Macs are easier to support, say IT managers
Let the haters rail! Of the guys with their feet in the enterprise mud, a large a majority of those with dual platform experience are saying the support cost leader is the Mac with users of the fairer platform using 20 percent fewer resources.
The Enterprise Desktop Alliance has surveyed 260 IT administrators at large corporations with both Macs and PCs. Thereupon, six of seven of those queried say Macs are cheaper to troubleshoot and maintain. InfoWorld has the numbers and commentary:
- • 65 percent say it costs less to troubleshoot Macs than PCs
— Macs were more than 20 percent cheaper according to these folks
• 19 percent say the cost is about the same
• 16 percent say PCs cost less to manage
“Mac owners tend to do a lot of problem resolution themselves by communicating with other users,” says Enterprise Strategy Group analyst Jon Oltsik.
Of those who felt PCs were less expensive to troubleshoot, Enterprise Desktop Alliance spokesman Tom Cromlin says that, “It might be an [issue] of expertise of the IT staff. They’re probably more comfortable troubleshooting PCs.”
We have an IT staff?
The issue not covered by the Enterprise Desktop Alliance or InfoWorld is the initial cost of Macs versus PCs, and we all know that Apple’s computers cost more. That said, given the five year average lifespan of a Mac and the 20 percent support cost saving, there’s still no doubt the Mac’s a better deal.
Further, the user cost of support isn’t accounted for. However, with the growth of the Mac in the enterprise being driven by users, it’s pretty obvious that the Mac’s winning this battle, as well.
That is, given the choice, a growing number of people are spending their own money for the Macs they want and supporting them themselves.
Brilliant…
What’s your take?
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March 16th, 2010
My take is this: How do you get large corporations to use Macs when 95% of the IT staff only want to support Windows and Windows PCs. IT boys are ultra-loyal to Windows and if the device isn’t Windows-certified it will never see the light of day. How do you get accountants to look beyond the initial cost of a computer when all they see is how cheap the sticker price is? How do you get Microsoft to make hooking up a Mac to the Microsoft Server software so that it works properly?
Microsoft would be just cutting its own throat to allow Apple to get into corporations. That means they’d sell less and less Windows licenses. In my lifetime, I’ll probably never see Macs sitting on a large corporation’s employee’s desktops. All big businesses want to give employees are $500 crap Windows machines so that the CEO’s can pocket more for their personal bonuses for saving money.
March 21st, 2010
From their Website:
“The Enterprise Desktop Alliance (EDA) is a collaboration among enterprise class software developers to deliver solutions that streamline the deployment, integration and management of the Mac in sophisticated Windows-managed IT environments”
And they found out Macs in the enterprise were a good thing. I’m not a hater, but it would seem to me a journalist might have possibly disclosed this to his readers. Or if you like, click here and you can probably get in on the next one:
http://www.enterprisedesktopalliance.com/survey_results.html
Not quite Gartner, eh?
The enterprise is more than a business with a big honking number of desktop computers. If you want to see the number of Macs in the enterprise increase, a few things need to happen.
First, put out a model between the Mini and the MacPros that isn’t stuck in a monitor and you can put in dirty and hot environment.Apple has done this before with various machines designated as Education Models.I really doubt it would happen unless Apple wants huge hassles with no margin.
Know what you call a MacPro running Windows and connecting to a Windows Server.so it can run Windows Server based Apps? An expensive PC. Know what you call a business with hundreds of these? A business with serious problems requiring a full audit.
It has nothing to do with hating Apple and you need to understand there is a mature section of the IT pie that is very competitive. Our primary vendor knows we have 3 basic profiles depending on where we need to deploy them. They come with our disk images preloaded. We have an engineer assigned to the account and since we also get our servers from them, they can and have recreated issues and helped us find solutions. If nothing else, I can turn my attention to WAN or other issues because there isn’t anyone who knows more about the equipment than them. They won’t assign some kid who did an MCSE boot camp. I could keep going because there are a lot of needs an enterprise operation has, but you get the idea.
It might make you feel good to believe all those CEOs and COOs and CFOs are just handing their careers and companies over to a bunch nerds who have taken a blood oath in their Mom’s basement to kill themselves before sullying their infrastructure. The truth is these are talented people who aren’t treating such things like this a boy band contest.Me ? I’m the IT Director who has done this for 30 years and really doesn’t have a preference. I’ve ripped Windows Servers that were just serving up files and handing seat money to MS and I’ve got a small, about 15 people in our graphics department running Macs off an Xserver.The poor bastards were using a hodge podge of ancient Windows software and moving huge files halfway across the country for no currently defensible reason
You can’t look at the operation of enterprise IT from this simplistic computer on a desk or iPhone in the pocket. Now there are certainly many businesses you could deploy Macs very successfully. No need to believe me. But Steve Jobs has shown zero interest in pursuing this part of the pie. I mean zero. Including with the iPhone.
Now why do you think that happened?