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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.
All run Linux on POWER9 workstations. At least that's what I would want.
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.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
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.
...my neighbor had a PC, shes 70 years old.
...well..use the damn thing.
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
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!
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
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.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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.
Good people go to bed earlier.
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.
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.
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.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
*looks at post*
Get your asbestos underwear! Get your asbestos underwear here folks! Don't get into a flamewar without being prepared!
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?
Who else's fault would it be that Windows requires 3x more support?
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
Wow, your anecdotal experience from 13 years ago is so relevant today...
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
I'm thinking they could reduce this if they stopped pushing people toward things nobody wants.
(Windows after 7, IE, Skype, etc)
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.
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
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.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
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.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
As an I.T. Support contractor, we call that job security.
No centralized management = bandwidth issues for small offices when the mac's all try to pull the same big update at the same time.
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.
love is just extroverted narcissism
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.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
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.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Being inflexible while IT moves forward is not a good solution. Regardless of the tech or problems.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
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)
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
There's just no comparison.
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.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
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.
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.
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.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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.
I suggest to go to an apple.com web site and check their offers.
All your claimes what they 'have not' are wrong.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
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.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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?
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).
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.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
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
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
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.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
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...
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.
...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.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
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.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
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.
Considering that I have personally had Macs cook themselves, I am certainly not going to take anything based on nothing more than blind faith.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
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.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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.
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.
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.
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 shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
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"?
"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.
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."
If that were true, why did you not simply return it for a replacement under the warranty?
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
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.
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.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
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.
to bad they don't have a real sever or let you install mac os server under a VM on non apple hardware.
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.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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.
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.
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.
Wait, your answer is "just leave everything open and unlocked"???
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.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
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.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
...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!
Why stop there? why not give them each an Eniac and a soldering iron?
TCO = Total Cost of Ownership
Customarily computed over the useful life of the product in actual productive environments.
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.
> 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 ?
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...
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.
---
So, if most support calls were for password resets, does this mean Mac users are less likely to forget their passwords are "password"?
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)
Sounds entirely reasonable. By now, Windows users have to treat the OS vendor as a malicious adversary...
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
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.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Thanks!
Yup, Outlook's search is crap.
Thinkpads are no longer manufactured by IBM.
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.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Same here. It requires a special kind of stupid to associate "new" with "good" unconditionally.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
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!
...omphaloskepsis often...
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.
IBM where everything costs 10,000 times what it should because IBM.
Requiem for the American Dream
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!
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.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
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.
It's not a random sample so it doesn't.
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.
Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K.
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.
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.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
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
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
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.
(If at first you don't succeed, do it different next time!)
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".
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?
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
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?
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.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
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.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
No, they shouldn't hire people who don't care or don't know the difference.
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.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
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.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
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.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
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.
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
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...
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.
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
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.
... 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.
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.
and you need to make an appointment at least a few days in advanced to be guaranteed to be helped when you show up.
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.
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?
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
So if 90,000 out of 370,000 employees (or about one in four employees) use Macs, you are considered a 'Mac Shop'?
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?
"Yes I think your argument was THAT stupid and almost as offensive."
Then you must not have any critical thinking ability. Good day!
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
yes but it costs him 3 times less to be a troll and an idiot, according to the other idiot that works at IBM
lucm, indeed.
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.
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?
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.
If Macs were 1/3 the cost of PCs, then they would dominate corporate world. But they don't, do they?
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
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.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
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...
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
Higuita
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.
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.
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.