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

[Swordmaker]

That article is using the same speech by the IBM VP at the James conference as source material:

An update on IBM’s partnership with Apple, which sees it deploying 1,300 Macs every week, was provided at the annual JAMF Nation User Conference on Wednesday. Not only has IBM been pushing Macs, but also over 48,000 iPads and over 81,000 iPhones.

I listened to the entire speech and the dedicated help for Macs at IBM is indeed just 5 IT people for the 90,000 Macs. The rest of the Apple support staff that fills out the additional 45 are for the 127,000 iPads and iPhones deployed throughout IBM's 2800 offices. That brings the total up to the 50 IT staff for the 217,000 Apple devices at IBM reported in the Cult of Mac article of October 19, 2016 you linked.

[cynwoody]

In the early 80s my sister insisted MAC was the best platform on which to place a small IMS hierarchical database and teach IMS to mainframe programmers.

Smart sister.

At the time, both platforms were primitive, but the Mac was already ahead of the PC. If you needed to draw pictures for a training program, the Mac was your obvious choice.

Interestingly, around that time, Microsoft Excel for the Mac was light-years ahead of Lotus for the PC. That was true up until about 1993. Microsoft's reign over the desktop didn't really start until Windows for Workgroups.

[Swordmaker]

I am not in this forum to answer an overtly stupid shill-for-Mac question. There are roughly 1.5 billion users of Windows worldwide. There is as much justification to hack a Mac as there is to answer your question: Mac is so zero as to reach singularity.

Now they want to go low end attempting to get their special sauce software on as many unsuspecting numbnut's computers as possible.

And you just demonstrated your total ignorance of the Mac platform. Apple has zero interest in the low end.

The OS X is a fully POSIX compliant UNIX™ Operating System with a shell on top of it. My primary business Mac ran NINE simultaneously running operating systems, Lagemeister, including three different versions of Windows, and two of Linux. I am not the only Mac user on FR to do that! Macs are hardly "boat anchors."

IBM, #31 on the Fortune 500 largest companies in the world is going to almost all Mac within three years, yet you denigrate the platform as a vampire, after that company tells the world that using them is saving them $270 a year per computer in IT costs! IBM adds that 73% of their employees who are seeing the productivity INCREASES their Mac using coworkers are experiencing after switching are asking for an upgrade to a Mac at their next opportunity for a new computer. Yet you imply IBM is an unsuspecting numbnut? I propose that the ignorant numbnut in this equation given the set of facts at hand is not IBM --who is now saving somewhere between $24 million and $48 million on the TCO of the current Macs they have, and will save a lot more when they give those 73% what they want--but rather that numbnut is you!

[cynwoody]

I can’t remember ever using the command line on my Macs. Do they even have a command line?

They do. And it works well.

[Swordmaker]

This is not just a decision by IBM to convert to Mac. This is a partnership and in that The IT for a Mac then is primarily ‘Cloud based’ which brings up all sorts of questions. Sure, you can cut staff, just like asking people to press ‘one’ for English.

There is no plan for IBM or any "joint venture IBM will take over the sales of Mac." Lagemeister is making up that facturd by pulling it out of his posterior. IBM is and has agreed to create iOS applications for the Enterprise level business sector and so far created some 250 high quality Enterprise grade apps for the iPhone and iPad. They are NOT going to become Apple's partner to sell Macs or even iOS devices. SHEESH!

[EVO X]

I listened to the entire speech and the dedicated help for Macs at IBM is indeed just 5 IT people for the 90,000 Macs. The rest of the Apple support staff that fills out the additional 45 are for the 127,000 iPads and iPhones deployed throughout IBM's 2800 offices

Something is wrong with your picture. Why would they need 9 times the staff to take care of a similar number of IOS devices?

I could see 5 people in a repair depot somewhere, but one way or another there is more than 5 FTE's directly or indirectly supporting 90K Macs. I would include the people supporting the JAMF deployment suite, regular help desk folks and outsourcing at smaller field offices.

[Vinnie]

Just never had the need for it. No BSOD, Start in Safe Mode, RegEdit, etc.