[the_daug]

Is it a consensus?

[Mr. Douglas]

That was unexpected. No, really. :-)

[pepsi_junkie]

That’s right, depending on the model, IBM is saving anywhere from $273 - $543 per Mac compared to a PC..."

So IBM has no idea what a PC should cost then. Somehow I'm not surprised.

[Swordmaker]

After moving a quarter of its worldwide employee base of almost 400,000 to Mac computers, IBM has found that Macs are indeed less expensive to own than Windows PCs. . . by a range of $273 to $543 depending on the type of computer. Most surprising is that the installed base of more than 90,000 Macs is being maintained by just FIVE IT admins! — PING!

IBM: Apple Mac TCO far lower than Windows PC
Ping!

The latest Apple/Mac/iOS Pings can be found by searching Keyword "ApplePingList" on FreeRepublic's Search.

If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me

[bigbob]

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

[buwaya]

It’s not hardware cost. This is a TCO analysis, total cost of ownership.
Not easy to do.
I can see Macs costing less re support costs. Just consider what a mess it is keeping Windows machines patched. This is a regular ongoing source of OS and application failures. If you have a patch schedule you know that your heaviest trouble rate is the week after patch day.

Conversely, Windows machines tend to run an application menagerie way beyond what the Mac users do- normally vanilla office apps, for most scenarios. With a very few exceptions.

This application problem is why a large company will have considerable numbers of Win 7, XP, even 95 and DOS machines around - porting something weird is often difficult or expensive, and that sort of stuff is far more common on Windows.

[McGruff]

Give it up, will ya.

[VanDeKoik]

“Macs are indeed less expensive to own than Windows PCs. . . by a range of $273 to $543 depending on the type of computer”

No Sh*it?

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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Sequoyah101]

Mine is starting its 8th year without maintenance of any kind.

Before this I would keep a PC about a year and throw it away after it became too corrupted to use anymore.

[EVO X]

Couple of comments on the article. As far as TCO goes, the oldest Macs are only 18 months old so hardware failures probably aren’t much of a factor yet. I thought the claim of 1 IT support person per 18K Macs was high, so I searched around a bit. Found a couple of articles from last fall that said they had 24 people supporting Mac 130K devices. That included IOS devices. Haven’t found any updated info.