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

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?

[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?

[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?

[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.

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.

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:How much of that is entirely Microsoft's fault

[NatasRevol]

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

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.