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Macs are 3 times cheaper to own than Windows PCs, says IBM's IT guy

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Re: Macs are 3 times cheaper to own than Windows PCs, says IBM's IT guy

#141

Post by ch_123 »

treve wrote: post #109
StillBored wrote: post #90

Well, if IBM's PC image is anything like it was in the early 2000's probably > 50% of their PC issues are self inflicted by the IT people who built the image. From buggy unsigned drivers, to crapware for security/etc, I stabilized my machine by uninstalling a bunch of things that should never have been in the standard image. If you compare the PC vs MAC images at the last couple companies I worked at, you will find t…

> Well, if IBM's PC image is anything like it was in the early 2000's probably > 50% of their PC issues are self inflicted by the IT people who built the image. I'd argue that most issues people have with Windows PC fall in the category of 'self inflicted', but the point is, is that this is much harder to do on a Mac (apparently). I never heard someone building an image for a mac for example.

> I never heard someone building an image for a mac for example.

This happens where I work. Amongst other things it:

1) Set the hostname of the machine. 2) At one point, changed the timezone to one of the US offices (I work in Europe). 3) Prohibited upgrades to newer versions of OS X until they were approved by the IT staff. 4) Forced reboots for installation of security updates (happened to everyone in the office at the same time, with a few minutes warning and no option to cancel).

and some other annoyances. I needed at one stage to reinstall OS X (my fault, as opposed to something wrong with OS X), and this got rid of the issue.

I was informed by a colleague that if you reinstalled OS X while connected to the corporate network, that it would install OS X from the company's IT servers instead of Apple's ones, thus pulling down the corporate image. I can't 100% verify that claim, but it sounds true what I have seen when people reformatted in the office.

Re: Macs are 3 times cheaper to own than Windows PCs, says IBM's IT guy

#142

Post by h0p3 »

talmand wrote: post #86
greedo wrote: post #69

I use a Mac at work, and we've started giving managers the discretion to choose a Mac for their employees. I've been using Macs since OSX, so fairly familiar with their flaws in a corporate environment. I have to laugh at anyone who thinks Windows would be comparable or cheaper in cost to a Mac. Everyday, I hear a continual litany of woe and despair from our helpdesk about drivers, and anti-virus, and AD issues etc a…

>> I hear a continual litany of woe and despair from our helpdesk about drivers, and anti-virus, and AD issues etc ad infinitum Sounds like human error to me. My two young children seem to handle Windows just fine without me having to constantly monitor their machines. Edit: what? my anecdotal evidence isn't as good as everybody else?

Your anecdotal evidence is ruining my enjoyment of the circlejerk.

Re: Macs are 3 times cheaper to own than Windows PCs, says IBM's IT guy

#143

Post by raesene9 »

stcredzero wrote: post #120
raesene6 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I would say however is that some of those issue you mention are more about how organisations typically manage Windows systems than they are about Windows itself. Active Directory is a good example, there's no necessity to add a windows system to an Active Directory, and if a company is going down a less centrally controlled model, which includes things like MacOS systems, it would make sense to not force the Win…

The NT kernel has always been rock solid -- so long as it's unmolested. Microsoft made some deliberate decisions in the 90's in the name of performance that made it much less stable. They spent several OS versions working past that, and past some other unpleasant things about the Windows ecosystem. What I've found over the past 18 years is that Apple is the best at creating an environment where I can install dev or m…

Sure I'd say that both Windows and MacOS are getting less Dev friendly, but that's inevitable I'd say as their main perceived market is consumers and really to operate safely in todays environment you either have to be technical or let the OS take control of more aspects of your computing experience.

My guess is that most consumers will end up running and iOS like managed environment in the next 5 years or so and more technical people will end up running Linux.

Re: Macs are 3 times cheaper to own than Windows PCs, says IBM's IT guy

#144

Post by tdb7893 »

fnordsensei wrote: post #72
gramstrong wrote: post #4

*for a corporation. For a single user who knows their way around a Windows machine, they are not.

That depends on what your own time is worth to you. I mentally (but inexactly of course) price my spare time quite high. I have a PC for gaming that I use occasionally, and a mac for work that I use a lot, and yet the PC sees more maintenance than the mac per time unit used for its actual purpose. That's my personal ROI calculation, and I get that others may see it differently. The only reason I keep the PC is becaus…

What are you doing that the pc needs maintenance? I just install Steam, Chrome, and whatever IDEs I want and my computer pretty much just works until there are some hardware failures or a couple times where I had driver issues.

Re: Macs are 3 times cheaper to own than Windows PCs, says IBM's IT guy

#145

Post by makecheck »

I’ll take “headlines you would never see in 1990 for 800, Alex”. :)

Sadly, even today, using a PC laptop, the process is something like this:

1. Open lid and start work. Actually no, the battery managed to drain itself again due to the power-inefficiency of the system; better go find a cord and plug it in first.

2. Open lid again and start work. Actually no, the fancy “resuming Windows” animation has appeared. Check back after several minutes.

3. Try to start work. Actually no, Windows has required updates and needs to install and reboot.

4. Try to start work. Actually no, the previous update was apparently just the first; Windows has to reboot again and install something else.

5. Repeat step 4 about 3 more times.

6. Try to start work. Actually no, “something” in the background isn’t done screwing with the machine yet so everything I click on is unresponsive.

7. Try to click on something. Damn it, I forgot the built-in track pad is garbage and half the time I accidentally click on things I don’t want. Let me go find a mouse and plug it in.

8. Try to start work. Oh right, even the simplest applications take inexplicably 30 seconds to launch on a “modern” computer.

9. Begin work, probably an hour later.

This happens literally every couple of weeks but usually more often. Fortunately I only have the machine because I occasionally have to sync my development to compile with Visual Studio and so the entire system is mostly a distraction.

Meanwhile, on my main Mac machine, it’s virtually instantaneous to start working in all respects. Open the lid, the OS is READY and the apps are either already open or they restore nearly instantly. While the Mac can certainly have restart-worthy updates, it’s way smarter about this and I always retain FULL CONTROL over the process (including the “let the message sit there forever until my work is done” option). And that’s before I even start listing the Unix tools, the awesomeness of "brew", reasonable terminal emulation, etc.

Re: Macs are 3 times cheaper to own than Windows PCs, says IBM's IT guy

#146

Post by greedo »

WayneBro wrote: post #96
greedo wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And there's a Mac version distributed for OSX/macOS by Microsoft that's arguably superior to the Windows client. But I understand the RDP protocol. In a decent corp environment with a gigE LAN, the data compression benefits of RDP compared to TeamViewer or Apple's Remote Desktop aren't that necessary.

OK you can focus on the little nuances of whether RDP is better or not on Windows or Mac. The fact is that becomes built into windows where is you have to buy it for the Mac. You also cannot RDP from windows to a Mac. And team viewer is ridiculously expensive. Please ignore the other fact that I stated about how big companies have to build their own systems management frameworks for the Mac though. And I think you pr…

Large corporations generally use JAMF Pro for managing fleets of Macs. It makes it pretty trivial compared to the hassles of using SCCM/SCOM for Windows desktops.

You can always use VNC to connect to a Mac, though that's not the best tool. If you're deploying and managing more than 10 or so Macs, the price for JAMF or other tools isn't an issue.

Re: Macs are 3 times cheaper to own than Windows PCs, says IBM's IT guy

#147

Post by greedo »

talmand wrote: post #86
greedo wrote: post #69

I use a Mac at work, and we've started giving managers the discretion to choose a Mac for their employees. I've been using Macs since OSX, so fairly familiar with their flaws in a corporate environment. I have to laugh at anyone who thinks Windows would be comparable or cheaper in cost to a Mac. Everyday, I hear a continual litany of woe and despair from our helpdesk about drivers, and anti-virus, and AD issues etc a…

>> I hear a continual litany of woe and despair from our helpdesk about drivers, and anti-virus, and AD issues etc ad infinitum Sounds like human error to me. My two young children seem to handle Windows just fine without me having to constantly monitor their machines. Edit: what? my anecdotal evidence isn't as good as everybody else?

Do you have corporate issued/managed anti-virus, threat detection, disk encryption, VPN, fileservers and managed printers? If so, your kids are well equipped for life in the corporate IT world.

Re: Macs are 3 times cheaper to own than Windows PCs, says IBM's IT guy

#148

Post by greedo »

raesene6 wrote: post #114
greedo wrote: post #69

I use a Mac at work, and we've started giving managers the discretion to choose a Mac for their employees. I've been using Macs since OSX, so fairly familiar with their flaws in a corporate environment. I have to laugh at anyone who thinks Windows would be comparable or cheaper in cost to a Mac. Everyday, I hear a continual litany of woe and despair from our helpdesk about drivers, and anti-virus, and AD issues etc a…

What I would say however is that some of those issue you mention are more about how organisations typically manage Windows systems than they are about Windows itself. Active Directory is a good example, there's no necessity to add a windows system to an Active Directory, and if a company is going down a less centrally controlled model, which includes things like MacOS systems, it would make sense to not force the Win…

The idea of running a decently sized corporation without AD is a non-starter. Fileshares alone would be unmanageable. I'm not talking a 50 person shop, I'm talking an enterprise with multiple locations and several thousand desktops. As much as I dislike having to use and manage Windows when it comes up, AD is an essential tool.

Re: Macs are 3 times cheaper to own than Windows PCs, says IBM's IT guy

#149

Post by greedo »

walshemj wrote: post #88
greedo wrote: post #69

I use a Mac at work, and we've started giving managers the discretion to choose a Mac for their employees. I've been using Macs since OSX, so fairly familiar with their flaws in a corporate environment. I have to laugh at anyone who thinks Windows would be comparable or cheaper in cost to a Mac. Everyday, I hear a continual litany of woe and despair from our helpdesk about drivers, and anti-virus, and AD issues etc a…

Managed to get macs working with share point yet

Luckily, our executives haven't sipped from the Sharepoint well...

Re: Macs are 3 times cheaper to own than Windows PCs, says IBM's IT guy

#150

Post by greedo »

INTPenis wrote: post #97
walshemj wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Managed to get macs working with share point yet

Or more simpler yet, Active Directory? My brother works with Macs as a sysadmin of a university and there are constant issues getting them integrated with the rest of the PCs in their AD. They even discussed buying Apples OD to integrate with.

All of our Macs authenticate with AD. Pretty simple, especially since the last two versions back. We even have our Linux systems authenticate via AD using Quest. That can work with macOS as well, but we haven't found a need to use it.
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