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IBM Says Macs Are Up to $543 Less Expensive Than PCs Over Time
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They're a corporation and need the Macs for corporate use, they don't care about having a Mac built for enthusiasts or able to run WOW
It says they are using JAMF/Casper. You can integrate this with your VPP (volume purchasing program) account with Apple, so you do not need to manually add Macs (or iDevices) to Casper, and you can also assign them all--also automatically for all new devices, if you want--to a specific "enrollment profile." (You can also do it manually for each computer or somewhere "in between," e.g., by uploading a list of serial numbers.) So, if your VPP account is linked to Casper, all your new devices can be enrolled and configured automatically. Theoretically, you can just ship the box to the user and everything can be set up when they unbox without any manual intervention. In other words, your estimate for "provisioning" is probably off in that once it's set up there's very little they may need to do.
We do use Casper where I work, and this is theoretically possible. That being said, I prefer to unbox the machine myself and make sure that our inventory is up-to-date (and this way I can also stick a label on the computer as we must do), but it I can only assume IBM doesn't do this and also lets the user install software they need via Casper's Self Service app, which we don't really use much here but does have a lot of potential on at least the Mac side (iOS is...weird, or at least was the last time I used it).
See, therein lies the problem. IBM has over 370k employees worldwide. Not a lot of companies buying equipment at that scale.
Apple's more than 100k employees themselves now. And yet they really, still, haven't embraced having these corporate relationships. Surprising that they wouldn't have solved these same problems and wanted to market their solutions (a pretty significant lost opportunity).
They mentioned that MS Visio and Project require a HyperVisor to run, wonder if they will have to find/support alternatives in the long run or even build one themselves for cost effectiveness...
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I sold my 6 year old Apple Laptop for $1000.00 that I paid $2700.00 for in 2010.
You simply cannot get a good resale value on ANY windows laptop.
You simply cannot get a good resale value on ANY windows laptop.
I'd love to see the support length, not the support count. What's the difference in two calls that take 15 minutes and one call that takes 15 minutes. That aside, there are some really strange issues I've noticed in enterprise that would be deal-breakers on a huge scale. Our help desk here (we have about 15,000 users, roughly 3,000 of them are mac users) struggles when we run into issues with folks changing their password and key chain melting down. Every company I've been with, that utilize WPA2 Enterprise authentication also have had issues with profile provisioning. Wireless profiles in general seem to be a huge weak spot within OSX, generating lengthy support instances. Our help desk can remote into practically any windows machine at any time, however I think OSX generates more instances of deskside support. On top of this, In terms of mass deployment, we have not seen an imaging solution nearly as elegant as MDT/WDS/SCCM. Also, we've noticed that OSX is much weaker at abiding by group policy.
This all being said, I love my Macbook, I just think the way things are within our environment it's a weak fit for what we have here. Maybe it's just that our environment isn't as accommodating to OSX as others, but at our scale-- it's incredibly difficult to push through any significant changes to our environment without it being a 5 month project, which also costs money.
This all being said, I love my Macbook, I just think the way things are within our environment it's a weak fit for what we have here. Maybe it's just that our environment isn't as accommodating to OSX as others, but at our scale-- it's incredibly difficult to push through any significant changes to our environment without it being a 5 month project, which also costs money.
That makes sense. Thanks for taking the time to explain it. I'm not terribly surprised they would do things incorrectly, their IT department doesn't seem to attract A-players.
I feel like a ton of people never think about the resale value of Macs. I've sold 5 year old Powerbooks and Macbook Pros for like $500-600. Granted I take better care of my laptops than most, but I almost never hear of anyone selling used PCs.
It says they are using JAMF/Casper. You can integrate this with your VPP (volume purchasing program) account with Apple, so you do not need to manually add Macs (or iDevices) to Casper, and you can also assign them all--also automatically for all new devices, if you want--to a specific "enrollment profile." (You can also do it manually for each computer or somewhere "in between," e.g., by uploading a list of serial numbers.) So, if your VPP account is linked to Casper, all your new devices can be enrolled and configured automatically. Theoretically, you can just ship the box to the user and everything can be set up when they unbox without any manual intervention. In other words, your estimate for "provisioning" is probably off in that once it's set up there's very little they may need to do.
We do use Casper where I work, and this is theoretically possible. That being said, I prefer to unbox the machine myself and make sure that our inventory is up-to-date (and this way I can also stick a label on the computer as we must do), but it I can only assume IBM doesn't do this and also lets the user install software they need via Casper's Self Service app, which we don't really use much here but does have a lot of potential on at least the Mac side (iOS is...weird, or at least was the last time I used it).
This is cool stuff. I wasn't aware of these processes. Thank you.
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The condescension wasn't needed. I've actually spent a good portion of my career in information technology. I haven't ever manned a corporate help desk or otherwise been responsible for hardware distribution though so I wasn't familiar with these processes.
Thank you to the others that explained them with civility.
This just in, company hired by Apple to push Macs into other corporate environments says Macs are better than Windows PCs. Give me a break guys.
It was more of an experiment, and you and exactly 42 people in this thread proved a point I was making in another thread. Has nothing to do with the disclaimer ironically. But thanks for playing.
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Ironically yes. Because they are so stable and long term cost less.
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I used "I" like 2 times in one sentence. Do you think that's ok? Damn! I probably should change that. Thanks for your help.
Assume it was a 17" MBP. Part of its price is cause apple discountined the 17 , and they hold thier value better. 15" and 13" are significantly cheaper.
My 2012 Mac mini 2.6 server can almost get me back my money, but that is not cause it's an awesome machine far superior to PC , its cause apple gimped the 2014 model.
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Ha ha ha ..... and that's the truth. Having seen IBM support charges, the hardware is not the problem, it's how much IBM charges ..... and that just answering the phone ....
Most closed up systems are less expensive over time...because you can't upgrade anything in them.
Part of our cost mitigation is that we have to refresh out Windows Latitudes after 3 years but stretch our Macs to 4... it's an enormous cost saving. To say nothing of the annual support cost average... 4 submitted incidents per user per Mac, versus 27 submitted incidents per user per PC (we have 800 Macs and 2500 PCs)... guess which one costs us more overall.
You're right! I've been an Apple User since 1976, and still have the Apple 1 to prove it!
Our company started deploying Macbook Pros as an option.
A lot of people jumped on it only to go back to their ThinkPads after a few months.
The issue is software compatibility. A lot of us had to load a virtual Windows environment or use a Citrix session to do a lot of work.
Apple's integration with ADS is marginal at best.
Our Linux/Unix guys are fine for the most part on admin and programming duties, but a lot of company tools we use on a daily basis are only available on the Windows platform.
So one has to evaluate the totality of the workplace when deciding to deploy Macs.
I used to work for IBM about 10 years ago. What they claim publicly should be taken with a truck load of salt.
A lot of people jumped on it only to go back to their ThinkPads after a few months.
The issue is software compatibility. A lot of us had to load a virtual Windows environment or use a Citrix session to do a lot of work.
Apple's integration with ADS is marginal at best.
Our Linux/Unix guys are fine for the most part on admin and programming duties, but a lot of company tools we use on a daily basis are only available on the Windows platform.
So one has to evaluate the totality of the workplace when deciding to deploy Macs.
I used to work for IBM about 10 years ago. What they claim publicly should be taken with a truck load of salt.
This is probably because your friends aren't interested in buying pc's.
Have you tried any of these? A lot of them probably Import/Export to/from MS Project.
http://www.toptenreviews.com/business/services/best-mac-project-management-software/
Totally anecdotal, but there's a 2011 Mac Mini in my other room that I used for 4 years as a daily work machine for everything from Adobe Creative Suite all the way up through Final Cut Pro. It wasn't a speed demon, but it did handle all this stuff decently enough. It also doubled as a media server within my apartment, streaming audio and video to Apple TV other devices. It never had any hardware issues, a few (pretty easily solvable) software things that came up. I think I did a clean OS install for one OS X version, but other than that just ran the updates as they came. It keeps plugging away to this day. It cost me I think about $600? I finally treated myself to a huge 5K iMac earlier this year, but that humble Mini is still happily working on my girlfriend's desk.
Would a PC be faring as well? I have no idea, but my last office had mostly PCs and the IT guys were ALWAYS having to come around and maintain those things. Usually just weird Windows issues. An these were high-end machines too. I had managed to use Keynote adoption as a justification to get a quad-core Mac Mini on my desk, and frankly I rarely had to call the IT guys over. Again, this is all anecdote, but I've just seen/heard of way more random crap occurring with Windows than OS X.
Would a PC be faring as well? I have no idea, but my last office had mostly PCs and the IT guys were ALWAYS having to come around and maintain those things. Usually just weird Windows issues. An these were high-end machines too. I had managed to use Keynote adoption as a justification to get a quad-core Mac Mini on my desk, and frankly I rarely had to call the IT guys over. Again, this is all anecdote, but I've just seen/heard of way more random crap occurring with Windows than OS X.
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