all on it's own just like Windows 7 and 8 did to Windows 10 all on it's own. I call BS because I am an IT guy and have had my own share of work done on both platforms. The problem isn't the computers, its the users. Users today have what I like to coin as "Clickitus". They click things without thinking which leads to malware infestations. And yes, Macs, sadly, now have to fend off against malware trojans and viruses just like Windows. The veritable tongue-sticking at Windows users at how easily compromise-able their systems are has little merit these days.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Surprised it was that low! I worked in a government office. Nearly everybody called desktop support at least once a week for something, though it was seldom the Windows (and a rare Mac) computer they were using. Most calls were printer issues or access to a server, especially after the standard became "thin" workstations with all documents saved directly on the server (shades of terminal days!). Rarely, something more interesting would occur, or some "non-standard" software would need to be installed, which IT always required their people to do which resulted in more problems because they didn't know how to run an installer. I had shown them that I knew more about WIndows internals than they did, and had a record of not messing up my system, and had a laptop which by its nature required local access to things for use disconnected (considerable field work), so they more or less left me alone and provided temporary admin access when necessary to install something that was otherwise approved. Yes, I'm not a good example - started with Radio Shack Model 1 and card/JCL-driven mainframes, and hacked my way along from there. Oh yes, I did use Macs for a while, too, back in the System 6-8 days; generally worked OK & I was happy with them, but mostly disposable computers (use it for 3 or so years, surplus it out for a replacement). Bye now, and get off my lawn!

Re: Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Stanford. Which is ironic considering that the founders were Stanford CS graduate students and reportedly wouldn't hire Stanford CS graduate students during the early days of Google."

Duh, ivy league. They would not deam themselves dirty slave laborists who must push a power button.
Plus. I see this every day in Large corp. People will pretend to be dumb to get out of doing actual work. Laws keep these types from being fired..

Re: Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Recent Computer science degrees are not as relevent because most companys refuse to update their 20 yr old Systems. Also most higher up managment are ok with their workers systems being slow shitty and not working. Does not effect them does it?...

Re:Why?

[Hognoxious]

Oh well that's completely different. No way would anyone notice that something hadn't moved for a while and steal it if it was near an airport.

Re: Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

If your running an organisation with more than about 30 PCs you really should be looking at WSUS and controlling the patches released, the day they are sent out and reducing the bandwidth to site.

Re: Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

No they did it for the organisations benefit. Just because they provide you with a machine doesn't mean it's yours. IT are still responsible for providing a secure infrastructure and having up to data A/V assists in delivering that. (Norton sucks on a whole new level of its own)

Re: Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shhhh. It's obviously windows fault and not the printers. Plus it's way to hard to just go to the printers webpage to change the settings or,like you said , GET OFF YOUR FAT ARSE, WALK TO THE PRINTER AND CHANGE IT MANUALLY. :)

I'm guessing it's a HP printer? They have a wee bit of a habit of doing that.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

When i bought my Macbook Pro it was cheaper than a comparable Thinkpad (or any other laptop) for the same specs...

I don't use OSX, just the hardware..

Re: Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the user tried to do a plug and play of a printer in his home network and the router defaulted to giving the printer a dynamic ip.. He also does not have his own DNS server running for his local network.

Re: Why?

[Gr8Apes]

I've seen the windows 10 enterprise license. It still supports hand picked updates.

I sincerely hope you're not in charge if anything important isf you didn't know that.

I am in charge of things of importance, which is why I don't touch windows.

As for the license, if you have information on how to kill forced updates/upgrades and not merely delay them 8 months, I'm sure there's lots of windows users that would like to see it. Other than taking control of all network access for your PC and localhosting all MS addresses related to updates of course, which requires external hardware as apparently the OS won't be fooled by your antics.

Re:Why?

[Some_Llama]

absolutely right, have worked in the IT support business for 13 years and completely agree.

easily made up in peripherals.

[nimbius]

Speaking as an admin, the number of mac users that request elegant peripherals is not trivial. Magic mouse? if one guy on the floor got one, youre dropping $80 a piece to make sure all your mac users get one. wireless headphones? sure hes the only guy in the office with Beats by Dre but pad your budget because everyone will want them at $300. add up all the magic trackpads magic keyboards and magic fuzzy accessories the average user wants and it starts to rival what you paid to buy and image a Dell. and if things ever get too hairy for a dell, your restore process is entirely automated in windows or linux. restoring a mac is nothing short of corporate witchcraft.

and remember, your fanboi doesnt want a used magic tracpad...he wants a new one.

Re:easily made up in peripherals.

[Just Some Guy]

if things ever get too hairy for a dell, your restore process is entirely automated in windows or linux. restoring a mac is nothing short of corporate witchcraft.

To backup: buy a Synology NAS. Enable the Time Machine service. Configure your Macs to back up to it. Voila, done.

To restore from scratch: hold down Command-R when booting a Mac. Tell it to restore from Time Machine. Wait an hour. Voila, done.

Re:easily made up in peripherals.

[ColdWetDog]

Restoring a mac is nothing short of corporate witchcraft?

What? Copy a backup (and bootable) image to the hard drive and you're done. No digging into the Registry. NO sacrificing goats or chickens (management gets made because they're vegetarians).

About the only satanist thing I've done restoring a Mac is to draw a pentagram. USB drives can be pretty slow and I get bored easily.

Re:easily made up in peripherals.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why on earth are you buying users headphones at all? Can't they buy their own? What happens if someone gets some really nice sneakers?

Re:easily made up in peripherals.

[poofmeisterp]

Speaking as an admin, the number of mac users that request elegant peripherals is not trivial. Magic mouse? if one guy on the floor got one, youre dropping $80 a piece to make sure all your mac users get one. wireless headphones? sure hes the only guy in the office with Beats by Dre but pad your budget because everyone will want them at $300. add up all the magic trackpads magic keyboards and magic fuzzy accessories the average user wants and it starts to rival what you paid to buy and image a Dell. and if things ever get too hairy for a dell, your restore process is entirely automated in windows or linux. restoring a mac is nothing short of corporate witchcraft.

and remember, your fanboi doesnt want a used magic tracpad...he wants a new one.

But but but... You don't have to waste money supporting them! Psh.

Re:easily made up in peripherals.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're having trouble figuring out Time Machine, you probably shouldn't be working with computers.

Re:easily made up in peripherals.

[King_TJ]

Our company has definitely experienced a bit of this .... BUT this is also where I.T. needs to step in and set some ground-rules, if the budget is limited.

For example? I got tired of all the expenditures on (IMO inferior) "Magic Mice". So I did some research and found a couple of solid,reliable bluetooth mice that could be used instead at far less cost. There's a Microsoft model that only costs about $30-35, for example. Doesn't support "gestures" by rubbing the top of it, but that's just really NOT necessary for any use-case I've seen a user come up with. It does have a scroll wheel which doubles as an assignable 3rd button and 2 regular buttons, and is very conservative on battery usage too.

If someone wants that "Magic Trackpad" mouse? I don't have a problem with buying that one, IF they honestly can be more productive with it. This is no different than in the Windows world though, IMO. A trackpad mouse will cost a premium for Windows too. It's a different way to interface with the machine, and if you really do a task regularly where the gesture support is helpful? One of these beats trying to do the gestures on top of a regular "Magic Mouse" any day.

We had to fight with some of our Creative professionals about the displays, as well. They were just SO certain that those nearly $1,000 each Thunderbolt Cinema displays were better than anything else. We cracked down on that and started physically removing a couple of them that they'd gone around I.T. and purchased for their department, substituting a matched PAIR of HP 24" IPS panel displays with anti-glare coated screens. After a few days working with a dual display environment with glare-free versions of panels with the same or better color calibration capabilities and similar resolutions? They really had no argument to want the Apple displays back. (And to be fair, those displays were kind of slick IF you had the right make/model of Macbook Pro laptop to pair with them, since they acted like a port replicator for one at the same time. But they replicated ports like Firewire 800, which are getting phased out in current machines!)

Re:easily made up in peripherals.

[SvnLyrBrto]

Oh, so much FUD...

Eh? If your company is spending money on Beats by Dre headphones for any reason other than you've been hired by Apple to produce marketing collateral, you're a bunch of fools. They're crap. Apple didn't but Beats for their hardware. They bought Beats for Jimmy Iovine and his music industry experience and relationships.

The "Magic" lineup is actually quite good kit, so far as I've experienced. I don't like the keyboard, but that's personal preference because I like the full-sized keyboards and those extra USB ports are handy. The trackpad is fantastic though. I switched from a mouse after consulting with my doctor; and pretty much every hint of carpal was gone in less than six months. (Suffice it to say, I don't use the Magic Mouse though. So it could very well be utter crap for all I know.) And pinching pennies over peripherals is just stupid as hell. The cost of buying your people gear that is ergonomically correct for their needs... even if you go full out with the top-of-the-line Kinesis lineup... is TRIVIAL compared to reduced productivity, increased health insurance costs, and the potential for workman's comp claims, if RSI becomes a problem.

And there's no voodoo to restoring a Mac. You can maintain an official image and clone it to the hard drive just like any windows or Linux box. Or if you want a "out of the retail box" state, you just boot into recovery, start the install, and go do something else while it does its thing.

Re:easily made up in peripherals.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your suggestion, in a thread about relative costs of systems, is to buy a custom piece of hardware, from a vendor who's website doesn't actually list a price.

Do you know what I think when I see a website selling a product but not listing a unit price. The "If you have to ask you can't afford it" rule.

Meanwhile the Windows worst case system restore involves plugging in a 5 dollar USB stick, and telling the user to go get lunch while the preconfigured installer does its thing. And that's assuming its so far gone the network based restore doesn't work.

Re:easily made up in peripherals.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dont be ridiculous. Your middle paragraph is based entirely around the idea that managers are rational actors who care about their employees and think in the long term and that they are above such notions of what level of employee deserves to sit in what chair or use what computer and that they are able to look beyond the next quarter's balance sheet. This is laughably untrue.

Re:easily made up in peripherals.

[Just Some Guy]

Your suggestion, in a thread about relative costs of systems, is to buy a custom piece of hardware, from a vendor who's website doesn't actually list a price.

Y'all got Amazon where you live? Or access to any of the vendors they list on their website?

But it's not like Windows can backup to thin air. You have to have something on the other end of that CAT-5, so it's probably a wash hardware-wise.

Do you know what I think when I see a website selling a product but not listing a unit price.

"Huh, I wonder if Amazon has them?" would have been my first thought, but apparently it wasn't yours.

Re:easily made up in peripherals.

[Jeremi]

Speaking as an admin, the number of mac users that request elegant peripherals is not trivial.

No doubt, but a business is allowed to say 'no' to those requests, if it feels it's not worth the money to buy the elegant peripherals.

I imagine a lot of businesses probably don't care though, since compared to their ongoing salary costs, the cost of an occasional frou-frou trackpad is rounding error. If a one-time $80 purchase makes a $3000/week employee happier and/or more productive, why not?

Well done

[JustNiz]

I'm glad he made a point of saying Windows PCs rather than just PCs, as the world in general tends to do.
I've always hated Windows and found it far more awkward, unfriendly and non-intuitive to use than literally any other OS I've ever tried (which after 35 years of software development is a LOT). Windows started out as a messy compromise (anyone else remember yield()? )and has only gotten worse over time. It truly boggles my mind how most corporates and their IT departments still continue to push its use over other OS's.

Re:Well done

[Anonymous Coward]

You really can't even fathom that the most commonly used home operating system might be a good choice for equipment for staff who's primary job is not development related? You know, the vast majority of computer users in business? Wow.

Re:Well done

[SvnLyrBrto]

Well, "PC" does by default imply Windows, or at least a Microsoft operating system running on x86 hardware. I know it's a bit pedantic, but I still grate my teeth a bit when people lump Macs, PCs, Linux boxes, and the like, all under "PC"; the correct term being microcomputer. An IBM-er making the mistake is especially egregious; considering it was IBM that marketed the terminology "Personal Computer", "PC", "PC Jr.", and the like... specifically running Microsoft on Intel... as their entries into the microcomputer segment.

Re:Well done

[Aviation Pete]

It truly boggles my mind how most corporates and their IT departments still continue to push its use over other OS's.

Why? It's easy to explain. Imagine you are the CIO and your importance depends on how many people you manage. You can either go for Macs and have a small department, or force everyone to use Windows PCs and have a big department. Easy choice, right?

That has worked in almost all big organisations. Generally, people who get promoted to the CIO level are not driven by helping others, but by gaining more power. They couldn't care less that your user experience sucks. All they care is that they have more power when everyone uses Windows.

Re:Well done

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm trying to update a Windows 7 VM that was not used for six monthes. It only has a handful programs and free Avast installed but that doesn't work.
I even gave it more than 2.8GB RAM to increase chances of Windows Update working, but it does nothing even left overnight. I'm on the third batch file full of re-registering dll's and I feel embarassed to say the least.

Re:Well done

[JustNiz]

>> Well, "PC" does by default imply Windows, or at least a Microsoft operating system running on x86 hardware

No it really doesn't. You and others thinking that is simply the result of decades of Microsoft FUD and advertising.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Well done

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows is great because of Active Directory. I can lock down workstations exactly as I need them.

And then someone throws OS X into the mix, which can't be controlled, can't easily join the domain, and everyone is amazed at how "easy" it is to use because it isn't locked down.

Re:Well done

[Anonymous Coward]

> No it really doesn't. You and others thinking that is simply the result of decades of Microsoft FUD and advertising.

Yes, it does. "PC" has also been short for "IBM PC" or PC-compatible for over 30 years. And it's been confusing people for that long too.

You remember PC Magazine? It wasn't dedicated to Apples and Ataris and Commodores.

Re:Well done

[Anonymous Coward]

...unconsciously I read " Imagine you are the CIO and your importance depends on how many people you damage"

Re:Well done

[Anonymous Coward]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The Macintosh (/ËmækántÉ'Êf/ MAK-in-tosh; (branded as Mac since 1998) is a series of personal computers (PCs) designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc.

Re:Well done

[Anonymous Coward]

As if that proves anything. Everyone knows the IBM PC was called that because it was a personal computer. It was only later that it typically meant "IBM PC compatible."

Even Apple knows it. Their commercials said, "Hi, I'm a Mac! ...and I'm a PC," not "Hi, I'm a Mac PC! ...and I'm a Windowz PC."

Two factors in effect...

[Junta]

One, the Linux and Mac users are probably ones explicitly asking for it, meaning they care enough to request it specifically. Compared against the general population, the subset is going to be more experienced enthusiasts.

Two, one of the biggest enemies of Windows usability is corporate preloads. Botched updates, sometimes 5 or six anti-virus applications and multiple firewall and update managers installed haphazardly.

All that said, I'd still take Linux in a heartbeat, but still Windows to some extent suffers the downsides of its own success.

Gee, Unix is easier to support than Windows...

[Anonymous Coward]

Who would have thought !

Hoooo boy

[ilsaloving]

*looks at post*

Get your asbestos underwear! Get your asbestos underwear here folks! Don't get into a flamewar without being prepared!

Re:Hoooo boy

[Anonymous Coward]

*looks at post*

Get your asbestos underwear! Get your asbestos underwear here folks! Don't get into a flamewar without being prepared!

Not for me, I don't want to get a cancer from asbestos.

or maybe...

[friedman101]

Macs are mostly given to software devs and graphic artists who are much less likely to do stupid things with their machine than your average MBA Powerpoint jockey?

Just think if apple had better hardware how dead

[Joe_Dragon]

Just think if apple had better hardware how dead windows can be.

But right now they have 3-4 year old hardware at new hardware pricing.

No real workstation
No power desktop
No gaming desktop

Well the new mac pro kind of fits the listed rolls but in a poor way with lot's of ext stuff needed to make it full.

No real servers or even a good mini server.

No tough book laptop

No all in desktop with easy to swap hdd's and ram.

No laptop with more then a few ports

No gaming laptop

No Mobile workstation laptop with workstation video and or high end cpus.

No dual cpu workstation.

No os rollback on new hardware.

Not a fair comparison

[elcheesmo]

Having worked at IBM before, there was a lot of legacy software than ran on PC which would often stop working because of a problem with a remote server. The only way to report such problems would be by calling the help desk. It wouldn't matter whether it was a problem with Windows, or whether you knew exactly what the problem was. It all had to be reported through the help desk.

I imagine that if you use a Mac then it means you don't need to run any of the legacy software. And if you don't need to run the legacy software, there's no reason to ever call the help desk.

I would believe if there were fewer hardware-related help desk calls with the Mac, but I have a hard time believing that PCs require more help desk calls simply because Windows/PCs sucks.

Re:Not a fair comparison

[darkain]

So much of this! And also, knowing people in helpdesk positions to do extensive tracking of trouble ticket issues in their offices (not IBM, but similar scale corporations), the top support tickets were either account password resets or printers not working or inability to access shared file resources. NONE of these issues had to deal with the local OS whatsoever, but instead had to deal with remote machines. This one particular office used the IBM AS400 server system, and printed reports through it, this would fall under your "legacy" software support definition for sure! The company switched client (Windows XP/7 to 10) and server (AS400 to some web-based system) at the same time, so the same "correlation" of the OS being the difference could just as easily been the same, when in reality it was better server architecture that solved their particular problems.

Re:Not a fair comparison

[DarthVain]

Also if all you are using is a Mac and not remoting into something else (as technically at that point you are really using something else, the Mac is just a client) you are probably not really doing anything terribly important in the first place (with your computer) other than using basic office software. Meaning why would you need to call tech support if all you are doing is playing around with documents and perhaps spreadsheets and email.

Basically low hanging fruit. We'll see how that TOC looks when ALL Windows has been replaced with Macs (if that is even achievable due to software compatibility constraints).

For an analogy, corporately we support a range of Windows computers, however most are bottom line desktops and laptops for the masses, which if there is support it is usually to do with account or network issues which have little to do with the OS or the computer at all. I'm sure all or some of these could be replaced with Macs with comparable support levels. Now try that with a Workstation using specialized software, legacy software, developmental software, etc... First it would be hard to do, second I doubt the support issues encountered would be any less.

Also from my experience with Apple products, one of the other reasons they might have less support calls is that probably in many cases they just can't do things by design. So there isn't a support call because Apple doesn't support a task or feature to begin with, you just can't do it.

Re:Not a fair comparison

[StormReaver]

...but I have a hard time believing that PCs require more help desk calls simply because Windows/PCs sucks.

I find it quite believable, as it reflects my experiences. Every user for whom I've ever installed Linux stopped calling me with operating system problems. Their Windows problems prior to that point, on the other hand, were legion.

Windows is a nightmare for the average user. Hell, it's a nightmare for most users. Once Linux is installed, on the other hand, it runs itself. The owner of the most recent business I converted to Linux told me that he didn't realize computers were supposed to work as well as his have worked since letting me convert them, a move he resisted for years.

No surprises here

[dcavanaugh]

For years, friends and relatives asked me to help with their Windows problems. After it became unbearable to fix my computers and fix theirs too, I switched to OS X. I told everyone that I no longer had a Windows machine and therefore could not help them. I advised everyone to switch when they could no longer tolerate their PC's behavior. Some people switched, some didn't. Those who switched never needed my help again. Those who didn't were on their own. Ultimately, my pro-bono support incidents dropped to ZERO.

Microsoft has made progress in recent years. And Apple has dropped the ball a few times, especially when they punish people who don't upgrade their computers and phones fast enough, or migrate their data to icloud. Even so, if you consider the cost of support labor and the lost productivity while waiting for help, Macs should have replaced PC's in corporate life years ago.

Comparable Applications?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's hard to tell from the article if the users of the PCs & Macs are using their computers for similar purposes, or have the same applications involved. Many horribly written IT apps run only on windows or only on internet explorer. Wouldn't surprise me if that's were the observed difference comes from, or just from the fact that the mac users are using their computers in different ways.

My 'data points'

[david.emery]

Y2K remediation, sample size about 50 people. Corporate IT charged 2 hours for PCs, 1 hour (min charge time) for Macs. Most PCs took at least 2 hours, the worst case was the guy who was down for 3 days. Most Macs took less than 30 minutes if Corporate IT did the updates. But most Mac users did this themselves (in part saying, "I don't trust corporate to mess with my Mac.") Most of the required Mac patches were for Microsoft Office, Adobe Acrobat and other 3rd party products. The required change to Mac OS X was to set date display to 4 digits.

Where I used to work, the Macs were mostly self-supporting. When someone needed help, s/he would send a message to the internal Mac user group, and usually get a good/authoritative answer. The few times we needed to work with corporate IT involved hardware problems.

Laptop 'survivability,' sample size about 40 people. I was on a project with about 75% travel for several years. No one had a machine that lasted 3 years without a repair, most Windows machines were replaced within 2 years (ThinkPads lasted substantially longer than the Dells, HPs and Toshibas that most people had.) My first Mac lasted almost 3 years, it had a motherboard failure at 34 months. I dropped it off at the Newport Beach CA Apple Store late Thursday night, and got it back at the McLean VA Apple Store Tuesday AM. My second MacBook Pro lasted 5 years, but for the latter part of that period we were on less travel. I did have that machine knocked over and the screen cracked, but that's not an Apple problem. I handed that machine in when I left the company, it still worked and was usuable but a bit slow. One of the (removable) batteries had failed, the second was weak (and I had a 3rd replacement battery), but the hardware was otherwise fine.

As usual, Your Mileage May Vary.

Of course.

[fred6666]

Typical corporation lock down Windows PCs so much. No admin rights, no USB thumb drive allowed, custom firewall rules blocking everything but TCP port 80 outbound (and even there, they use a proxy server to block many web sites). When the same corporations get Macs, they leave them alone. So of course the users don't need to call IT to install software, they have admin rights to do it themselves.

needs a real server hardware and software

[Joe_Dragon]

mac needs a real server hardware and software. Useing a mini was ok but now the mini sucks and the mac pro is a very poor fit for the roll and costs way more then lower end basic server if just for local files / wsus like.

Does mac os have something like

WSUS?

AD?

DFS?

SCCM?

Re:needs a real server hardware and software

[Ash-Fox]

Does mac os have something like

WSUS?

AD?

DFS?

SCCM?

Yes, it's currently very broken in Sierra for me. It was working fine in Mavericks.

BULL. SHIT.

[Anonymous Coward]

I support both.

The chicken-and-egg nature of macs in enterprise means that they don't do "enterprise things" because there is almost no real enterprise software for them.

Mac users are therefore necessarily not power users. They are not designing 3D models or automating the ERP or developing a content management system.

They are on email and slack and skype. They open PDF brochures to show their clients and make spreadsheets with no VB and no queries.

Of course they don't call the help desk. Macs do those few tasks really well and really repeatably.

Macs also train you never to ask "can I do x" because if you don't see a big cartoon button for it, it absolutely cannot be done on a mac. So the users become process-oriented to the extreme.

How do you launch applications? Click on them in the dock? Not in the dock? Don't have that program. --> Says lady who has been sitting at a macintosh for 15 YEARS. She had no idea, nor did she care, where her applications were or whether there were more than 10 installed on the machine.

To reliably compare, you would need to give the same person in the same role a PC for 6 months and then a Mac for 6 months.

Try that with your Engineers, your accountants, your project managers. Then tell me how many help desk calls you get.

Fewer tech support expense?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because with Apple, you are more likely to just buy their extended warranty right from the get go. It just means that you pay before you have any issues, unlike with most Windows PC, where you buy AFTER, unless you bought a separate warranty with the store where you bought your PC from...

And he didn't actually look at usage patterns

[Anonymous Coward]

Or setup.

Or pretty much anything other than "here's a raw Windows machine" vs "here's a raw Mac" and toting up the work needed during a given machine's lifetime.

IBM and Apple are partners selling a product

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM is the provider for the coming Apple enterprise offerings. This is an ad for that.

https://www.apple.com/pr/library/2014/07/15Apple-and-IBM-Forge-Global-Partnership-to-Transform-Enterprise-Mobility.html

Backfiring of IT's attempts to lock down Windows

[bad-badtz-maru]

IT insists on centralized management and lockdown of Windows PCs to the point where any minor problem becomes a time consuming, difficult-to-solve issue. I've seen PCs slow to a crawl because SCCM is repeatedly failing to push down software. At other times, important software updates continually fail to install due to excessive policy restrictions. In all, it's just a continual battle of the IT support team versus the very own management infrastructure they put in place.

When our head support guy (6K users supported) was telling me how much less problems they had with Mac deployments, I asked him how his team manages the Macs. Guess what? No centralized management or lockdown at all.

Essentially, the difficulties of managing the Windows based PCs is entirely IT's own doing.

Market share and calculators

[Tyr07]

As you add more compatibility and functionality to a device or software it becomes more complex and more open to exploits.

You can't exploit a plain old calculator because it's software doesn't do all these extra features.
Your software market for a mac is significantly more limited, which also affects the design of the OS, since developers aren't at the gates requesting features in the OS to work with their software / Apple doesn't see the development need to add specific api's or such to allow certain software functions.

As market share grows, demand for more flexibility in the OS and software will grow, which will give it the same repair costs for software. Same goes for hardware. As more people enter that market, the quality of hardware will also (Well, it kinda is dropping now anyway) but with cheap manufactures over seas making sub par hardware, suddenly your repair costs will go up and be as frequent as PCs as well.

P.S I've never had a PC fail in my entire life, but I also tend to replace them every 4-5 years. Same with hard drives etc.

1-800-IBM-HELP or 1-888-IBM-HELP?

[Anonymous Coward]

The 1-800 one was and still? is a sex line

No centralized management = bandwidth issues for s

[Joe_Dragon]

No centralized management = bandwidth issues for small offices when the mac's all try to pull the same big update at the same time.

That it guy needs to learn to configure windows ma

[Anonymous Coward]

If what the it guy is saying is true, hes not configuring his windows systems correctly. Use sccm or dsc. Its not that difficult. Just dont format the enterprise.

No surprise here. This is not really news.

[Qbertino]

This isn't really news. OS X is a good working unix, it is built and controlled by the same people who build the hardware. It's basically fully integrated into the hardware. It has always had a very clear separation of user and system space and Macs aren't plagued by bloat and shovelware.

You get a mac unpack it, start it and it works. That hasn't changed in decades and holds true to this very day. Not so with a PC. Just watching my colleague hassling with Windows 10 and Office365 at my shop has me stand in amazement over the eternal shittyness of the MS provided solutions that apparently holds to this very day as it did in the Windows ME days. Even today you can't get a basic Groupware from them up and running without a total messy frustration ensuing.

I remember thinking about the brand-new first ever iMac and noticing that you could get one, start it, and didn't even need to adjust the CRT monitor or resolution. A godsend for ordinary users and maintenance personnel. That type of integration and result oriented setup was lightyears ahead of any ugly clunky Windows box. And it still is.

That they are cheaper in maintenance is blatantly obvious IMHO.

A windows PC that doesn't suck is still a rare thing. Probably these surface books from MS themselves are what comes closest to a MacBook.

I've said it in the 90ies and it holds true to this very day: In terms of basic system integrity Windows combines all the disadvantages of Linux with all the disadvantages of a Mac. The only reason ever to get Windows was and still is to run programms on it that wouldn't run anywhere else. And those are pirated software, Games or some obscure CAD program for engineers that don't know anything other than Windows.

That's why Google is moving into their Groupware and productivity space and Chromebooks, as the poor mans mac, are taking over.
Not that I like the prospect of Big Google watching everything, but anything that removes MSes abysmal model from the body public is a good deed. It's not that MS would be any better. Only with Google at least it works and you don't have to pay for it.

My 2 cents.

Changing to Mac's is a small part in this equation

[Anonymous Coward]

To switch, IBM probably had to review all systems and bring them up to current company standards. Doing so meant the entire platform was certainly cluttered with less legacy duck tape and chewing gum. Personally I think putting resources into a full platform change is the winner here, and not all of the gains can be attributed to the OS vendor.

Re: That it guy needs to learn to configure window

[Anonymous Coward]

Do not use ibms solution. Its crap and doesnt do all the things a more mature product like sccm does.

Of course mac support is less

[Anonymous Coward]

You cannot replace anything in macbooks anymore. So you throw it away and buy a new one where a pc you can replace parts in it.

I have pcs that run and run forever. if you buy junk pcs they will give you more problems.

University computer lab

[JBMcB]

Supported a university computer lab with several hundred mac & PC workstations. The macs took longer to set up, but once done, they required almost zero maintenance. We'd have at least two or three PCs down every week for various OS / virus / hardware issues. And yes, both sides were heavily used. This was roughly 15 years ago - pre-OSX, so I'd imagine they are even more reliable now in a lab environment, as you couldn't lock down anything back then (the PCs were locked-down Win2k boxes)

Exactly my same experience.

[Brannon]

There's just no comparison.

Linux is cheapest

[OrangeTide]

My IT department won't support developer's Linux desktops, and we usually end up having to recycle old Windows hardware to skirt around the policies for developers to have two machines.

This amounts to a Linux machine costing the company zero in tech support, almost zero in hardware costs. About the only cost is the electricity.

PS - yeah, I know it's not fair to use my company's braindead policies to win this argument. But sometimes you have to turn your weakness into a strength.

Re:Linux is cheapest

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah it costs the companies IT department 0 but it costs them ~$100/hr in developer time every time something needs support. Doing it yourself just shovels the cost off book. I log my time in our time tracker for everything, including all crap that gets in the way of me actually doing what is my job. My hope is an enterprising manager will run a report one day and notice that about 30% of their developers time is spend in meetings or juggling paperwork that a 1/2 the cost business analyst could do. One can hope.

Re:Linux is cheapest

[OrangeTide]

Yup, basically we pay 6-figure software and hardware engineers to do sysadmin work instead of 5-figure IT workers. And the engineers usually take twice as long as a competent IT person.

Someone ought to do a cost-benefit analysis, but the way budgeting and accounting is they won't care how much it costs as long as we can drive the IT budget to zero.

Bogus stats

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure these statistics will no longer hold up as the number of people using Macs transitions to become no longer exclusively people voluntarily using Macs

The best OS

[Anonymous Coward]

AbestOS. Sounds like a really good OS. Maybe even the best.

Re:The best OS

[Anonymous Coward]

AbestOS. Sounds like a really good OS. Maybe even the best.

Well now you've copyrighted it. Congrats.

Have you tried turning it off and on again?

[BreandánHeiliger]

The thing is that hospitals, the military (the military recently spent millions for XP security patches!), and businesses in general tend to spend tons of money getting an infrastructure in the first place, then they spend tinier bits of money trying to keep it going especially to avoid paying all that money getting a new infrastructure. So a lot of the time they pay way more in the long run. There are trade-offs with this as there may be less downtime which may be better for business. It's one of the reasons open platforms (OSes, standards, ect.) are great because it should be easier to do updates and improve code more seamlessly. Even Microsoft is becoming more open (as in including implementations of Linux bash)

Nobody bothered to RTFA

[dlkwnt]

I'm seeing a lot of armchair experts on this thread. If you've got time, go watch the video of his presentation, he explains the factors involved.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
It starts about 4 minutes in.

BS!

[no-body]

I do my own "support" and build my own machines from components. The original equipment costs for MAC are something else in comparison. Also being part of this special "race" of Apple/MAC-Hype-Members being proud of any new gadget coming out, lining up at stores feverishly and looking forward to the next Apple-Event would be way too high a cost as well.

Does no one really read the article?

[Sassinak]

If you read it.. it mentions this little thing called TCO (Total cost of Ownership).. which is not JUST the device (laptop or desktop) or Tech Support its:

Hardware (and the replacement cycle) - Macs tend to be replaced less often
Support - Mac's tend to work.. less options/features but for office workers, they use their 2 - 3 applications + email (most of which these days are more web based), not to mention manufacture support. This is a big number depending on the size of the organization.
Software costs - A lot of full functioning software comes with OSX, vs. quite a lot in the windows world are add-ons (ie: cost)
Backend management costs - This is another big cost, but a LOT of package deployment tools, management/monitoring of the hardware, etc... all these things drive up the TCO.
and a lot of others.. all these variables add up.. and depending on the use case makes a strong argument for OSX. It doesn't work in all cases (hey, you are using a windows only app that is core for your business.. not much you can do other than run Windows.. adding VDI/Virtualization drives up cost/complexity).. But again, if you are deploying VDI enmass, then this can impact the numbers as well (ie: less dependency on the user hardware, which means user satisfaction is more important), especially since tightly controlled (by IT) environments running specific applications tend to be viewed more favorably viewed its just "an app" not their work environment.

In short, its a combination of a LOT of variables that is driving the TCO to favour macs.

That's a false equivalence

[Anonymous Coward]

So you are comparing the *new* macs to the entire line of windows PCs. Most the them were on XP until a year or two ago. Also they were running Notes and not cloud-based email (Verse). So yeah, giving them a new *anything* will reduce the support trends. I use lots of platforms, and there's not much of a difference other than as they moved to macs they had to consolidate fragmented things for those platforms. For example, there used to be a few VPN solutions, but on macs there is only one, etc.

It may be that macs have less IT issues, or the people REQUESTING them as a population are more tech savvy, or that newer machines with newer cloud-based services means less IT impact. More likely a combination of the three.

You just explained why Macs cost less

[SuperKendall]

Read your post again. Now assume your time is worth more than $0...

That is why macs cost less.

My own time I defiantly consider to be worth more than $0.

Re:You just explained why Macs cost less

[jedidiah]

It takes about 5 minutes to pop out a card or put in a new one.

So that's a 5 minutes of premium billed time for my PC for a problem that will turn a Mac into a doorstop.

Re:You just explained why Macs cost less

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, Macs are good for people that know little about computers and don't want to spent time learning about computers, but still want to use them as a tool to achieve their goal. The operating systems from google follow the same philosophy and are also quite popular among people who simply want to use the device and not being afraid of screwing things up if they click something wrong. And because both of those companies don't have to deal with all kinds of different system configurations on the hardware and driver side, the result is lower maintenance.

What else is new?

Given the fact how often I change some of the hardware in my machine and knowing a bit about fixing things on my own, Windows 7 and the lasted Debian derivatives do a better job for me.

Re:You just explained why Macs cost less

[unixisc]

He is talking about home use, where family members use the computers for recreational purposes. In which case, $0 is not an unfair estimate of the time cost. And even if we cost it, it still adds up to less than what it took in terms of a simple 'swap the motherboard for $500' every time, vs incremental repairs to the PC each time it was done. Not to mention some of the things mentioned above were upgrades, like the CPU, GPU, harddrives,... which would be impossible on a Mac - you'd have to buy a new one.

Re:You just explained why Macs cost less

[CrashNBrn]

Bullshit. I've spent at least as much time trying to "upgrade" 4 Macs, (MacBook Pro's, MacBook, and iMac) from Snow Leopard, get RAM to actually work, and "attempt" to make the OS (it never would) send the right keycodes for Home/End/PgUp/Dn for a Logitech Mac keyboard, than everything I've had to do for all of my Windows and Linux Laptops and Desktops -- including multiple desktops built and repaired for family.

Support from the Mac "Geniuses" is a freaking joke. The wife was told, "well if you had Apple Care (~$500), you would save $50 on the ($500) motherboard replacement. Yeah. NO. We got a USB Audio adapter for $25.

Re:You just explained why Macs cost less

[SuperKendall]

In which case, $0 is not an unfair estimate of the time cost.>

I'm sorry you hate yourself so very much, but I do not. Like I said, I do NOT consider my time worthless. Nor should you, nor should anyone.

Re:You just explained why Macs cost less

[macs4all]

My own time I defiantly consider to be worth more than $0.

No need to be Defiant. We're (mostly) all friends here!

Sorry, couldn't resist... ;-)

Re:You just explained why Macs cost less

[macs4all]

It takes about 5 minutes to pop out a card or put in a new one.

So that's a 5 minutes of premium billed time for my PC for a problem that will turn a Mac into a doorstop.

Not on a Laptop, it isn't.

He said "MacBook". Actually, he said "Mac Pro"; but I kinda think he meant "MacBook Pro".

And there are PLENTY of Wintel DESKTOPS that have "integrated audio", where the "bad headphone jack" would require either:

Replacing the Motherboard; OR,

1. Researching a compatible/desirable audio card.

2. If online, waiting for the purchase to arrive.

3. Installing the Card (assuming there is a free slot!)

4. Installing new Drivers.

5. Downloading and installing the NEWER Drivers that actually WORK with your version of the OS.

4. Mucking about with Windows for a week, trying to get the Sound to work in this Application or that, or to get Windows to REALLY stop trying to use the old, dead (but still there!) Sound Hardware.

5. Giving up and just simply not having Sound in your favorite Game, etc.

Yeah, a real time and frustration-saver.

Been there. Done that. Know the difference...

Re:You just explained why Macs cost less

[macs4all]

Yeah, Macs are good for people that know little about computers and don't want to spent time learning about computers

Bullshit. Bullshit. BullSHIT.

Mac owners, just like Windows owners, come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and skill-levels. To suggest anything else with a product with unit sales numbering in the hundreds of millions is patently ridiculous, and just makes you sound like (yet another) mindless Hater.

I am an embedded hardware/software developer with about 40 years work experience in same. I now develop Windows Application software. I have an SQL Server Admin cert.

I have a Mac-using friend that is a EE, formerly working on military communications hardware and software, now working a AT&T doing massive database design and modernization. He has both Apple hardware and Hackintoshes he spec'ed and built himself.

I have another Mac-using friend. Worked for years at Indiana University, writing various and sundry minicomputer and mainframe applications for the University itself, mostly on their DECsystem 10 and VAX/1170 systems running VMS, etc. Also worked with me for a time as an embedded (mostly software) developer. Also liked to write a bunch in FORTH. Now works managing a multinational corporation's IT.

And there's another of my Mac-using friends. He is a degreed (EE) RF engineer, working for Ritron corporation doing embedded product design. Now he owns his own personal-trainer business, but still dabbles in hardware and software design occasionally.

Oh wait; here's another: I have a Mac-using friend who is an Ophthalmologist by trade; but has a passion for writing Python code. He has also done some embedded hardware and software dev. work on a hobbyist level. His Python-based Optometry-Office Management software is on the market. By the way, that class of software has to pass a rigorous Governmental (FDA?) Approval Process. And yes, he actually wrote most of it, with one other person.

And that's just some "technical" people I personally know, and can count as friends, that I can think of off the top of my head. And these are all people who use Macs exclusively (except for the Eye guy. He also likes Linux; but his main computer is still a Mac).

Re:You just explained why Macs cost less

[LynnwoodRooster]

Ask your "friends" who are doing electrical development work what OS they use. HINT: it won't be OSX...

Re:You just explained why Macs cost less

[macs4all]

Ask your "friends" who are doing electrical development work what OS they use. HINT: it won't be OSX...

First off, What's with the scare quotes around "friends"? I have known every single one of those people since around 1978, and we would all count each other among friends. So right off the bat, fuckyouverymuch.

And as far as your second bullshit ASSUMPTION, in some cases, you would be dead wrong. In fact, I have done embedded hardware and software design on Apple computers and OSes since around 1980. Yes, that would be on the Apple][. But then it was the Lisa, the original toaster Mac (including assemblers, plus integrated schematic capture, simulation, and PCB layout. Yes, even back in 1984), the Mac Quadra 900, the iMac, and a MacBook Pro.

To be sure, I have also had to do development using Windows-based toolchains; but there have actually always been competent toolchains and tools for both hardware and (depending on the target hardware) software development for Macs. And in fact, ever since Macs have been getting more popular, it's actually getting MUCH easier nowadays.

You need to get your head out of your ass. This is 2016, and OS X is the second-most popular computing platform on the planet. There are plenty of embedded development tools. IDEs, CAD/CAM/CAE, assemblers, compilers, debuggers. Pretty much you-name-it.

Re:You just explained why Macs cost less

[LynnwoodRooster]

Name a modern schematic capture/PCB layout package that runs on OSX. OrCAD, PADS/PCB, or Altium (used by Apple) all run on Windows only. There are a few, tiny hobbyist programs, but nothing mainstream that paying customers would want.

Name a 3D parametric CAD package that runs on OSX. Solidworks, NX, Creo (used by Apple) all run on Windows only. There are a few, tiny hobbyist programs, but nothing mainstream that paying customers would want.

Oh, and OSX is about 6% of the total market. That's a strong 2nd place to the ~92% Windows market share! But at least it's ahead of Linux so you go that going for you...

Re:You just explained why Macs cost less

[Anonymous Coward]

Woah, slow down there.
I only said that Macs are a good choice for that kind of people. I did no where say that they are bad for anyone else.
The fact that I'm not using a Mac for my purposes is a personal choice and does not translate to anyone but myself. This is mostly because I want it as a general purpose machine, where I can also play the occasional video game without having to hope for a Mac version of the game. There's been some very good progress in the last couple of years for playing games on a Mac. And this may improve vastly over the coming years as game developers start to adopt the Vulkan API, but for now most of the games that I'm interested in (mostly MilSim) do not come with any Mac or Linux support, while they're universally available on Windows platforms.

Re:You just explained why Macs cost less

[macs4all]

Name a modern schematic capture/PCB layout package that runs on OSX. OrCAD, PADS/PCB, or Altium (used by Apple) all run on Windows only. There are a few, tiny hobbyist programs, but nothing mainstream that paying customers would want.

Name a 3D parametric CAD package that runs on OSX. Solidworks, NX, Creo (used by Apple) all run on Windows only. There are a few, tiny hobbyist programs, but nothing mainstream that paying customers would want.

Oh, and OSX is about 6% of the total market. That's a strong 2nd place to the ~92% Windows market share! But at least it's ahead of Linux so you go that going for you...

Nice strawman you got there! The original premise was that Mac USERS used Macs because the USERS were non-technically-adept. When I provided some anecdotal evidence in the form of several long-time Mac-using friends of mine (plus myself) who most certainly belied that stereotype, you pivot the argument to whether the MAC (not the USERS) was "incompetent" (had no available software) to use with "electrical design" work. Nice try!

But to answer your "challenge" anyway, I will say this, regarding my own experience trying to do embedded hardware and software development on Apple equipment since 1980:

Of course it has always been a challenge to find tools for electronic hardware and software design on ALL non-Windows platforms. But unless you are doing really high-end stuff, it has always been possible. And now, even some of the high-end packages are starting to come around.

One of the brightest areas comes in the form of software toolchains for embedded development. Many major microcontroller OEMs, such as Microchip, ST, Atmel, and others have released full, and fully-supported, development toolchains (one of the first being Microchip, who achieved a major headstart by purchasing the makers of Hi-Tech C compilers, which already had Mac versions of their compilers). And the list grows every year. And some people even use an Eclipse-based toolchains and even XCode to do embedded development. So actually, the software dev. side is getting pretty good at this point.

The hardware design side isn't as rosy; but it too, is gradually getting better each year.

As far as schem. Capture, simulation, and PCB design, one of the most competent packages (with the world's worst website!) is a package I personally used back in 1984 on the original 128k "toaster Mac": VAMP Inc.'s McCAD. It offers full-blown and integrated capture, simulation, PCB layout and Auto-routing modules, all of which are quite "competent", and in no-way "hobbyist" level. The pricing alone will dispel any of those allusions! As I said, don't let the amateurish website fool you: This is the real deal. I have used both OrCAD (extensively) and Altium (yes, both on Windows), and I can tell you that McCAD is easily their equal. By the way, OrCAD (and Cadence itself) is one of the nastiest, buggiest, most uneven pieces of shit I have ever used, and ultimately drove my employer at the time to switch to Altium (which I feel is only superior when compared with the POS that is OrCAD). I have only played with PCAD/PADS in demo versions, so I can't speak to them.

The other solution is Eagle, which has offered an OS X-native (Cocoa) (rather than just an X11 port) version of its integrated design package for over a decade. Although it most definitely has its roots in the hobbyist world (and still offers limited hobbyist and educational editions), it has grown into a pretty nice package (with "pro-level" pricing to match!), with some wonderfully-unique features, such as a flexible scripting language that can be used for all sorts of typical and atypical things, a lot of which would be difficult, if not impossible, on any other design suite. So don't diss Eagle.

As far as CAD/CAM

Re:You just explained why Macs cost less

[LynnwoodRooster]

So - a couple of schematic capture programs where you can't even find a job or listing wanting the ability to use it (compared to tens of thousands for Altium, OrCAD and PADS). And for CAD/CAM - NX is not supported on the latest version of OSX. Sorry!

The fact is that Apple systems are designed on Windows - because the tools simply do not exist to do otherwise. And that's from working inside Apple...

Re:You just explained why Macs cost less

[macs4all]

So - a couple of schematic capture programs where you can't even find a job or listing wanting the ability to use it (compared to tens of thousands for Altium, OrCAD and PADS). And for CAD/CAM - NX is not supported on the latest version of OSX. Sorry!

The fact is that Apple systems are designed on Windows - because the tools simply do not exist to do otherwise. And that's from working inside Apple...

Oh, knock it off!

I didn't say that it was easy doing embedded design work on Macs; just that it was "getting easier".

And Sierra just came out. Siemens is slow. They're still talking about El Capitan. But I am positive they will get there soon.

Apple systems are designed on a mix of several platforms, and likely always will be. FFS, they even have iPads running custom software sprinkled throughout their in-house testing labs as machine controllers and stuff.

But you just keep on movin' those goalposts...

Re:You just explained why Macs cost less

[macs4all]

Oh, and if you had looked at the comment-thread to that Article, you would have seen that there ARE plans to support NX on Sierra.

But you CONVENIENTLY left that out.

Re:You just explained why Macs cost less

[macs4all]

Oh, and you must not have looked very carefully. While I admit I didn't find any Job Postings in 30 seconds on ZipRecruiter.com for McCAD (as I said, their website (and marketing) sucks, but their software is quite nice), when I looked for "Eagle PCB", there were about two dozen jobs listed, and, BTW, the very first one was for Apple in Santa Clara, CA.

3rd party drivers

[perpenso]

Who else's fault would it be that Windows requires 3x more support?

The vendors who supply the 3rd party drivers.

Macs are more reliable/require less support because there is very little a corporation or end user can add to it, to customize it beyond built-to-order. I've been building my own PC desktop machines for decades and I have had very few problems because I tend to carefully select the parts and use "better" rather than "less expensive" parts. However my PCs are sort of anomalies in this respect. When helping friends and family "debug" their PC problems the BSOD was usually coming from a 3rd party driver, from a second tier low cost vendor. By maintaining a higher degree of control Apple is less susceptible to such problems.

The secondary benefit of my BYO approach is that I have had very few Linux compatibility problems over the decades.

Oh, and Windows has been running natively (dual boot) very reliably on my Mac laptops for many years now.

Re:3rd party drivers

[macs4all]

Macs are more reliable/require less support because there is very little a corporation or end user can add to it, to customize it beyond built-to-order.

And just HOW many people need to do that in a typical Office environment?

Honestly, unless you are talking high-end Game development, very high-end Data Aquisition, or a few other highly-specialized trades, there is virtually no reason to need non-typical computing hardware.

Re:3rd party drivers

[Anonymous Coward]

...there is virtually no reason to need non-typical computing hardware.

Therein lies the problem. Many businesses equate "typical" with "cheap" and buy $300-$400 Windows PCs. See the problem now?

Re:3rd party drivers

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, unless you are talking high-end Game development, very high-end Data Aquisition, or a few other highly-specialized trades, there is virtually no reason to need non-typical computing hardware.

Therein lies the problem. Most business will equate "typical" with "cheap" and just buy $300-$400 Windows PCs. See the problem now?

Re:3rd party drivers

[macs4all]

...there is virtually no reason to need non-typical computing hardware.

Therein lies the problem. Many businesses equate "typical" with "cheap" and buy $300-$400 Windows PCs. See the problem now?

IBM doesn't. And didn't. From what I have read, they purchase Lenovo-ONLY.

So, no; I don't see the problem now; unless all the Slashdotters that praise Lenovo hardware are delusional, shills, or liars (which I don't think is the case).

Re: 3rd party drivers

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you read wrong. When IBM sold their cash register business to toshiba, one of the sweeteners for the deal was that IBM would use toshiba laptops internally. For the pedants in the audience, this was long before toshiba sold their PC division to Lenovo. And let's not forget the whole pint of this article, which was that IBM used lots of Apple laptops, which pretty much destroys your entire "IBM only buys Lenovo" argument.

Re:3rd party drivers

[perpenso]

Do you know what a typical Office environment is, what typical hardware is? Its more likely to be a small business that is getting a PC from a second tier supplier that is using second tier less expensive parts, a business without an IT department that does careful evaluations and selections.

The top tier parts I tended to buy are *not* the typical parts, that is part of the Windows PC problem.

Re:3rd party drivers

[macs4all]

Do you know what a typical Office environment is, what typical hardware is? Its more likely to be a small business that is getting a PC from a second tier supplier that is using second tier less expensive parts, a business without an IT department that does careful evaluations and selections.

Actually, That describes my work environment to a "T".

Re:3rd party drivers

[perpenso]

Do you know what a typical Office environment is, what typical hardware is? Its more likely to be a small business that is getting a PC from a second tier supplier that is using second tier less expensive parts, a business without an IT department that does careful evaluations and selections.

Actually, That describes my work environment to a "T".

Well, I was inspired by my work environment two employers ago. Our PCs came from the PC Clone shop a couple of blocks away. Fortunately my boss let me specify the parts for my development team's PCs so all went well. He regretted that since the PCs weren't as inexpensive as he expected but when we talked I was able to explain my choices and he reluctantly accepted them. The Macs for my team were fine since he had no choice other than what Apple put in the box.

Post for me is accurate

[Anonymous Coward]

Over 20 years in the industry and I can easily say that Mac's are so much easier to support period HOWEVER it is because Apple is a closed environment and only have a few models so that makes it a lot easier to develop a reliable OS, drivers and apps. MS has to deal with every PC part under the sun. The thousand of drivers that an OS has to support is what kills the OS. The developers that make these drivers have various level of skill. Same goes with Linux and drivers. So if the hardware was locked in for Windows and Linux like Mac's, I am sure support costs would be similar to equal. I can't tell you how many times I have to battle video drivers because Windows wants to load it's drivers compared to the vendor's drivers which are a year old vs the hardware maker drivers that are on their website (Nvidia, Intel, etc) which is brand new yet some update from something caused my colors to look funny so now I am loading each one to figure out which one fixes the issue.

So if you want options, then there is a price to pay. If you want stability, you get what you get. You pay a high price for a Mac and can buy two or three PC's for the same price as a MAC however you will pay for it in support so it is almost a wash. The same with Sun Hardware on servers. They were great but cost money.

In the end, when someone asks me what OS to get on a new laptop or desktop, the first thing I ask is what apps do they use. Based on the answer, I know if they are novice or not. If novice or even medium level I recommend Mac no question. For those above those levels, it depends.

Re:Just think if apple had better hardware how dea

[angel'o'sphere]

I suggest to go to an apple.com web site and check their offers.

All your claimes what they 'have not' are wrong.

Whole point of Mac Pro is better heat dissipation

[SuperKendall]

As the other responder noted, the Mac Pro specifically does not use hard drives, it's all SSD (as are most other modern macs, with the exception of some iMac models).

But even if it did have hard drives, the Mac Pro design is the way it is to ditch as much heat as possible. It's a vastly better design than a box with a few holes and a fan.

Lenovo Payback?

[supremebob]

I'm curious why IBM stopped buying Lenovo systems and started getting Mac hardware. Was it some sort of payback at Lenovo for them getting into the enterprise server business and cutting into their market share?

Tech poser

[Brannon]

Just because someone doesn't want to waste their time debugging some piece of shit PC doesn't make them an "idiot", it means that they value their own time enough to not want to waste it. I spend my time doing deeply technical work during the day, I don't want to spend my off hours debugging my home computer, or my wife's computer, etc. So I use a Mac at home and I encourage my friends & family to do the same.

And so do you--but not without chuckling to yourself first about what idiots those people are.

Real engineers care about solving real problems. I'm completely unimpressed by posers who see tech knowledge as a weapon they can use to shit on everyone else. Invariably, in my experience, those people are terrible at tech and even worse at being a human.

Oh, and perhaps you are outside the US, but in the US the most-expensive [standard-config] iMac is $2300 and has a 2TB Fusion drive (which is a hybrid SSD/spinning disk).

Re:No centralized management = bandwidth issues fo

[Anonymous Coward]

So what's the cost of buying a fatter pipe to handle that vs. the higher administrative cost of the Windows PCs?

B*llshit

[CanEHdian]

Comparing apples and oranges. What you need to do is categorize the support tickets into categories and analyze them. For instance, a botched software rollout might lead to 100 support tickets of people calling the helpdesk they can't start application Y because of error X. How about the "forgot password" and other user-specific items? Were they removed from the sample?

Do they use the same printers? "I can't print" reason: paper was out. Situation: Windows users use printer A and print quite a lot so it runs out all the time, Mac users use printer B and don't print a lot and everytime the windows printer gets reloaded, the Mac printer gets 'topped up' so it virtually never runs out so not a single can't-print support ticket exists.

How about the Apple Fanbois factor? There's usually a Fanboi or two in every department that enjoy helping out their Apple-product-using colleagues, so instead of having the user call the service desk, they stop what they're doing and run over to fix whatever isn't working, just because they enjoy it so much. PC users don't care about the 13-in-a-dozen Wintel/WAMD machine and spend their expensive time more efficiently and have the tier-1 supporters take care of the problem

Re:B*llshit

[angel'o'sphere]

Fanbois usually don't know much about computers.
Hence this term was coined by the /. crowed.
It really surprises me that so many Windows users can not accept that *n*x is less hassle. Regardless what you substitute for the stars.
Mac or Linux or Solaris users don't have problems a typical Windows user has ...

Re:B*llshit

[Ol Olsoc]

How about the Apple Fanbois factor?

Hey! How about the Apple Fanboy factor? Fortunately tht kind of tips your hand.

Well here we go. We employed a division of people to keep the PC's running.

One person to keep the Mac's running. That was me. I also filled in with the PC's for the suits. But even I spent at least 5 times the effort on fixing PC problems as I did Macs

The Windows machines really needed that army of IT people because they had constant problems. You can't deny it even with your silly printer counterexample. You see, your argument falls apart when dealing with someone that has equal experience. This is an estimate, but we had around 1 guy per hundred Macs, and around 1 person for every 20 PC's. Fanbois....teee hee!

Re:B*llshit

[Ol Olsoc]

Mac or Linux or Solaris users don't have problems a typical Windows user has ...

I've found that the people who know for a fact that Windows is a superior system to Unixy systems do not use anything but Windows, and don't know how to use anything else. Using and maintaining both, its no contest. Windows is brittle, and you have problems you don't have with anything else.

Cost savings are beyond tech support

[Anonymous Coward]

Psychological well-being is priceless in any case. I've noticed less nerves but also getting more work done ever since I switched.

Linux stats?

[hackel]

I also want to see the numbers on total cost of ownership for PCs running Linux. I'm sure this depends on the extent to which the operating system is locked down, but I would imagine that a user running a solid Linux distribution appropriately locked down (without root) would have the fewest support issues of all. Some hard numbers on this would certainly be intriguing...

IT causes the helpdesk requests for Windows PCs

[laughingskeptic]

I am sure the same is true at my company. The IT department locks down and otherwise messes with the Windows PCs ... because they can. This impulse to control leads directly to IT support tickets. They don't lock down the Macs because they are not tied into the domain like the PCs are. Most Windows users in my company have to put in a help desk ticket to get new software, update existing software or even add the new printer that IT just installed down the hallway. This is not true for the Mac users. The difference in the way the IT department treats Macs and PCs is the source of the difference in the number of tickets per device-type not the device-types themselves.

Re:IT causes the helpdesk requests for Windows PCs

[Anonymous Coward]

Spoken like someone that couldn't run corporate I.T if they tried. FYI Macs can, and do, connect to an Active Directory for user names and password Authentication. How do you expect users to use a machine and use network resources? Just make all the files on the file server accessible to everyone? Do you think the insurance company would inure you against data losses and data breaches if you did this or didn't have some due diligence to lock down the PCs to some degree and make sure upto date A/V and security patches apply.

Spoken like a dude who has a computer but has bugger all idea how to run corp I.T

Re:IT causes the helpdesk requests for Windows PCs

[johannesg]

Amen. My department is a software development group (we write C++ for external customers). Back in the day when our computers were locally administrated, we were doing just fine, with a minimum of helpdesk support needed. Then they decided this was unacceptable, and we needed to work with the same systems that the guys in the factory use. Those people work in manufacturing - they build stuff with their hands, and only occasionally read an email on their PCs.

Since that time productivity has dropped sharply in development. We cannot install new tools, nor get them from IT services. We cannot install updates to existing tools either. We cannot even build and test installers, even though that is very much part of our job. We cannot remove icons from the desktop, that requires administrative rights. We cannot use HTTPS. Some internet services work fine when connected to the wired network, others only when connected through the wireless, so all day long I'm switching between the two. Other internet services either don't work at all, or only very slowly, so any interaction with something that is not on a local disk is an exercise in frustration: does it work at all? Is the problem that it's blocked on our end, or is the remote site out? Am I connected to the right network? Do I just need to wait longer?

Opening tickets with the IT services guys is pointless - they are in another country, and consider us to be unimportant. I'm sure it is all incredibly secure. In fact, it's so secure that I'm beginning to re-evaluate whether I want to work there or not...

Re:IT causes the helpdesk requests for Windows PCs

[Anonymous Coward]

I am sure the same is true at my company. The IT department locks down and otherwise messes with the Windows PCs ... because they can. This impulse to control leads directly to IT support tickets. They don't lock down the Macs because they are not tied into the domain like the PCs are. Most Windows users in my company have to put in a help desk ticket to get new software, update existing software or even add the new printer that IT just installed down the hallway. This is not true for the Mac users. The difference in the way the IT department treats Macs and PCs is the source of the difference in the number of tickets per device-type not the device-types themselves.

Work at IBM. Have full admin rights to my Windows7 Enterprise Thinkpad. We are required to run a piece of monitoring software (IBM BigFix) to make sure we are patched and not running anything naughty on our PCs. So no, that's not it. Maybe for other companies that do enforce non-admin accounts, but not IBM.

Can the editors please learn how to state math ter

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously! Why do we keep accepting statements like 3 times less? How about, I don't know, 1/3 the cost or 1/8 as fast?

I try not to be pedantic but it's as bad saying bazzilion when the number is too big to read. Math has a language. At least try to learn it.

Sorry. I'll go take my meds.

rofl

[Anonymous Coward]

tech news of the decade!

I'm speaking as someone who manages IT...

[JMZero]

...at a medium sized company that supports Windows, Mac, and Linux desktops. I'm more on the programming side, but I stay on top of the support issues for various departments. Macs need tech support largely for the same reason Windows users do: because most users aren't terribly computer savvy, aren't confident enough to just try plugging things in, make dumb mistakes, and generally don't know where to find easy answers.

From my experience, Macs need very little tech support when we give them to, say, the publications department - but become much more problematic for field staff and managers (especially to start) because things aren't where they've grown to expect them to be, because of limited software availability, and because of more limited "local guru helpers" (ie. that guy in cubicle 4 who's into computers).

So when I say that I wouldn't think IBM will see this sort of support benefit ratio as they move to wider roll out, I'm doing so based on experience, and also on a suspicion that IBM has motivation to present this information in an exaggerated way (a suspicion confirmed by insider perspectives in other comments).

But now that I know that you, personally, haven't had problems with your Macs... well that changes everything. Thanks so much.

Re:I'm speaking as someone who manages IT...

[Uberbah]

the publications department - but become much more problematic for field staff and managers (especially to start) because things aren't where they've grown to expect them to be

That's your confirmation bias talking. If you've spent any time supporting PC users, you've run into some that need a great deal of handholding. A couple months I had one ask me, "what's the Start menu?" when trying to get him to open the Control Panel - what's that prove?

But now that I know that you, personally, haven't had problems with your Macs... well that changes everything. Thanks so much.

Thanks for the hand waiving. Had to support a Mac where the OS has randomly decided to uninstall critical software because it's "not compatible", the way Windows 10 is wont to do, without asking?

Re:I'm speaking as someone who manages IT...

[JMZero]

I don't think you're being fair here. As before, I believe (based on experience) that Macs overall will require less support given time, and I'm aware of lots of problems with Windows PCs. I just don't believe it's going to stay at an 8 times ratio. Like you say, there's going to be lots of users that will require support no matter what they're given (ie. the kind of people who can't find the start menu). If nothing else, they'll be the leveler here. There's no way you'll keep the "Mac users who need support" at 1/8th as you bring more of "them" into the mix.

I think you're imagining that I'm fighting for some Windows side or something - I'm not, I'm just suggesting that we temper unrealistic expectations.

Moving on, it's "hand waving", not "hand waiving", and I was right to ignore his sad little anecdote. Lots of people who are into computers (of all types) manage to keep their computers going without support; the fact that he was able to keep his home Mac going brings nothing to the conversation. Would you find it interesting to know that my non-techie dad manages to keep a Windows PC going, year-after-year without help? Does that change your view of the whole thing? Of course not; that's the kind of dumb crap you bring up when you have no facts or knowledge, but you feel like you need to write -something- in your condescending garbage post.

Anyway, yeah, my post was a little sarcastic in that previous post, but when buddy is like "facepalm, don't you know Macs don't need any support?", my inclination to be polite kind of evaporates.

Re:No centralized management = bandwidth issues fo

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously know nothing of managing Mac workgroups. OpenDirectory support with macOS server caching and your "bandwidth problem" is solved.

Crap accountants

[sjbe]

In the end, IT saved millions globally because their stock orders were drastically reduced, yet on the local level you had engineers being paid upwards of $1000 a day to twiddle their thumb while they wait for their $500 computer to arrive. But IT doesn't see one dime of that cost.

That just means that the accountants at that company were crap at their job and weren't assigning costs properly. Sadly this isn't an uncommon occurrence.

bullshit, corp laptop problems are self-inflicted

[Anonymous Coward]

Using weird crap like LANDesk and fascist AD policies are the primary reason people call our helpdesk. It's not "the PC went all bzzzt and like it was a really good paper", it's things like "why cant I install this app" or "our corporate cloud backup is broken" or "my voip sucks".

This is not a PC or Mac problem, PCs dont just die and crash anymore.

Re:Whole point of Mac Pro is better heat dissipati

[jedidiah]

Considering that I have personally had Macs cook themselves, I am certainly not going to take anything based on nothing more than blind faith.

true

[Lumpy]

MY 2012 MBP still works perfectly and with the recent SSD drive install will go another 2 years just fine. I bought it brand new when work bought me a piece of garbage $900 consumer laptop. and then 2 years later bought me a $800 crap laptop to replace the previous one that the screen failed on, and then finally a $650 piece of crap lenovo that prompty had all kinds of issues and the hinge cracked on in 30 days.... all the time the macbook was used the same amount every day, even dropped a few times.

the macbook pro cost $2000 and outlasted 3 Garbage windows laptops from Dell, Toshiba and then Lenovo. My current job is not ran by retards and bought me a $3000 dell precision 7510 it's built well and has decent parts in it like my macbook (no marvell garbage) it has been FLAWLESS for far longer than any windows laptop I have had previous except for when I used to use Panasonic Toughbooks.

It's not the OS, its the hardware being build decently. It's why I utterly ignore the idiots that claim that macbooks are overpriced and they can get a $600 laptop that will do the same thing. No you cant.

Moral of the story.... pay for the hardware up front, or pay for it over and over again. That last lenovo went through 5 keyboards as letters keys would stop working and have to be struck hard. not a problem for those that dont use them for work... but whne you are programming at $125 an hour havignthe fucking O key stop working will make life hell.

Now my current laptop actually runs a hypervisor as the OS and then runs a windows VM... if I have a problem I simply reboot and launch a working VM image. downtime is less than 60 seconds. Oh and we only use windows 7, windows 10 is completely banned corperate wide until further notice.

Same story, different words.

[frnic]

Since 1984 this same story has been told over and over and it doesn't change anything. For years it has been known that it is less expensive for developers to support their programs if they are written for the Mac. It has been known that employees require less support than on Mac.

I have worked at numerous fortune 100 companies and every one (with only a few exceptions) wanted to switch to Mac but couldn't for various reasons such as they were running 20 year old code that no one understood any more and couldn't afford to port the whole thing to Mac. Or they were tied into a long term maintenance agreement with Microsoft, or what ever.

Current Mac hardware has an IBM legacy

[jfdavis668]

When the Macintosh first came out, it was based on Motorola CPUs. IBM didn't create DOS or Windows, they built the hardware standard around Intel chips. Later, they developed the PowerPC platform that Apple moved to with later Macs. Now Macs have moved to the the very Intel based hardware standard that IBM began. Not sure why IBM using Macs is such a big deal.

Duh!

[Ol Olsoc]

We had an entire division of people tasked with keeping the Windows machines running. Macs? Me.

As well, the Macs tended to last at least 1.5 sometimes 2 times longer before they were obsolete.

So yes, the Windows machines were a little cheaper to buy. But once the upgrades were done, then the new ones were bought, and the never ending strem of IT work requests for the windows machines, it wasn't even close.

The article is just an attempt at equivocation.

[Anonymous Coward]

> the company that invented the PC into an Apple Mac house

It is a silly mistake to confuse hardware platform with operating systems.

Maybe you realize that modern Apple Mac iron are (IBM compatible) PC/AT which run x86/x64 code. The reason stock, affordable "beige box" PC/AT cannot run Apple OS X base software environment is purely artificial (an otherwise miscellanous TPM chip). Such a blockade is in fact regularly removed by russian hackers, who release "liberated" OS X disc images on the undernet, enabling low-budget 3rd world netizens to use OSX on beige boxes.

The ancient Apple Mac iron, the RISC processor powered one, has been fully defeated by the IBM-comaptible PC hardware. Strangely, Apple's RISC processor was derived from IBM's own POWER architecture design.

Not a standard case at all

[Anonymous Coward]

Right. Get back to me when you have all-macs on your production-floor running your in-house-written production apps, in your warehouses, in all your sale-people's hands, and all the supporting devices: Hand-scanners, pick-order-label-printers, lab-equipment, vendor-supported production stuff, and video-conferencing, tablets, and mobile are all Apple products.
If you run every single internal system from your intranet, have no issues with email, presentation software, engineering applications, and in-house-software solutions, you might be able to do this. The rest of us who work in companies who grow by acquisition and have to integrate hundreds of legacy apps, systems, and ERP stuff while keeping the business running and making money. No way.
Since IBM is mostly a services company now and highly vertically integrated, they might be able to pull this off. Maybe.

Re:No centralized management = bandwidth issues fo

[Joe_Dragon]

to bad they don't have a real sever or let you install mac os server under a VM on non apple hardware.

In reality, hours...

[SuperKendall]

Five minutes to put in a card.

One hour plus to decide which card to buy that will work best with your system and/or local network (and by one hour, I really mean "an entire evening of reading technical reviews" if I'm being realistic).

One to five hours to fix stupid driver issues that arise because of said new card that took only five minutes to put in... for every major OS update.

Sorry man but you can't get that kind of lie past me, I used to upgrade Windows systems also. I got off that damn train so that I could live life, and spend time doing things WITH computers instead of TO them.

And as for the $500 logic board upgrade - that's after three years, otherwise it's free. Or they might just give you a new system instead.

You keep popping cards in there and rooting through your OS though like some kind of animal, if you enjoy it more power to you.

Re: In reality, hours...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahahaha.

"Too many options to research hours blahblah".

If you reallywanted, you take 5 seconds to look at what MBs or Alienwares have and just get that. If you're not into major performance, literally getting ajything not bottom of the barrel is fine.

Sorry to ruin your narrative.

Re:In reality, hours...

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree. I have both Mac and Windows computers. I actually tend to favor being able to go to the local computer superstore and pick out a part off the shelf for the Windows computer when I need to. I don't have that freedom with the Mac. Any savvy computer user with technical knowledge can pick out a part that will work with their computer which there lies the problem. Most Windows users aren't technically savvy because of one rather important reason - they are cheap. That means every Tom, Dick and Harry can have a computer to do their internet related things on that doesn't require them to have any fore-knowledge about how their particular computer works. Don't lump all computer users into one basket - it just makes you look like a fool.

Fewer tech support expense?

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? Fewer tech support expenses, maybe, or lower tech support expense, or reduced tech support expense.

Come ON.

Not quite a fair statement, but .....

[King_TJ]

Yes, Macs are more friendly to users who aren't willing to learn more than the very basics of how to navigate a computer. They're far less likely to succumb to random malware/spyware/virus threats than Windows machines -- and in my experience as a regular Mac user, when they DO get infected? They tend to clean up more quickly and painlessly too. (EG. They make a Mac version of Malware Bytes now, and it generally knows how to fully clean just about any of the Mac malware created to-date. It runs quickly, does its thing, and after a reboot - chances are high that you're back to normal. There simply aren't the challenges the Windows world faces of people constantly modifying existing malware into new variants that hide in different sub-folders, do different kinds of damage, etc.)

On the other hand? There's no good reason to claim you can somehow do more on a Windows PC, and/or a Mac is only appropriate for the most clueless of users.

You may have a personal hatred for Apple and possibly even for the design of Mac OS X ... but quite a few "power users" use them all day long, every day, to get real work done.

I work for a company that has close to a 50/50 split of Macs and Windows machines in use (we let employees choose which they prefer in most cases). It's really not a problem managing the mixed environment, other than a bit of extra work creating 2 sets of instructions with different screen-captures for Mac and Windows, when you want to document something. As it stands today? The Mac actually makes it easier to get a VPN connection going from a PC back to the office network. We use Cisco Meraki hardware which doesn't provide any special "extra friendly" VPN connection client. You're just supposed to properly configure what's built into the OS. On the Mac side, that pretty much "just works". In Windows, there are still annoying bugs in Microsoft's TCP/IP stack implementation that can create "gotchas" -- even when you use Windows 10. (For example, if you don't manually edit the "metric" values for each adapter, ensuring the VPN adapter in the list has a higher metric manually set, like 15? Win 10 will stupidly try to send out DNS lookup requests over ALL the available adapters, instead of only going through the VPN tunnel when it's up.)

And especially with the new update mechanisms Microsoft now uses in Win 10? It's just creating a lot of needless havoc. For example, we have a number of Surface Pro 4's out in the field, and because Microsoft insists on pushing updates through at some scheduled time (defaulting to 3AM or something like that), it will leave the tablets in odd states at times. People leave their system on to go into "sleep" mode overnight, and when they come back in the morning? They may have a solid black screen and seemingly unresponsive computer. Bingo... another trouble ticket gets put in, "high priority", for I.T. to troubleshoot. In reality, it can be things as simple as the Intel video driver getting an update pushed to it that needed a full reboot to start working correctly again. This is NOT something I've ever had issues with on the Mac side.

Everyone should be allowed to use a computer.

[Brannon]

Just like everyone can use a microwave or drive over a bridge. If people don't know how to use the computer, it's probably the fault of the computer.

Re:Everyone should be allowed to use a computer.

[Altrag]

There's a huge difference though: A microwave has exactly one function with usually less than 20 buttons, most of which "everybody" actually doesn't understand and just ignores.

A car again has a single purples with only two pedals, a wheel and a few levers and/or knobs. Again probably less than 20 controls, many of which are rarely if ever used by the majority of people.

A computer on the other hand has typically has at least a half a dozen _functions_ for any particular user, and often into the dozens of functions when you add up your email, browser, editor spreadsheet, music, etc etc etc. And each one of those functions frequently has dozens if not hundreds of controls or options.

Your typical modern computer, regardless of brand or hardware or whatever business you're in, can potentially be hundreds of times more complex than a car or a microwave, just from a very high level "count the things you do with it" perspective.. never mind getting into the details!

Add in all of the background processes that most people don't even know exist never mind what they do, unexpected software bugs (especially the non-repeatable ones that just happen "sometimes",) intentionally malicious software, weak power lines/UPS' that can cause all sorts of random issues, drives and/or memory that "mostly" works but mucks up a byte here and there and so on and so on.

Remember, most people can't change their own oil in that car. That kind of kills your analogy. Its frankly simply amazing that we don't have _more_ issues among the computer illiterate given the complexity involved.

Re:Everyone should be allowed to use a computer.

[Altrag]

"A single purples" A wild Lulu appears!

Re:Backfiring of IT's attempts to lock down Window

[kaatochacha]

Wait, your answer is "just leave everything open and unlocked"???

Paying attention to interface is cost effective...

[gestalt_n_pepper]

Unless you're the developer. Users will buy the nastiest crap. There's no percentage at all in doing a good job with UI unless a specific large customer demands it.

I Was There...

[CAOgdin]

...as a consultant ON the IBM Team designing the first (floppy-based) "Personal Computer." But, there were already many companies on the market with their own "microcomputers." IBM didn't "invent" the personal computer, they invented the NAME "Personal Computer."

And, FYI, the first prototype had two floppy disk drives on one SIDE, so the "front" would look "clean." Then somebody noticed that the "return" on L-shaped desks--where they'd likely be installed--would block access to those slots, so the second prototype had just one slot...on the front. That's what went to market...with a monochrome green display. It wasn't until the "Personal Computer XT" (the second model) that they even put a hard disk drive (a whopping 10 MB!) inside.

Some people probably ought to consider reading Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_Computer).

Also, Microsoft created the first DOS operating system for the original PC, and has been responsible for all the buggy operating system software they've sold since then, up to and including Windows 10. That's the price we pay for an "open ecosystem," instead of the "closed ecosystem" of Apple products. We have access to a lot more software options in the "open" ecosystem, but we--as a consumer community--have never, ever really held Microsoft's feet to the fire of quality, and they've made a fortune selling broken products, then convincing us to climb aboard the "upgrade train," always with promises that "this time, it will be better." (See higuita's post, above.) Now, Microsoft has (recently) changed all their "User Agreement" terms (which you accept by using their products) so that we no longer have even that right!

Thanks, I needed a laugh.

[Brannon]

Why stop there? why not give them each an Eniac and a soldering iron?

Define support

[Justt Some Guy]

So, if most support calls were for password resets, does this mean Mac users are less likely to forget their passwords are "password"?

Don't confuse intelligence with monkey learning

[Hognoxious]

I was on a project where I was one of the highest paid non-managers and I had to get a secretary to show me how to use windows.

I was hired for my mainframe expertise. I'd only used dumb terminals for five years, and before that in college I'd mainly used Domestos & Hackypucks.

Re:Just think if apple had better hardware how dea

[Anonymous Coward]

Link to gaming laptop please

"3 Times Less" ?

[swell]

I'm having some trouble wrapping my brain around that. Maybe I'm just tired.
Is '3 Times Less' the same as 'one third'?

I have a recipe book nearby and I can't seem to find any instance where an ingredient should be '3 Times Less'. What, for instance, would be '3 Times Less' than a teaspoon? It's probably just me struggling with the grammar of marketing. I notice that it is popular today to dramatize changes by saying that the (somethingorother) 'increased by 100%' rather then the paltry 'doubled' or 'two times' that just doesn't make a great headline. 1,000% sounds much more impressive than 'ten times', don't you think? It also helps that slashdot gives every word in a headline a capital letter. These are really important headlines!

Uhh....

[easyTree]

IBM where everything costs 10,000 times what it should because IBM.

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's faul

[Anonymous Coward]

More like - "man responsible for delivery of thing and is champion of thing declare success of thing". Big fucking surprise. If Microsoft declared such a thing we would be asking for independent confirmation.

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's faul

[Anonymous Coward]

Not going to get into Mac vs Pc : But on experimental design no I'm afraid you're wrong and and the other anonymous coward is right.
A huge biased sample is just a huge biased sample: It's not suddenly unbiased because it's huge.
On the other hand in this specific case there may be additional layers of analysis been done at IBM to control for that that just haven't been reported.
It's possible, can't tell from here though.

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's faul

[nachtelfjeiu]

It's not a random sample so it doesn't.

Yes. Low cost not equal to cheaper

[lukejmorrison]

Having a single hardware and OS platform has a lot of advantage's. If you had a single hardware platform with Windows it would go a long way towards a better TOC for a Windows machine. Maybe Microsoft will take a page out of apples book like Google is starting to do with its Android devices. Being highly integrated is a huge plus in my book. No bloat and much easier on support for hardware drivers etc.

Re: Yes. Low cost not equal to cheaper

[lukejmorrison]

Add in the 50 to 100 a year for anti virus software that you don't need on a Mac over the life of the machine and the time you spend reloading the windows osv over and over it really starts to add up.

Re: Yes. Low cost not equal to cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

IF you are in an enterprise and DON'T have AV software on your Mac then you are a fucking moron. Not even IBM would be that dumb.

...and other things cost less, as well.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do-it yourself surgery and dentistry, without anesthesia, would also cost many times less, but I don't see anyone recommending that, either. Using a Windows or Linux PC would "cost more," but the hassle of using Mac OS would cause me a hell of a lot more pain.

Build a PC and save

[AHuxley]

Create a list of parts needed.
A big case with big fans to keep parts cool and dust free.
A good brand of PSU that has been reviewed to offer the correct power for all the parts.
A good GPU thats on the right side of the Nvidia/AMD product range that generation. Read lots of review and consider the games if thats what the GPU will support or work related graphics.
The motherboard should again be well researched and support all emerging fast storage options.
A good sized CPU cooler for a fast CPU. Select RAM that will fit around the CPU cooler.
Add in Windows 10, set the privacy settings to less collection. Enjoy a wide selection of great games at great frame rates. Well designed productivity software thats fully CPU and GPU supportive will also run well making use of that powerful GPU, CPU and lots of RAM.
Windows 10 will update as needed and the user can sit back and enjoy computing.
Dual booting into fully supported Linux is then a fun project for later.

True for one company, but the issue isn't PC v MAC

[Timmy D Programmer]

Anecdotal story of one company, and likely bought and paid for by Apple. If you are really paying that much to maintain your PCs then you a bigger issue on your hands with how you are setting them up and deploying them. Since this is IBM, that is very likely the case, under the constant threat of 'resource actions' much of their higher skilled workers have moved onto more stable pastures.

BULLSHIT!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

you really cant compare the two..
if you think about it, inorder for a mac to survive in an standard network topology, you must have PC's managing things in the background..
if you go deeper, mac's cant get really deep into the infrastructure due to their nature of being artsy/fartsy and not a real Tech device in the truer sense..
That being said, Mac's cannot have the same issues as pc's because of their purposes in life..
now lets talk about depreciation..
mac's 50-% year over year with a 2k min buyin..
PC-s 25/30% year over year with a minium investment of $500

Take it a step further..
Without PC's and or Winblows how are you going to run the infrastructure?

in my opinion, with out pc's and windows mac's cannot survive.

With all that said, what was the question?

Mac vs PC?

[Anonymous Coward]

My mother-in-law uses Linux daily at age 70. My father uses Linux daily at age 84. They expend very little of my tech support time. That is not the point.

Everyone in this forum seems to be conflating an operating system with a hardware platform. I have had Macs and Gateways next to each other which were chip-for-chip identical (lspci). A Mac is a PC!

When people think "PC" they automatically think "Windows" so lets get to the heart of the matter. Windows has a registry. Windows runs every little executable that people click on from their browser and e-mail. Window's fundamental design flaws harken back to 95 and DOS. They consistently sacrifice security and stability for convenience.

How can we compare a robust Linux/Unix operating system with one that appears to have been written by Fisher Price (no offence FP) for the sheeple.

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's faul

[Samantha Wright]

Curiously, not being manufactured by IBM has utterly failed to disqualify Macs. The ThinkPad is a pretty robust piece of hardware even under Lenovo; I imagine the devs at IBM who use them just think of it as outsourcing.

Probably not the whole story

[Grismar]

If employees were limited to a specific build of a Windows-based machine, with a limited choice in peripherals that had been properly tested along with the rest of the system. And if their upgrades were basically limited to some minor upgrades or replacing the whole thing, I bet the MS Windows machines would have been roughly the same TCO and the Apple ones.

Instead, people were likely free to have more specific demands and wishes granted by sysadmins and people purchasing hardware. Not a surprise to me that taking that freedom away will save money. Not saying taking that freedom away is a bad thing either, just that it feels like we may be looking at a comparison of apples and oranges...

Proper tech support no longer exists

[Anonymous Coward]

No one bothers troubleshooting anymore. You simply run what you company supports and if you have troubles they re-image your hard drive or swap out your entire box. Want to run some software not included in your company's standard image? You better get VP level approval and be prepared to provide your own tech support. Cookie cutter corporate tech support is only expensive due to management costs. No one hires actual tech support engineers for IT anymore. IT people have become glorified inventory control personnel.

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's faul

[Anonymous Coward]

At that sort of scale I'd expect a greater difference. At my workplace we don't have Mac's but we have around 500 each of Ubuntu and Windows desktops. There are two staff dedicated to Windows desktop support, while the one person doing the Linux desktop support does a pile of other (non-desktop) sysadmin work too. Both have similar satisfaction ratings from their respective users.

Follow the money

[Anonymous Coward]

It is probably relevant to note that Apple and IBM have a LARGE agreement to further each other's interests in the enterprise. I have listened to Mr. Previn speak...very engaging and informative. Side note, he interned for Letterman and is the son of Mia Farrow.

Essentially what IBM does is allow folks to self select a Mac and they manage it like most enterprises would manage a corporate owned phone vs. a domain joined Windows PC. They allow users to accept the risks of their Macs not being able to run the apps that their PCs do. This helps eliminate a LOT of the app compat costs that user expectations of the enterprise windows environment creates.

Essentially, it is the shedding of the legacy and the lessened level of support that make up the cost... not necessarily the ease of the OS or the hardware quality. This would be possible with Windows 10 PCs.

In other news...

[lkcl]

... Hardware bought from thinkpenguin.com costs even less than Macs because it's pre-vetted by their 3-man company to "Just Work". the only "support" calls that they get are down to flaky USB host chipsets, BIOS DRM/whitelisting which prevents certain WIFI cards from being recognised, and the *very* very occasional request for driver support for OSes that are getting on for 15 years old. they sell ACM dial-up modems because they get calls from people who have upgraded from windows xp only to find that their old conexant softmodem is "so old" it no longer works. they buy and sell printers that don't require firmware uploads and have "generic" drivers - postscript, PCL and so on. we don't *have* to live on the treadmill: it's a choice, to tolerate the pain, cost, stress and distress of living with hardware that's designed for obsolescence, trapped by our own desire to pay less for less.

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's faul

[Anonymous Coward]

you're either a dumbass or a troll. with the name macs4all, it sounds like you are both.

Bull

[Anonymous Coward]

Have never paid a dime for tech support. Get about 4 years out of a 500 dolar computer build. A newish $250 range graphics card about 3-5 years down the road adds another 4 years. That is assuming i need a computer that can run latest gen gaming on it, even if on low settings. Mac hardware is pathetic. Mac osx is supremely overrated.

Doubt it, the Genius Bar is always packed

[ayesnymous]

and you need to make an appointment at least a few days in advanced to be guaranteed to be helped when you show up.

Re:Just think if apple had better hardware how dea

[Anonymous Coward]

I wasn't aware that Apple sold a rugged laptop.

I'd like a Panasonic Toughbook myself.

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's faul

[Anonymous Coward]

Your ignoring all other factors but sample size. That is not how things work.

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's faul

[Anonymous Coward]

Dumbass. Your religion is only making life harder for yourself.

Windows 10

[Anonymous Coward]

We all know the answer to this. Windows 10. The only os to reliably do two different things when given the same input. mostly its "double click a pdf file"

Interesting...

[KenHansen]

As IBM's VP of Workplace as a Service, Previn is the guy responsible for turning IBM (the company that invented the PC) into an Apple Mac house. Previn gave a great presentation at last year's Jamf tech conference where he said Macs were less expensive to support than Windows. Only 5% of IBM's Mac employees needed help desk support versus 40% of PC users. At that time, some 30,000 IBM employees were using Macs. Today 90,000 of them are, he said. And IBM ultimately plans to distribute 150,000 to 200,000 Macs to workers, meaning about half of IBM's approximately 370,000 employees will have Macs.

So if 90,000 out of 370,000 employees (or about one in four employees) use Macs, you are considered a 'Mac Shop'?

Re:No centralized management = bandwidth issues fo

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you looked? These tools have been available from Apple for a VERY long time, and are currently part of macOS Server. I think the latest price is $28.

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fau

[lucm]

yes but it costs him 3 times less to be a troll and an idiot, according to the other idiot that works at IBM

A 2 year-old can use an iPad.

[Brannon]

Just because a device can do a lot of things doesn't mean it needs to be complex, brittle, and non-intuitive. It should be the goal of every engineer of a consumer device to minimize the cognitive load required by that device. The goal should be that everyone can use the device with minimal or no training.

And we should eradicate from the Earth this sort of pompous attitude that you don't deserve to use a computer unless you know how to build or program one.

Sure there are expert systems for experts, those always need to exist--just like *some* people need to know how to build bridges. But I've never once heard of a bridge designer complaining that people shouldn't be allowed to drive over bridges unless they understand the load-bearing strategy.

Re:A 2 year-old can use an iPad.

[Some_Llama]

no that is left to the highway officials who put limits on who can use the bridges (no trucks over x tons). it's analogous

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's faul

[Anonymous Coward]

No just no it really doesn't.

We were lied to from google about this. We asked clear questions about supported features we use from exchange. Spent 3 months planning the implementation for a sub company with only 680 ish users. Main company and other sister companies are 14500 ish mail accounts.

Come implementation time there are no shared email boxes. Something as basic as a multi user access role specific mail box doesn't exist in the google mail world. Google wanted us to use fucking mailing lists instead of shared mailboxes. To them it's the same thing!!!!

Luckily our cfo is a pretty smart guy. He got google to agree in writing that all of the features they were claiming were live and supported. That allowed us to recover our implementation costs.

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fau

[Anonymous Coward]

Same goes for google multi user access shared calenders, contact lists etc. They don't exist.

say what?

[Anonymous Coward]

How is that even possible? One times less would be free. 3 times less means someone is giving you 2 times what you would have spent on windows in cash to put in your pocket. Where do I get one of these?

Probably quite accurate estimate

[Anonymous Coward]

Disclosure: I have worked (and still work) as a computer-support-specialist since the late 1980s. I professionally support systems running Mac OS and Windows (I do not support Linux). I professionally build (now VR-ready) gaming rigs running Windows. I personally use Macs for all productivity work and build gaming rigs for myself which run Windows. (Beyond individual systems I also build and support educational and small-business networks).

Everyone who hasn't had their head fully up their arse into Windows fanboism has known for *decades* that Macs are in the long-run cheaper. Period. It's been intuitively obvious to anyone in my position that has any objectivity whatsoever. It was even true when Macs were in-reality greatly more expensive than an equivalently equipped PC. Are the the right computers for everything? Nope. Are they more reliable than, say, a very-expensive well-build PC (like the ones I build for gaming)? Nope. But they are, as a whole, very reliable, durable, and often much (much, much, much) less prone to software problems than Windows PCs are. Sure, this is partly because Apple controls the entire ecosystem. Know what? That doesn't matter much to the end-users who simply want something that works reliably over the long-haul without sucking-up huge amounts of $$$ in tech-support bills. It's absolutely hilarious how many complete asshats in IT walk around feeling all superior because they are "so smart", and yet are idiotic enough to develop rabid fanboism towards either Mac or Windows systems. (And trust me here, Apple could, tomorrow, release a pile of polished dog-shit, call it the Apple Turd, and the worst Apple fanbois would chew it up, swallow it, and call it GREAT!).

For those of you arguing that IBM must be wrong; you are asshats. Pull your heads out of your butts, put your idiotic Windows (or Linux) fanboism away, because your are wrong. Apple computers have been, and are now, far cheaper in the long-run. Tough if you think otherwise; it doesn't make you "smarter", it just makes you wrong.

For those of you Mac fanbois who think Macs are always the best at everything. That they are infallible perfection. You are also asshats. Pull your heads out of your butts, put your idiotic Mac fanboism away, because you are also wrong. There are places where Windows (and Linux) machines clearly outperform (or in other ways outshine) your precious Macs. Tough if you think otherwise; it doesn't make you "smarter", it just makes you wrong.

So the market has completely failed on this one?

[toadlife]

If Macs were 1/3 the cost of PCs, then they would dominate corporate world. But they don't, do they?

yeh right...

[jip_janneke1901]

I bought a mac pro 2008, in 3 years it needed 4 times reparations, bringing the mac pro to a mac shop (losing it for at least 3 days), after warranty was over, it broke down, costs > 750 euro for replacing old stuff with other old stuff. Bought a new PC for less than 1/3 the mac pro costs me, it has been running for more than 5 years now, and makes less noise, and is even much faster.

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fau

[higuita]

sorry?!

my company uses google apps, i have my calendar, i have several shared calendars in my calendar, mostly from other users and other global shared calendar even meeting rooms.

when i entered the company, i didn't had any email, but my contacts list had a shared contact list with ALL company emails

I don't even like google web interfaces, but we have all this... so what are you talking that is missing

Re:Backfiring of IT's attempts to lock down Window

[bad-badtz-maru]

It's two extremes with Mac management on one side and PC management on the other. The Macs are barely managed at all, so they require virtually no support. The PCs are locked down to the point where browser plugins can't even update, which is counterproductive and adds to tech support demand.

IBM?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is probably the only thing that would make working at IBM attractive, based on experiences of the people I know who work there. In other news, somewhat ironic, as the IBM PC started the whole thing.

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's faul

[KenHansen]

With 76,000 Windows workstations, you "suspect" that it might be on a Windows network infrastructure? You must not work in IT.

Since I know nothing about this organization other than ehat you tell me, and since you chose not to share any details about your infrastructure backbone, I can only 'suspect' it is windows-based, I can't 'know' it is anything. I worked for years in a mixed-platform environment, 1,500 desktops and laptops, 400 of which were MacBooks... I 'know' how we setup and managed our network infrastructure, but that doesn't mean your 80,000 desktop network was setup the same as ours.

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's faul

[__aaclcg7560]

I 'know' how we setup and managed our network infrastructure, but that doesn't mean your 80,000 desktop network was setup the same as ours.

If the network has 100+ Windows computers, the network infrastructure will almost always be Windows. I've never seen a Fortune 500 company use Linux with SAMBA and OpenLDAP for the domain controllers.

Re: How much of that is entirely Microsoft's faul

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't want to lock down our systems .you want to unleash them. We want to give choice.