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Odd comment by IBM, though I don't have any information to say they're completely right or wrong.

My Macs have been largely problem free, but then I will say my PCs have been largely problem free as well.
 
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I've had a PC for 45 years, and using it gives me nonstop orgasms. I have to replace my Mac every nine seconds because each and every one starts a nuclear war that kills all mankind.

That sucks, the only reason my Mac Is utterly amazing, like most Apple users I have never touched a woman so I make sweet sweaty love to it on a nightly basis and it has neve failed.
 
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I'm a .NET developer and I have to say that in the last couple of years I did see an increase of people that choose to work on a Mac, sure you still need Visual Studio (though now Microsoft has Xamarin Studio for Mac) but we get around that with an Azure Remote Machine or Virtualization.

Yep indeed. A lot of the developers in my team are Sharepoint developers, using exclusively Microsoft technology. I currently run Linux and Windows virtual machines, and we have Azure remote machines and an active MSDN subscription. It's all possible on Mac, and works very well indeed. I've even read blogs from Sharepoint developers who not only say it's possible on Mac, but they actually recommend it. Most Sharepoint development is done using some sort of Virtualisation anyway, so no reason this shouldn't be done on a Mac.
 
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I've been saying for years that Mac's are better value for money in the long run, they cost more upfront and seem expensive, but they tend to last longer and need far less repairs and maintenance when compared to a PC and Windows.
 
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Presumably that doesn't take into account the hefty charge Apple makes for AppleCare on the Mac which of course IBM doesn't need but I do. I know some retailers bundle free support with the Mac but you don't get the same level of support.

This would be a really good time for Apple to emphasis the cost effectiveness of the Mac by lowering the AppleCare charges and/or extending the included support period from 90 days to 2 years.
 
This used to be true, but not so much anymore. Now a days, I get more calls from my friends with macs than PCs.

PLEASE READ: THIS IS MY OPINION. KEEP YOUR TROLLING AND FLAMING TO YOURSELF. MY OPINION DOES NOT REFLECT THAT OF TIM COOK, THE APPLE CULT, THE DIE HARD APPLE FANS, ANDROID FANS, OR TAYLOR SWIFT.

A disclaimer doesn't grant you any special immunity to criticism. The only way you can ensure that is not to post in the first place.

Else, if you wish to post and partake in any discussion here, then you best be prepared to stand your ground and fight to the very end for what you believe in.
 
Presumably that doesn't take into account the hefty charge Apple makes for AppleCare on the Mac which of course IBM doesn't need but I do. I know some retailers bundle free support with the Mac but you don't get the same level of support.

This would be a really good time for Apple to emphasis the cost effectiveness of the Mac by lowering the AppleCare charges and/or extending the included support period from 90 days to 2 years.

You're missing the point here entirely.

This isn't about the home user. This is about the enterprise user. The enterprise market is one Apple has been trying to get into for years and their partnership with IBM is helping them do so.

They aren't going to lower the cost of AppleCare. AppleCare is already very reasonable for the coverage included. Just $83 a year to cover pretty much anything that happens to a machine you bring with all over the place? If you can't afford that, maybe you shouldn't be buying a laptop in the first place.
 
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Its Macrumors, which appears to be code for "bitter windows users' favorite site to troll."

The pessimism has even infected the writers. The same story, reported across MacRumors, 9to5Mac and Apple Insider:

MR: "Mac Sales Continue to Slide Amid Lack of Updates" This is all Tim Cook's fault!
9to5: "Latest IDC and Gartner data shows Mac sales continue to slow ahead of expected refresh" Oh yeah, the refresh!
AI: "Apple Mac shipments slide 13% in Q3 amid PC market slowdown" That's interesting, the entire market is slowing down.
 
Interesting, I've always referred to http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp

image.png
 
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Actually, I think that number is really light.
The simplified math that I used for business cases:
Power users - PC = 3 years, Mac = 5-6 years (coders, graphics designers, engineers)
Light users - PC = 5 years, Mac = 7-8 years (these being the ones only doing web surfing, office apps)

And, yes, those are the averages - IRMV.

btw - business casing a Mac for the "techies" is easy - typically the first thing they do with a new system is blow away the corporate windows install and put their favourite flavour of Linux on it. Then they start tweaking it. They all love OS X/MacOS as it's BSD based. Just give them more RAM and use VMWare images of all of the Linux distros they like (and have revision control - so they all get the tweaks/improvements that are made).
The Mac pays for itself in the first year (the alternative, you lose over a week of productivity from that techie as they "tweak" their image).

And, yep, I've also managed service desk employees. Calls from those using Macs were very rare indeed.

Back when I worked at IBM in the early 90's, we figured the cost of a support call (8 min average) was $35. (that's the wage, infrastructure, training, etc, etc). It took very few support calls as time went on until you lost your margin on a PC.
That was then....I'm guessing the costs are considerably higher now.

Oops....and I didn't even touch on software updates. That's another huge cost. In a corporation, they're all managed (and there are thousands of patches for windows each year....not so much with the Mac). Each patch has to be reviewed and approved before you allow it to go out. And, then, you really should be staging each "bundle" of patches - to select groups, to minimize potential for impacts. (which DID often happen - far too many apps out there to break).

Ok...I'll stop there. :)
 
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I worked for IBM for many years, and during the last years I was there I participated in the BYOD Mac@IBM program. I bought my own Mac and was allowed to use it as my primary workstation. We got no support from the official channel's and simply relied on a self help forum to deal with anything that came along. At the time, there were about 6,000 of us. I actually felt bad for my colleagues that used the high end company supplied Lenovo machines. I would say that at least every 6 months each of them would have some catastrophic problem with their machine that would result in several days lost trying to get it resolved and usually needed a re-image. IBM also had no company backup program for the Windows machines; so often work was lost. Never mind the fact that my brand new Lenovo machine which I received and put in a box under my desk; was slower at doing almost anything than the same running on my MacBook Air with less RAM. I was even able to get connectivity in our different offices when I traveled, easier than my colleagues.

Now in fairness to the other side; IBM's image for the Lenovo machines was bloated with Symantec crap including a very unreliable whole disk encryption program that I'm sure contributed greatly to the problems. Running a Mac, it wasn't necessary to run that crap. So part of the savings here is the simplified image that they are probably now running on the Macs. It also helped that the IBM software (Notes, Sametime, etc.) that probably most people don't run; were all available for Mac's to run Native.
 
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Hard to validate. In a corporate environment, there are many services that need to be deployed. What directory service are they using, how are apps deployed, what different types of apps need to be deployed, how are network drives used, how is backup done, how are devices patched, how does the device access servers, how os images deployed to each product, how do these devices print. What about remote access.

You need to understand the full capability of both platforms and make sure they are like for like. Only then can you cost each solution and compare.
 
Microsoft have always designed Windows to give the user the feeling that there is a lot more problems than there really is.

Having aprox 58 popups and prompts about random information and warnings per day can quite easily make non-tech-savy people confused and then they call some one to ask if they maybe broke something on their computer?

Source: Everyone with parents using windows.. :)
 
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That sucks, the only reason my Mac Is utterly amazing, like most Apple users I have never touched a woman so I make sweet sweaty love to it on a nightly basis and it has neve failed.

I touched a woman once, but then she slapped me, I'll never make that mistake again
 
Nice to have some other feedback available to people who don't believe me.

I know, if anything, I've saved tons of cash over the years using Macs.
I've resold most of my Macs further decreasing my ROI and increasing my bottom line.

Oh and less stress too! LOL
 
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Good for IBM. If you can run all of your stuff in MacOS I'd recommend it too. Some places can't. In those cases Macs aren't even an option.
 
Odd comment by IBM, though I don't have any information to say they're completely right or wrong.

My Macs have been largely problem free, but then I will say my PCs have been largely problem free as well.
Exactly this. What IBM have done is make a stupid statement without giving us any real detail.
  • So is this hardware or software?
  • If software, were those Macs running Windows?
  • Which mac and which PCs are they talking, I know that a cheap PC can be more than adequate and if it only actually cost $543 then the figures can’t possibly stack up?
  • Etc. etc.
 
This used to be true, but not so much anymore. Now a days, I get more calls from my friends with macs than PCs.

PLEASE READ: THIS IS MY OPINION. KEEP YOUR TROLLING AND FLAMING TO YOURSELF. MY OPINION DOES NOT REFLECT THAT OF TIM COOK, THE APPLE CULT, THE DIE HARD APPLE FANS, ANDROID FANS, OR TAYLOR SWIFT.

You wouldn't have to use a disclaimer if your first sentence wasn't stating that IBM's response was effectively bs.

For example, "From my point of view when supporting friends and family, this used to be true, but not so much anymore. Now a days, I get more calls about macs than PCs."
 
Exactly this. What IBM have done is make a stupid statement without giving us any real detail.
  • So is this hardware or software?
  • If software, were those Macs running Windows?
  • Which mac and which PCs are they talking, I know that a cheap PC can be more than adequate and if it only actually cost $543 then the figures can’t possibly stack up?
  • Etc. etc.
It would be nice to get more information, but they are probably talking about TCO. I think it's clear that it includes phone and on-site tech support, but it may not consider resale value, training, cost of downtime from updates or crashes, or increased productivity from a better OS/apps, which, to me, means that TCO is incomplete, yet I see so few companies accurately consider all the variables.
 
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