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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

#111

Post by epistasis »

gramstrong wrote: post #4

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

> user who knows their way around a Windows machine

Perhaps, but that's just the best case situation. I know my way around Linux, and that's cheaper than Windows on the individual level, and far far far cheaper than Windows on the enterprise level. All it takes is users that know their way around Linux, right?

The real determinant though will be the cost averaged out over skill levels and prevalence of skill levels.

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

#112

Post by eosrei »

rdtsc wrote: post #20

OS licensing is probably cheaper as well come upgrade time. I understand macOS license is tied to the hardware so for a new version don't have to pay? With hundreds of thousands of machine that can add up.

Windows 10 is effectively now the same as MacOS, but with rolling updates: http://www.winbeta.org/news/windows-10-last-version-windows-...

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

#113

Post by lake99 »

zeveb wrote: post #92
gramstrong wrote: post #4

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

I can't compare Windows and macOS, but I can compare Windows and Linux. About a year ago my employer forced me to use a Windows machine. Fortunately, I have complete control of it (it's not managed by my employer); unfortunately, that doesn't matter. It's a complete cesspit: updates are horrible; the pre-installed crapware from the manufacturer is horrible; the pre-installed crapware from Microsoft is horrible; the i…

> There is literally only one good thing I can say about Windows: the background and lock screen images are really, really nice

You can have that in Linux too[1]. You can configure it to pull fresh images from your favourite sources, including Bing.

[1] https://vrty.org/ seems to be down at the moment

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

#114

Post by raesene6 »

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 Windows boxes to log in to AD.

Personally, I've run Windows/MacOS and Linux for a reasonable number of years and I wouldn't say that one was necessarily vastly more stable that the others (assuming current software)

What I do see is that a lot of "traditional corporate" systems get loaded down with additional layers of software which can cause issues, remove that and I think you have a less crashy experience, regardless of the underlying OS.

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

#115

Post by raesene6 »

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.

So it would sound like the answer is to improve the IT practices in use, rather than necessarily blame the underlying OS...

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

#116

Post by rdtsc »

eosrei wrote: post #112
rdtsc wrote: post #20

OS licensing is probably cheaper as well come upgrade time. I understand macOS license is tied to the hardware so for a new version don't have to pay? With hundreds of thousands of machine that can add up.

Windows 10 is effectively now the same as MacOS, but with rolling updates: http://www.winbeta.org/news/windows-10-last-version-windows-...

Ah interesting, that does level the playing field there I suppose.

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

#117

Post by raesene6 »

greedo wrote: post #34
FollowSteph3 wrote: post #25

It's because most PCs people use are bottom of the barrel cheap. If you compare similarly priced PCs to Macs with similar business class builds (keyboards for laptops, etc) I highly suspect everything will balance out, at the very least be minimal.

If you look at the full reports, it's readily apparent that IBM isn't comparing an expensive Mac to an el-cheapo PC.

But they could well be comparing a new BYOD MacOS environment to a old corporate legacy windows setup, which isn't really comparing the performance of the OS so much as comparing BYOD with old-school centrally managed windows domains.

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

#118

Post by digi_owl »

knz wrote: post #87
rvanmil wrote: post #35

It's only anecdotal, ofcourse, but I used to own Windows machines and as a result so did all my relatives with me being the "tech guy" in the family. Not a week would pass without me fixing a relative's PC. Now, about 7 years later, everyone in my family including myself has switched to Macs and I can't even remember the last time I was called to fix a machine.

Chromebooks have a similar experience is you want an even cheaper alternative. Applications beyond the browser are more limited (photo management is awful on Chromebooks) but it's hard to beat the price and functionality for most users.

Was trying to sell my dad on getting a Chromebook, but he insisted on getting something with a numpad...

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

#119

Post by raesene6 »

KirinDave wrote: post #89

I wish I could talk more about this but I'm not sure I can go into detail today. But I can say: - Part of the reasons macs are cheaper is that they're massively less instrumented than PCs. - Most orgs have not migrated to Win10 because they're totally convinced they need that instrumentation on windows. - But they don't need that instrumentation on OSX, so it calls the entire premise into question. It's also the case…

This very much chimes with my experiences of enterprise IT. The change is in throwing out the new platform and putting in a new one, not in what they old and new one actually are.

I'll be interested to see if the waves of BYOD and lightly managed systems give way to a return to centralisation again, when people realise what they don't have any more, or if it turns out, as you say, to be that they never really needed it in the first place.

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

#120

Post by stcredzero »

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 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 media artist stuff, keep up to date with the latest software and OS, and it all just works -- no WTF moments or frustration. (With the one stark exception of Apple's CoreStorage volume management system.)

That said, Apple's OS has also been getting less dev friendly and more consumer oriented in recent years.

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