Debate over: IBM confirms that Macs are $535 less expensive than PCs

Jamf Conference ^ | October 19, 2016 | By Jeni Asaba

[Swordmaker]

Attendees arrived early to the Guthrie this morning to claim seats for the most anticipated session at the Jamf Nation User Conference (JNUC). And they weren’t disappointed. In a passionate presentation from industry leaders in enterprise, education and healthcare, attendees learned how they too can achieve unprecedented success in their own environments.

User choice at IBM
Fletcher Previn, VP of Workplace as a Service at IBM, started the discussion by sharing what they’ve done to transform company culture for the 400,000+ employees who span across IBM’s 2,800 locations. It started with user choice.

In 2015, IBM let their employees decide – Windows or Mac. “The goal was to deliver a great employee choice program and strive to achieve the best Mac program,” Previn said. An emerging favorite meant the deployment of 30,000 Macs over the course of the year. But that number has grown. With more employees choosing Mac than ever before, the company now has 90,000 deployed (with only five admins supporting them), making it the largest Mac deployment on earth.

But isn’t it expensive, and doesn’t it overload IT? No. IBM found that not only do PCs drive twice the amount of support calls, they’re also three times more expensive. That’s right, depending on the model, IBM is saving anywhere from $273 - $543 per Mac compared to a PC, over a four-year lifespan. “And this reflects the best pricing we’ve ever gotten from Microsoft,” Previn said. Multiply that number by the 100,000+ Macs IBM expects to have deployed by the end of the year, and we’re talking some serious savings.

Needless to say, the employees at IBM got it right. And with 73% of them saying they want their next computer to be a Mac, the success will only increase with time.

To help maintain the demand for Macs in the workplace, and the 1,300 new Macs deployed each week, IBM adopted Jamf to leverage Apple’s Device Enrollment Program (DEP) for zero-touch deployment, which is critical given 40% of their workforce is remote. Employees receive a consumer experience from the moment they receive their Mac, which continues with a Workstation Asset Management Tool and a re-designed intranet, providing employees with an Apple-like, self-help experience. Not only do these additions drive self-sufficiency among employees, but they also help create confidence with the product.

“The shortest distance to engaging employees is by what’s in their hand or what’s on their desk,” Previn said. He was right. Year over year, IBM has seen a drastic increase in their employee engagement scores. In fact, “Better Tools” was cited as the number one driver for the overall improvement.

Previn ended the session with a fact worth noting. “Every Mac we buy is in fact continuing to make and save IBM money.”

This is an excerpt: Read more at: Debate over: IBM confirms that Macs are $535 less expensive than PCs

[proxy_user]

But if you are an experienced Unix sysadmin, and buy a $100 PC on eBay and install Linux or BSD, then you will really see cheap!

What can you get for $100? A 3.0 GHz processor, 320 gig HD, 4 gigs of memory. Plenty powerful to browse the internet and read email, particularly if you configure your system not to run a lot of worthless daemons in the background. Some people might not even bother with a GUI, but just run X.

[Alas Babylon!]

Well, I use Hyper-V, the out-of-the-box, part of the operating system, VM environment for Windows. Hyper-V runs on Window 8, 8.1 and 10. It also runs on Windows Server 2008 and up. I'm running it on Windows Server 2016 Datacenter edition, which allows unlimited free licenses for all Windows VMs.

Here I have 12, with 7 running simultaneously. I'm also managing 3 other Hyper-V host servers, one on Nano server, consuming very little resources.

[Lagmeister]

Yep the ole Mac line of reasoning: fewer service calls and ease of use. Of course, now they are adding that it's cheaper. Well, finally they're charging less because their software has always been simplistic and less compatible with hardware and software mods/upgrades as a general rule and their rigs always ran fairly hot because they were improperly vented.

A retiring teacher friend wanted me take apart her Mac and destroy the hard drive. I wasn't shocked but I certainly had trouble containing my laughter at its configuration.

By the way, I build my own computers as a hobby. I have a Lian-Li case/an MSI mobo/Intel overclocked processor/16 gigs memory/XFI Soundblaster/two 10 thousand rpm hard drives in Raid 0 running my OS and 3 other internal hard drives/GeForce graphics card/Win 7 64bit.

I would love to give you the cost of a compatible Mac computer, but there aren't any.

Of course - as they say - opinions vary and your experience may be different.

[Alas Babylon!]

DON’T buy Windows 10! It’s virtually impossible to prevent it from updating.

Nonsense. You could get the Long Term Services Branch (LTSB), which does not require updates you don't want. It is a Enterprise license option, which means a volume licenses you use deployment tools to push out, but that's how IT departments usually service desktop computers anyway.

[1L]

>>I’m a director of IT for a smallish SE corporation. We build all of our PC’s in house and they cost a fraction of what a Mac would cost.

I did the same with my law firm until I decided to stop building PCs and just put iMacs on the desks and Mac minis as servers. It worked out fine for me, but I do agree with you: you don’t have to pay 2 grand for a decent office PC. 300-400 was my experience, although I did have to replace an awful lot of hard drives.

[Lagmeister]

Mac is every bit as vulnerable as Windows, just that hackers do not go after them. The stability of Windows has everything to with its stretch to be compatible with various hardware and software.

[minnesota_bound]

But I would be out of a job doing Help Desk calls......
Luckily all the software you put on the pc will crash the pc.

[Crusher138]

We build all of our PC’s in house and they cost a fraction of what a Mac would cost.

I call BS.

This sounded wrong. I used to build PCs for a living and either this guy doesn't know what Macs cost or he doesn't know what PC component costs.

On the Mac side I started with a Mac Mini. Intel i5 processor, 8GB Ram, 500MB hard drive. This is the closest Mac comes to a bare bones PC. It does include the OS and a bunch of actually useful software, like Pages, Numbers, iMovie, Photo, etc., etc. It goes for $599.

I went to NewEgg.com and started putting together components. They have nice motherboard/memory/hard drive bundles. I found one that matched the Mac Mini specs for $394. I went for a cheap and fairly ugly case - $59. I went for the second cheapest power supply - $79. A copy of Windows 10 OEM can be had for $99.

I come up with $631 (plus shipping) for the Windows box that I would still have to assemble and install the OS verses the $599 Mac Mini, ready to use out of the box.

I intentionally left off keyboards, monitors and mice since both machines can use any of the above and they are very much a personal preference.

I also left out a copy of Office 365 which has a fairly confusing pricing structure where you appear, in some cases, to only be renting the software for a period of time. No such subscription crap in the Mac world for basic office software.

Add to this the lower cost of use over time for Mac and their far better security and this myth is...BUSTED!

[minnesota_bound]

The 20 Funniest Mac vs PC Memes
https://www.iskysoft.com/article/the-20-funniest-mac-vs-pc-memes.html

Typical MAC software : )

Cuckoo
This little birdie chimes once every hour to remind you that, um the next hour is beginning? If you are into that sort of thing, purchase the license ($6)

Offshoots
Got green fingers or love plants? Offshoots animates your desktop with growing branches and leaves. They grow from all directions and supposedly follows your mouse cursor. Not to mention, they’re very pretty to look at, and serene too.

[Towed_Jumper]

“Debate over: IBM confirms that Macs are $535 less expensive than PCs”

PC vs. Mac is the IT equivalent of a Ginger vs. MaryAnn contest -fun to play but totally irrelevant for a company that has seen revenue decline for the last 18 consecutive quarters.

[BBB333]

Riiiiiigggggghhhhhht...

The average user is not buying enterprise software.

[minnesota_bound]

MaryAnn uses a Windows pc and is the most beautiful castaway.

[buwaya]

Do people make instrumentation interface UIs that run on your mac?
Odds are no.
SAP client customized for your corporation? Tough.

[Alas Babylon!]

Yes, but this whole article is about saving costs in a very large enterprise. So...

I thought you were referring to the article, not your own personal use.

Although I do have Windows 10, I am on the Insider's Preview on my personal machine, and it updates a LOT. It's almost annoying, but I did promise to help evaluate it—including the update process. I HAVE complained vigorously, with lots of succinct input, when it goes wrong, etc., so they are getting the feedback.

The idea of these Windows 10 updates is to incrementally and continuously improve the product. MSFT calls that Windows as a Service, so they claim there will never be a Windows 11, 12, 13, etc., as if you own this license, over the months and years improvements and changes will be made to the OS rather than have to buy an upgrade.

Honestly I have my doubts, but am willing to see it through. I think including the various component manufacturer's drivers in the updates is a bad idea. There's just too many; tens of thousands, and when combined, one fix can have a detrimental effect on other drivers being updated simultaneously. I do think after several BAD issues with that this year, they're coming round on it.

[Swordmaker]

so, is a Mac easy to learn?...I need a new laptop.

Easier than learning the next iteration of Windows. There is a learning curve, but once you get over it, you ask yourself "Why was Windows so backwards and unintuitive?" Usually people who switch don't ever want to go back.

[BBB333]

Thank you. I see your angle now.

I was responding to a poster who wondered if the Mac OS was easy to use...and I made a passing reference to Parallels.

Everyone of my clients on Windows 10 has had an update FORCED down that has blown-out their printer connection.

The first was my wife and her four printers. I had to scan documents on her printer from my Mac/Windows 7 machine and email them to her, three floors away. She’s a Real Estate Broker/Owner and is beginning to dislike her Win 10 machine...

Then several other Brokers called with similar issues.

Tomorrow I head to a Developers office as they had the update on Monday and the main employee cannot scan anymore - sort of an issue when we have 30 lots closing in the next week or two.

Keep up the good work, I have been enjoying your posts on this thread!

[Swordmaker]

PCs are indeed less expensive to own than Macs. . . by a range of $273 to $1000 depending on the type of PC.

And YOUR expertise is superior to IBM, the owner operator, maintainer of 90,000 plus Macs and 200,000 plus Windows PCs, in exactly what way to make this determination so that we should believe YOUR claim over their experience and expertise in this determination of fact?

[VanDeKoik]

“And YOUR expertise is superior to IBM”

You can go to a Best Buy, genius, and look at prices.

News flash: Some PCs cost more than Macs, most PCs are CHEAPER. That’s one of the reasons more people buy them.

And what type of leftist language baloney is this “Debate over”? Is that like “ the science is settled” to Apple fanatics?

[Swordmaker]

so why aren’t they 50 points ahead then you might ask?

Inertia, ignorance, fear, job protection in IT, a host of reasons.

[Swordmaker]

I could make a much cheaper computer and install the Apple OS on it, but that would be illegal. Apple does not allow that as part of its license, not even for experiments by hobbyist.

You cannot buy the Mac operating system. It's not for sale. . . so you have a problem in making a modern Hackintosh.