Posted on 10/01/2005 2:24:32 AM PDT by Swordmaker
Part I: Winn’s Recommendations
Part II: Winn’s Total Cost of Ownership Analysis
I’m now a 136-day-old Mac aficionado. (Or thereabouts.)
Then again, here I am in Paris (no, St. Tropez... now Monte Carlo), moving my daughter here for a year of study at the Sorbonne, and every other person on the street asks me for directions or restaurant recommendations. I answer them all. (But that one obnoxious couple from Chicago is going to have a rude awakening when they try to eat in the sewers.) My French isn’t so bad, and fooling Les Americains est tres facile.
Whatever. ; )
Here’s what I think you should do if you want to maximize a carefree and secure personal computer existence. Remember this is all IMHO.
Winn’s Recommendations
Ma, Pa, Home and SOHO Users.
I am a security guy, and for basic day-to-day computer use I am 100% convinced that Mac is the way to go. No question about it. WinTel isn’t dead by any means, but the decline of the Empire has indeed begun. This does not make me a Mac Zealot or anything, but they did it more right than the other guys since DOS 6.x. I am not going to hold my breath for Longhorn-Vista anything to be right, and honestly, for my own use, I don’t care. I’ve been burned too many times and I have committed myself to ending the cycle of abuse hereafter known as the Redmond Syndrome. (See www.nwfusion.com for my latest on that. Or maybe Greg posted it here, too.) Of course, I will put Vista on one of my laptops to learn about it, but not to use it. Big difference.
T’any rate, here goes my Top 10 Mac Security Benefits:
1. I cannot come up with a single reason that 98+% of the computing public should ever buy a PC again. You don’t need them. That being said, my CTO pointed out in all fairness that if you plan on working in the real world, you should also have a real-world working knowledge of Windows. However, as the application formats for Mac, Win and Linux become more compatible, there will be far more user experience similarities than differences. Remember my Mad As Hell predictions for what will happen in mid-2007.
2. You do not need the headaches of spyware, viruses, worms or other malicious software that is the bane of WinTel. You do, though, still need to guard against IDTheft and phishing. Of course, as some folks predict, if MacTel (et al) becomes widely successful, it will become a Big Target. Maybe. Point being (IMHO), if that does occur, I would rather have a huge Open Source community working on a rapid fix than a cloistered ‘if-then-maybe’ response from one company. Mac is Unix at heart.
3. You do not need to learn how to configure permissions and rights for day-to-day use. Administrative rights are a privilege on a Maac; you need to ID yourself to the system to do things that could harm it. WinTel is the exact opposite. Vista makes promises.
4. Pop-ups should be a thing of the past no matter what you do; just never use Internet Explorer. (Well, except for Free Porn. If that’s your thing, set up a limited privilege user account called Free Porn. That’ll do it.)
5. You do not need the fear of hackers breaking into your machine with decent reliable internal firewalls. So far the Win-firewall is OK. My worry is that it becomes so integrated into the Win environment that a successful attack/hole/vulnerability on other OS components will knock it down. Remember Redmond’s claim during an anti-trust trial that they couldn’t remove IE from Windows? Hell. My 11 year old could. Average computer users should not even have to think about this, no more than they worry about their refrigerator exploding. I like appliance theory, remember?
6. You do not want to reboot daily, with the very real possibility of additional system corruption. It sucks, reeks of poor design, and is a waste of time and energy much better put into skiing. 7. You do not need the complexity and infinity of variations that WinTel offers, but so few of us really require. KISS. Bill Cheswick calls a Microsoft simpler OS that meets the needs of most users Windows OK. Meaning it should work reliably and securely. Of course, there is the Mac.
8. You don’t want to have to perform constant system maintenance, worry about registry conflicts or resources chewed up by insane Startup processes. Amazing how much time I have regained.
9. You do not need anything getting in the way of your business or entertainment. The freaking Mac works. Every time.
10. Macs are as cheap as $500 so I don’t want to here the price argument. My CTO correctly points out that a $500 Mac is really entry level, and you do need a monitor. It will be the ‘bottom of the Mac barrel’ in terms of specifications and performance. But if all you need is e-mail, the Internet, music and picture filing and sharing, and some basic word processing, it will do you far better in my humble opinion, than a bottom of the line Dell. See my Total Cost of Ownership study. I strongly encourage you to learn and perform your own TCO before you buy or switch. That way I am off the hook.
If you are like my neighbors and friends, more than likely you do not need a WinTel machine and its associated headaches. However, there are some applications only available on WinTel. I never said to Dump WinTel, especially for application junkies. Just be aware of the true pros and cons and not MS or Apple marketing BS. I own stock in neither and use them both when appropriate. So don’t misquote me or call me a Jobs clone. Read Mad As Hell and don’t assume.
More Reasons I Have Come To Like Mac.
1. You will save a lot of money by getting a Mac. A whole lot. See my Total Cost of Ownership chart and do your own math. The results surprised the heck out of me.2. You will save a great deal of time if you buy a Mac. Don’t listen to Dell or HP or Toshiba unless you are fluent in Hindi.
i. Listen to me.ii. Listen to Mac users.
iii. Try to find one unhappy Mac user.
iv. Try to find a serious security problem with OS X.
3. That unquantifiable, yet very real, pain and anguish, which turned into intense Fear and Loathing for many of us, will become a distant memory. Like that of the Catholic nun rapping my knuckles till they bled. (Another story...)
4. You will not hate computers if you buy a Mac. Too many WinTel users curse their machines as I still do. Mac users don’t. (Except I do love the two-button mouse and the Sony Vaio screen is unbelievably beautiful.) I am ever surprised at my increased overall mental health. Talk to Cyber Shrinks. Ask ‘em.
5. Your security concerns will diminish something like... 99.9% if you buy a Mac. I still am flabbergasted that I was too damned obstinate to see the light.
6. Things work. No geek skills needed. If you want to get under the hood, then you have Unix, a 25+ year old, tried and true operating system. Geek out.
Geeks
Do whatever the hell you want; you’re a geek.
There are a ton more geek and hacking and sniffing and snorting tools for WinTel and Linux than for Mac. This means you probably like cursing the BSOD and blogging about Bill. Me? I don’t have the time or inclination. I want to get my work done then go write a book (fun!) or ski (lotsa fun!) or.... Whatever.
I, too, will geek Vista, maybe Vista 1.1X or SP1 or something. But that’s going to be on a Sacrificial Machine, not on a production or mission critical one. No way do I have the time to be a guinea pig.
You might well find, as our CTO and I have, that there is definitely room for both. I don’t have a perfect answer, but I am a much happier, kinder and gentler person after having split the functions of my machines.
Small Businesses, SOHO and Ma&Pa Businesses.
I see no reason for you to ever buy a PC again. Networking is entirely too simple for people who are used to battling network protocols and security issues. But, you might still want WinTel if:
1. You have WinTel specific application that can only be run on WinTel. If so, still look for alternatives. There is almost always a way. PC emulation will only get better when Macs go Intel.2. Your ‘Normal’ usage requires that you interface with WinTel only systems that prohibit Macs. Unlikely, but then what do I know?
3. You can afford a full time security officer, network manager or have someone with these skills on call. Budget yourself accordingly.
4. You and your business can afford the downtime.
Security-wise, WinTel is the overpriced, overly complex, poor security choice. I was seriously surprised to discover how many top-talent security professionals use Macs as their day-to-day machines.
Corporate
I have talked to many Corp CISOs about the security issues that they face and the WinTel versus Mac battle. Lotsa corps are going Linux. They are mad as hell and made a decision.
Many of us have friends who ask, “what kind of computer should I buy?” and those of us who have some clue always (should) ask, “what do you want to do?” (I use to say Dell, but never again; not cause of WinTel, but because their sales and service went to Hell.)
Same questions here, though: What do you need? The Corporate environment for most workers is pretty simple:
• Microsoft Office• Email/Surf & Turf
• Client access to XML/HTML/Intranet (IP based)
• Lotus Notes works on a Mac.
Try a migration in guinea pig department. Then expand. Your user desktop Master Build will be far simpler and less costly than you can imagine. Now, on to how I went about calculating the Total Cost of Ownership of WinTel versus Mac.
LEGAL S***: © 2005 This article and “Winn’s Mac/WinTel TCO Analysis Spreadsheets” are Open Source and can be used free of charge by anyone, and distributed to anyone, as long as they are kept complete, and the © notices and URL are intact. The Security Awareness Company.com. Fair?
An Excel Spreadsheet for TCO PC vs. Mac.
At home, Ma&Pa only want to e-mail John and Mary, buy fake jewelry, go to eBay, Amazon and CNN. They want to open a computer, do something simple, and then move on with their lives. It should be effectively no more complicated then cooking a dinner reasonably well.
In the financial world availability is paramount - at the desktop, too - and there are some pretty serious discussions on making major shifts in the corporate desktop environment. The rational is simple. Downtime is real money. Bob and Sheila lose productivity and the company loses money when their system crashes. (Availability = Security.)
Since I didn’t know the true answer, and couldn’t find one anywhere else, I figured it was about time a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) analysis was made available to Ma&Pa and the Corporate World. Of course there are vendor specific TCO rants, but I don’t believe vendors. Plus, I wanted you guys to be able to perform your own and not listen to me. ; ^)
THE CELLS & COLUMNS:
The only cells you can mess with are the Yellow ones. The others are protected. The totals are in Blue. The really important totals are in Red.
Cell C4: Enter what you value your time at. At work it might be more than at home, or maybe the other way around. You pick it. I picked $25/Hr. just to be reasonable. But what made me so Mad as Hell was that my time is a lot more valuable than that and I couldn’t afford it anymore.
Once you choose and enter your time value, see what happens to your TCO if you have zero trouble OR if you value your time at $0. It’s quite interesting and will make you think a bit more than with anything I could suggest. The numbers speak for themselves.
Columns B & C are for hard costs of hardware, legal software purchases and subscriptions for a couple of years. I am assuming a computer ownership of a maximum of 3 years. It’s a relic after that.
Columns D & E: How long does a particular task take? Everything takes time, and easy tasks go faster than harder ones. Enter what you believe is the Minimum and Maximum amount of time it will take to perform the tasks for a WinTel that are in the ‘A’ Column. Use your own ideas, not mine.
Columns F & G: Same thing; the amount of time required to perform these tasks on a Mac. Use best estimates or ask Mac users.
Columns I, J, K &L: These are automatically generated multiplying your hourly value (Cell C4) times the amount of time you estimated. I & J are for WinTel and K & L for Mac.
1. Initial Hardware Cost – LINE 8
Before everybody beats the crap out of me on this major important point, the first spreadsheet, “Winn's Mac/WinTel Total Cost of Ownership Analysis” is based upon the real, honest-to-God numbers I experienced.
These are real numbers I paid, with no favors, between roughly equally performing Dell (great keyboard and sound), Sony (incredible screen) and my Mac (which never fails). All are 17” laptops with at least 1GB RAM, CD/DVD ad tech nauseum. This is what I do and I am somewhat security paranoid. I wanted to be fair to myself and you since (as far as I know) no one has ever done this before.
I am well aware that numbers fluctuate, but buyers also need to be aware of the endless BS put forth by vendors. The most egregious recent one in the WinTel world is “512M RAM + 64M Shared RAM.” In short, to save some manufacturing costs, vendors steal 64M from an already anemic 512M yet are not clear as to what is really going on. Not criminal, but I asked a number of my non- geek friends what it meant and they thought it sounded good because it was some Intel thingy-mabob with more RAM – not less. Ma&Pa have no clue and less of a clue as to what to ask. So, those with the least clue and the greatest need get the crappiest machines.
That being said, in “Winn's Mac/WinTel Total Cost of Ownership Analysis” spreadsheet, enter your own numbers and get off my back. Current Macs - Pre MacTel - will continue to be ~20% more in sheer hardware costs. Maybe more. MacTel world +? Who knows. I expect cheap and a small Redmond earthquake.
OK. The small, $500 into Mac? I wouldn’t buy one for my needs ... except! If all I wanted was e-mail and eBay or Amazon and “what does performance mean?” – I would buy it all day long. It’s as reliable as a 2 cylinder Honda. Slow. Yup. Reliable. Yup. Affordable? Yup. If you can afford more, get more RAM or a better Mac. Not a PC. (Geeks excepted.) (Oops! That $500 means you also need to buy, beg or steal a monitor. Figger free to $125.)
WinTel Vendors I know.• HP and Compaq. A technical Wal-Mart disaster aimed at Ma&Pa. Too much proprietary crap. 4-6 weeks for service if you’re lucky. Please! Do yourself and the Internet a favor: Forget Them. You will hate yourself within 364 days.
• Dell. Used to love ‘em. But since I needed to buy a ton of servers, and I complained about their service, and I named names, and their Customer Service requires a course in Hindi Berlitz, to hell with ‘em. Michael should know better. It’s just not worth it anymore no matter how much they say otherwise. My brother in law worked there for 102 days and he says Dell Hell is a US sales sweat shop (no more than 19 minutes per customer, then just hang up) before you get to New Delli service.
• Sony rocks. Great WinTel machine, but miserable customer service. “Our machines don’t break. Must be you, you idiot!” Four equally incompetent engineers were sent to my office, at their expense, to officially concur that my motherboard had failed. I tried to save Sony the cost and headaches by telling them what was wrong, but they screwed themselves.
• The small WinTel companies are far, far better, technically and service-wise. The Chinese bought IBM. Your call.
• Customer service isn’t free anymore. Check out the prices per minute or per call or per incident. I have not even included them here because I can’t begin to fathom how much they earn the vendors. Why do they do this? Because there is so much service on WinTel boxes, they couldn’t afford it any more.
Apple Service so far.
• The crappy, cheap low voltage cord from the adaptor sparked. My daughter received a new one. The next day. In English. No questions. No fee. That is service.
NOTE: In Lines 11-27, I also include cells for you to add time for the purchase of hardware and software if you wish. I count it because evaluating, choosing and actually purchasing all of the software you need takes real time. Some people spend hour upon hour reading and speccing machines. Even experts need to stay on top of the current versions of what works and what doesn’t work, and that takes time. With the Mac, you need less software so your time investment is minimal.
2. Microsoft Office. Buy $: Line 11 Install Time: Line 30I like it. It works. Occasional crashes, but keep on auto-save at 5 minutes. RTFM are the four most important letters any Ma&Pa can learn.
From what I have seen, I can buy a single copy of MS Office for Windows ~$300. I actually bought a 3-person license for MS Office for Mac for $179. You do the math.
Linux dudes: Sure, Open Office and others are free. And they kinda well. When they are ready for prime time, (summer 2007) I’ll maybe include them for Ma&Pa. In the meantime, it ain’t all there. Installing Office on my PC takes a lot longer, like twice what it does on the Mac. Dunno why. Don’t care. Just the facts.
3. Anti-Virus: Buy $: Line 12 Install Time: Line 31
In the WinTel world, anti-virus software is not an option. Period. www.grisoft.com offers free A/V software. www.mcafee.com and www.symantec.com are the leaders while www.trendmicro.com offers both products and free on-line scanning. Budget $30-$40 or so per year, and make sure you update the signature files daily. Anything less is insane. Installation time will vary. Experts 15-30 minutes. Novices 15-60 minutes. Updates should only take a couple of hours per year. http://www.antivirus-software-reviews.com/ seems to be pretty fair, too, or try http://www.consumersearch.com/www/software/antivirus_software/reviews.html
I actually downloaded an anti-virus program when I first got my Mac. Then I erased it. I have spent “zero time” on viruses or worms. Your call. http://www.pure- mac.com/virus.html
4. Anti-Spam: Buy $: Line13 Install Time: Line 32
Spam sucks. Waste of time and resources. Since ISPs have been filtering more spam for us, the problem is better than its peak in 2003. Some e-mail clients are pretty good at additional filtering, and some are pretty aggressive, like Mail on my Mac. My flight confirmations from Continental always end up in Junk as does much mail from my wife. (Selective filtering?)
I don’t use a spam filter even though I should because I want to watch how the native Mac will handle things over time. But that’s me. You might want to spend a while picking some anti-spam products from www.ihatespam.com. Time? About the same as anti-virus. $20-$40. For the Mac? With a decent e-mail client, you can get away without it. On the other hand, kid-friendly parental monitoring software is a reasonable option for their accounts. Check out http://www.matterform.com/welcome.php and http://c- command.com/spamsieve/.
5. Personal Firewall: Buy $: Line 14 Install Time: Line 33
For WinTel, I really don’t think there is a choice but to add a firewall to your computer, even if you are using XP. I do and therefore, so should you. In WinTel, I do not like to rely upon the native firewall for the same reason I don’t use Outlook for e-mail or IE for the web. It’s too much of a target that may (read: may) be more vulnerable because of its integration into Windows.
First, visit Steve Gibson’s www.grc.com for a scan of your own security profile. It’s free and Steve doesn’t capture your ID or data. It’s just a nice non-vendor service.
Even if you have a home network with a hardware firewall in your router, access point or broadband modem, you still should install a software firewall to protect against outgoing malicious code. $20-$50, about 30-60 minutes for download and installation. Then there is some configuration to do. Also, some of the major vendors charge up to $3 minute for customer service. A good unbiased comparison of personal WinTel firewalls is at http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1750
On the Mac, I use the native firewall, and since I am so much less susceptible to outgoing hostile code, I don’t worry. There several you can use, if you want and I will play with them in time. http://www.pure-mac.com/para.html
6. Anti-PopUp: Buy $: Line 15 Install Time: Line 34
For older WinTel operating systems and browsers, you will probably want a popup blocker. An upgrade to Firefox solves a lot of problems. Of course, you can buy software for $10-$30. Mac with Firefox? Nothing to do. And/Or... use the Google toolbar which is very effective at stopping popups.
7. Not IE Browser: Buy $: Line 16 Install Time: Line 35
According to reports I have read, the latest Beta of IE 7 won’t allow a user to set Google as the home page. Doesn’t really matter, since no one in their right mind should be using IE, except for those rare web sites that are Microsoft-centric coded. (Write them hate mail.)
IE is under constant attack and the integrated WinTel approach is ripe for problems you don’t need. Firefox has its share of patches and upgrades, but the “I Hate Windows” hackers way outnumber the “Researchers” who find holes in Firefox.
Some Mac users swear by Safari, but I chose to use Firefox – because I like it. Security wise: anything but IE.
8. Email Client: Buy $: Line 17 Install Time: Line 36
High profile virus and worm attacks have been particularly effective against Microsoft Outlook. I have never (read: never) used Outlook, other than to migrate friends off of it. In my pre-Mac days, I used Eudora, which in something like nine years only had only a couple of security patches. On the Mac, I use Mail.
As long as you don’t use Outlook, you’ll be OK. Figure Free to $40 and depending upon the size and type of your current e-mail client, hour to day.
9. Backup: Buy $: Line 18 Install Time: Line 37
Gotta do it for both WinTel and Mac.
The kind I like is “Incremental” which means that only those files that are new or have been changed are backed up. So, once the initial back up is done (that can take hours), subsequent backups a re much quicker.
Our solution? Backup across our wireless network to an old Pentium box with a few big hard drives. Old hardware is perfect for this application as CPU power is not critical. If you don’t have an extra box, put the backup hard drive in the tower, but that is not ideal and doesn’t work for laptops. A USB hard drive is also viable (I carry one on the road) but more expensive.
WinTel Software: I like http://secondcopy.com/ but that’s just my choice. For more options, http://pcworld.pricegrabber.com/search_attrib.php/page_id=194
Mac: http://www.pure-mac.com/backup.html.
10. Anti SpyWare Buy $: Line 19 Install Time: Line 38
Spyware is soooo popular on WinTels that you just HAVE to do something about it. For Macs, still rumor if any are in the ‘wild’. Use this site as a starting point. If you don’t you WILL lose. http://anti-spyware- review.toptenreviews.com/?ttreng=1&ttrkey=spyware+removers
Mac? http://macscan.securemac.com/ seems to be the only product aimed at Mac spyware because it is such a minor concern, today. Tomorrow? Who knows. Stay tuned and never assume security problems won’t come your way!
11. Tweaki: Buy $: Line 20 Install Time: Line 39
Microsoft provides a huge range of security options. In Win-2K and XP there are countless security choices, many of which are deep into layers of Windows. Outlook and IE have a host of security choices as does the MS Office suite.
You can get Carpal Tunnel by having to migrate through all of these options. But, for $20, I adore Tweaki from www.jermar.com. This essential utility puts all of the Microsoft security options on one tabbed screen. Worth every penny of it for the WinTel world and you will save countless hours of head-scratching frustration. Or not. ;^)
You can spend hours tweaking the security of your WinTel box. If you’re pretty technically fluent, a half hour will do it.
12. Startup Manager: Buy $: Line 21 Install Time: Line 40
When you get a WinTel machine from the vendor, there is a ton of preinstalled software. That’s good. But most software vendors believe that their software is so important to you, that they also install a permanent process that eats up memory, hurts performance and can increase system instability.
In reality, a WinTel machine can survive quite well, with more reliability, with less than 30 processes running. That is in distinction to the often more than 50 startup processes that come shipped with a new WinTel box or the 70-80+ I see on many machines.
Spyware is often found in the various startup locations on WinTel boxes. Without user intervention or startup management, as users add software, process hogging becomes a major security problem.
I have used the $20 Startup CoP!lot http://www.windows-startup-cop.com/ and the free Startup Manager. Any of these utilities will take some time to install, configure and monitor. For newbies, you should plan on a couple of hours. Some other cool resources:
http://www.mlin.net/StartupMonitor.shtml,
www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,5018,00.asp,
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/ehowes/www/soft21a.htm
13. O/S Upgrades: Buy $: Line 22 Install Time: Line 41
I have been using Win2K and then XP flavors on several machines. When I have to reinstall Windows, for any reason, I have my original install disk, and begin there. I usually give that .5 - .75 hours to get done – if it takes the first time. Sometimes, it doesn’t. No one knows why and I won’t pretend to.
Then I have to upgrade the O/S to the latest and greatest. That often means downloading SP1, then SP2.... SPn. I have spent as much as 2+ hours just making my O/S current because it has crashed or someone in New Delli said it was time to reinstall Windows or because... well, just because nothing else worked.
As for my Macs. I upgraded from OS X 10.4.0 to 10.4.2 in, I guess it was 10 minutes and there was no pain.
The thing that saved all of the time was that the natural, out of the box Mac O/S configuration works. I did not need to spend an additional couple of hours to tweak it into benign behavior. For me, this is a Godsend. I can actually use my computer instead of trying toe endlessly fine tune it into semi-sorta-working.
14. Application Upgrades: Buy $: Line 23 Install Time: Line 42
I have spent hours upgrading MS Office and I am sick of it. (Aha! Mad as Hell.) OK. I had Office 97 and bought a set of new install Office 2K upgrade disks from Microsoft. Fair enough. But I had to buy a separate PowerPoint disk. OK. Whatever. Along comes Office XP so I bought the upgrade at a lot less $. But, when I had to rebuild a crashed system, I had to first install Office 2K and the original PowerPoint and then install the XP and the XP PowerPoint. Time consuming pain in the tuccous. Can be hours of time much better spent taking a ski lesson with the money I’ve saved on my Mac.
15. Options I-IV: Buy $: Lines 24-27 Install Time: Lines 43-46
I could harp on and on about how many other cool security tools there are to make your WinTel playground more reliable and thus more secure, but that would really be unfair since most Ma&Pa users won’t go that far. Registry cleaners are pretty popular as are entire suites of performance enhancing cyber-steroids that claim to make your WinTel stronger and less like an AIDS patient.
If you want add additional security and performance options for your Total Cost of Ownership analysis, cool. I am just trying to be fair. For more security and utilities take a look at www.pureperformance.com and www.pcmedixwebs.com/enditall.htm
Let’s Add It Up and Create the TCO:
So we have some initial hardware and software costs. You fill in the blanks so you can come up with your own Initial Costs in your TCO Analysis. It is possible, of course, to get most of the security and utility software you need for free. Support might not be as good, but it won’t be $3 per minute either.
You can rely on newsgroups, forums, and geek friends to save money, too. But, someone has to do it if you want a reasonably secure environment and headache-freer use. Time no matter how you look at it.
Now, we have to start adding up the soft costs of WinTel versus Mac. If you like the geeking, and don’t mind the pains and trials and tribulations, and PCs are a hobby for de-stressing, then you probably won’t care about this.
But, if you are Ma&Pa who want the basics to just work, plunge ahead so you can make your own, better informed decision of which way to go.
Line 49: Total Initial Cost
All we are doing here is adding up the hardware cost (use your own numbers, of course) and some average retail prices of major brand software as described above. Feel free to tweak these numbers as you wish.
But, remember this. If you are trying to save $100 or $200 by cutting corners, maybe you should wait so you can do it right, either on a WinTel or with a Mac.
Line 50: Total Setup Time
How long does it take to get a new computer, right out of the box, working reliably? All we do here is sum up the minimum and maximum estimated times it takes to get a WinTel or Mac, straight out of the box, working reasonably securely. Over in columns I, J, K, L, all I did was multiply the time is columns D, E, F, G by your rate per hour in C3.
Line 52: Minimum WinTel Initial Cost
Add B49 + I50 for a minimal initial cost estimate.
Hardware/Software Cost + Value of Time.
Line 53: Maximum WinTel Initial Cost
Add B49 + J50 for a maximum initial cost estimate.
Hardware/Software Cost + Value of Time.
Line 55: Minimum Mac Initial Cost
Add C49 + K50 for a minimum initial cost estimate.
Hardware/Software Cost + Value of Time.
Line 56: Maximum Mac Initial Cost
Add C49 + L50 for a maximum initial cost estimate.
Hardware/Software Cost + Value of Time.
SUBSCRIPTIONS/UPDATES COST PER YEAR
An initial purchase is just that; the initial cost of the hardware and software. To do things right, and legally, you do need to keep your machines alive and well. A car needs gas, a computer needs Internet access. A car needs a regular tune-up? So does a computer. The vendors would like you to believe that the $449 or $799 computer is all you need to do. T’ain’t so, baby!
Lines 62 – 78: I added the annual subscription fees for anti-virus, spyware detection and an extra spam blocker. You may choose to do something else, and that’s fine.
If you do manage to use all free software, it is still smart to upgrade the security and reliability utilities on a periodic basis. So, put in some time for that, if you value your time. Again, I tried to be reasonable, and used real numbers, even somewhat softened.
Lines 84-88 show the totals of annual subscription costs (if any) and the range of value of time you might need to accomplish the various tasks. Note that on the PC, the extreme range is due to two fundamental factors:
1. Some people may choose to (at the detriment of their security) do as little as possible.2. Some folks may just take a lot more time to do the various items suggested.
In my case, it’s somewhere in the middle. I do a lot of security things, some for free (thanks to the vendors who send me free software), and I check them often.
I will say, on the Mac, I have done almost nothing... which has saved me headaches, pains, and tons of (my valuable) time. ;^)
RELIABILITY COSTS
This is what got me Mad as Hell in the first place.
I was perfectly content running A/V, checking firewalls, defragging, managing start ups... maybe not happy about it, but it was – due to my arrogance – all that I knew. It was my entire world. So, as I suggested in a recent Network World column, I was subject to the Stockholm-Redmond Syndrome. The technology abuses you over and over, then promises not to. You have hope. And then it smacks you right back down again. More promises. It’s an endless cycle of abuse – that I was able to break.
Point being: If the WinTel platforms had been more stable, I would have kept patching and upgrading like the rest of the world on the cyber- carousel of security. But the problems across vendors ad nauseum pushed me over the edge.
Thus, I felt it was entirely justified to include Reliability as a measure of TCO, especially for businesses.
Maybe you don’t care about reliability. Ferrari owners go really fast when their cars actually work. F-16s are great, but need a lot of maintenance. But maybe you do care, and maybe you value your time. Maybe you value your time not in dollars but in headache factors. I don’t know to measure that exactly, so I decided to stick to time and $ as the metric of reliability – or lack thereof.
So here’s what I did.
Line 92: WinTel machines, at least in my experience and the experience of most people I know, need to be rebooted. Why? Because they crash. Because resources get eaten up and there is no sane way to fix them other than to start over. Memory gets confused. How many reboots per month do you perform? Just enter that number. I picked three, but it was really a lot more.
Line 93: A reboot can be a simple affair, timewise, or it can create a set of conditions that worry Ma&Pa and are a pain to me. Scanning error; Safe boot. Arrrggghh. Nonetheless, I am using .1/Hr, or 6 minutes as the average reboot time. Seems fair, but I know that is a really low average.
Line 94: How much repair time per month? Do you have to get on the phone with the manufacturer about hardware or software problems. I am using 1 hr per month, or 12 hours per year, as my figure, but it was a whole lot more than that. This does not even include the cost the vendor or Microsoft charge for the privilege of having them fix your box. In all fairness, tho, supporting Ma&Pa can be expensive. If the boxes were KISS, tho, it would be a whole lot cheaper for everyone.
Line 95: System maintenance on computers is essential. Defragging. File cleanup. I am just putting in one hour per month as a conservative estimate.
Line 96: Other downtime that you believe is caused by the computer or its Operating System. I am including 6 minutes per month.
Line 98: Just copies your time value per hour from C4.
Line 100: All I did here was add up Lines 92-96, multiplied by your hourly rate and times 12 to figure an annual cost.
The Finale: Total Cost of Ownership
This is what everyone asked for, so, in whatever state it is, here it is. (English as my first language?) How much does a computer really cost? Forget printer supplies and extra RAM and lovely USB devices and tons of productivity software. I really wanted and answer for me and Ma&Pa, and I guess I had to get Mad as Hell to discover the question, so I could figure out some way to get an answer.
Assumptions:1. You use legal software and pay for it.
2. The useful life of a computer is three years.
3. You don’t spend any money on outside service or geeks. You do it all yourself.
4. You don’t pay $35 per incident or $2-3 per minute for telephone help.
Line 104:
If your WinTel machine is pretty clean, stays pretty clean, and it doesn’t really go haywire, here you go. Pretty good.
Line 105.
If you have problems and license more software and such... heck, you entered the data yourself, this is what you get. Scary, isn’t it? Now change around Cell C4, your value per hour in $ and see what happens. Play with it!
Lines 106 & 107.
Same thing for Macs but the numbers really surprised me. I did not expect this much of a difference, but when you add up the little bits over time, it really does make a difference. <>
The rest is up to you.
For Corporations and Big Places:
You can use the same or a similar spreadsheet for your own analysis. Your cost basis is going to be very different though. Volume hardware purchases and software licensing appear to save a great deal of money. But, once you have the license, for anti- virus, or any other software, you have to architect it into your enterprise, distribute it to the desktop, train staff and administration, and keep it updated.
Some of the items you should consider in performing an Enterprise TCO include:
1. Evaluation time and cost. (Meetings!)4 Month Rant Over.
a. Primaryb. Technical
c. Business
2. Architecting Deployment time and cost
a. Securityb. Business Units
c. Language
d. Backup
3. Licensing costs
a. Per desktop, laptop, client.b. Per server
c. Maintenance
d. Upgrades
e. Staff time
4. Consulting Cost
a. Installationb. Admin Training
c. User training and awareness
5. Help Desk
a. Technicalb. User Help Costs per time unit
c. Reporting
6. User Downtime
a. Per crash <> b. Per help callc. Per rebuild
d. Per year
7. Whatever else I didn’t think of.
a. It’s never as easy as they say.b. It’s never as cheap as they say.
c. It’ll never work as promised.
d. Security is not perfect, no matter what they say.
I will get back to you if anything interesting comes up.
Use it as you will.
I want to thank the unknown million who have followed my experiment. Thanks.
Last.
Do right by yourself. Make an informed choice.
Winn Schwartau, a/k/a Mad as Hell now Pleased as Punch.
www.TrustedLearning.Com
www.TheSecurityAwarenessCompany.Com
www.Infowar.Com
From James, our CTO:
Dont forget that programs like Virtual PC exist so you can run your Windows applications on your Mac. While these are best left to apps that arent intensive, like games, they get the job done. I use them for running other operating systems for testing on a virtual network with various different OSs.
Speaking of intensive applications, another reason to pick WinTel over the Mac, gaming. Spawn campers around the world are all sitting on the WinTel platform.
My estimate using Winns TCO numbers was a clear 3:1 in favor of the Mac. The incremental setup at the top if the document are the killers. All the little things you need to do to a Windows machine, firewalls, virus, updates (which don't always work - and a failed SP install can send you back to formatting the disk again) and lets not forget the search for drivers. It can take all day - a long and a times frustrating day.
Even when I had the last Dell I got (emphasis on last) shipped to me took about four hours to get it online. Even out of the box you have to go through and add/update virus scanners, firewalls - heck even the registry. When I got my G5, it was up, running and updated within an hour.
The honeymoon is over between me and my mac tho... it stops being a happy place when you don't have enough RAM. Maybe we'll go on a second honeymoon if I can scrape up some more RAM (however much it can hold), but until then, i'll be cursing that f***ing color wheel.
End James Rant
LEGAL S***: © 2005 This article and “Winn’s Mac/WinTel TCO Analysis Spreadsheets” are Open Source and can be used free of charge by anyone, and distributed to anyone, as long as they are kept complete, and the © notices and URL are intact. The Security Awareness Company.com. Fair?
PING!!!!
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
Been there...done that! I tried IBM, but I still don't understand that flashing c> thingie...
Mac Daddys (and Mommys) sound off!
iBook 1.5 gHz, G4 Tower as well
I bought an iMac in the spring of '04 on a whim (yes, a whim) and have never looked back. The integration of digital tools with iLife alone makes a convincing argument for many home users to switch. The OS has never crashed, does't fragment the disk(s), and is reliable day in and day out.
My Dell laptop would be on Ebay if it weren't for the fact that I have to run a few windows apps for work (tried VPC7, too slow!).
Those of you who want to stay with WinTel, more power to ya. I'm just happy that the alternatives are so strong now.
ping
At home, Ma&Pa only want to e-mail John and Mary, buy fake jewelry, go to eBay, Amazon and CNN. They want to open a computer, do something simple, and then move on with their lives. It should be effectively no more complicated then cooking a dinner reasonably well.
An excellent resource - thanks for posting!
My first Mac was an SE/30 that I got in 1989(still have it in the closet). I was a dual user; Wintel at work and Mac at home. Those first Wintel machines were pure boat anchors but the fledgling IT group had declared Gatesware as the corporate standard and it was political suicide to recommend anything Mac at work, such as how productivity would increase if you didn't have to reboot 20 times a day.
I'm still a dual user. Gatesware has come a long way and it's nowhere near as painful to use, but I'll never use one at home. I've never owned a Wintel machine and never will.
It's just a matter of time.
Beware of false information, snide & condescending remarks, closed minded linear thinking, and an outright fear of Apple and Mac users. False logic…"If you are a Mac user, then you are a hippie or a moonie"…will be attempted.
I could have done without the pompous bragging at the very beginning about his daughter (all it takes to "spend a year studying" at the Sorbonne is money). Otherwise, excellent article.
Okay, but what to Mass and Penn have to do with it? ;')
I think Mac's are a fantastic idea for people who don't know how to run a computer. I advise any and all friends that lean on me to support their systems to try a mac, because then I can claim I don't know anything about them once they own them and I never have to worry about fixing another dang computer in my off time from fixing computers.
I think they are a fantastic idea even for those of us who do... Just because they are easy to use and user friendly does not mean they are not sophisticated computers... even more sophisticated than Windows machines.
This attitude that Macs are somehow "lesser" computers than Windows machines is perpetrating a myth.
When Apple produced a Unix (BSD to boot) workstation
with the Mac pretty face I was won over.
I had just tried to do video conversions on my XP pro (Intel 3 ghz) :
I ran the program ten times ,
it worked twice and locked up eight times.
I now have a 17" Power Book
with a FW LaCie 16x DL DVD burner
and a LaCie FW 160 G HD.
What a great Unix workstation and Intuitive interface.
The only product that I would recommend
to every Mac user is Disk Warrior.
OBTW I've been engineering computer systems for many many years.
Thats great. Good luck to ya.
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