Macs Saving IBM Money on IT Management Despite Higher Up Front Cost

[jjduru]

This is not a fair comparison. In general, Mac users are more intelligent than PC users. That's why the Macs require less management and help from the sys admins.

Oh this is rich. Although I would've agreed with your statement several years ago, now it's clear that the mac fits more naturally with a human mind than a lousy pc. So basically has nothing to do with user's IQ level, but it has everything to do with Designer's effort to put some effort.

The individuals that discovered the mac and switched over, typically simply realized that they're more efficient and have less troubles doing their job on a mac than on windows. I'm the perfect example in this case: back in 2009-2010 the director of acquisitions at the company i was working for tempted me with mac bought by the company. I returned it after one week-end spent with it, for the wrong reasons. Fast forward to 2014: I realized that trying to my job on windows station it was so time consuming (small operations that put together were absolutely tedious) and add to that the maintenance I'd have to put on it. So I migrated to Ubuntu: maintenance was even worse (updates, keep an eye on new, more compatible packages etc), the work flux has been easier but still not good. So, what the hell, I grabbed my wife's old late 2011 macbook pro, stuffed in it 16GB of RAM and a 128GB ssd and by golly, heavens opened in front of me: 90% maintenance, 10 times more efficient, no registry maintenance, no updates every single ****ing week, no exclamation marks why the **** citrix crap continues to not work properly (good luck trying to make citrix work properly on ubuntu).

Let me reiterate the positive sides: office for mac 2016 looks very good and acts accordingly; ssh tunneling works out of the box; python development is made a breeze by pycharm; iterm2 is as good as one can wish; 1password makes it a breeze to deal with passwords (after wasting my time for 3 years with ****ing laspass; made the switch furiously when lastpass put out their stupid mac application); safari, while not 100% reliable, makes for a very good browser that supports well trackpad's gestures and goes easy on the battery (for some reliable heavy lifting - firefox, chrome for 100 opened tabs and OmegaSwitch proxy switcher); and many many more positive sides I won't feel the servers with.

So you see, in the end, it's not the intelligence that made me switch (although I don't suffer from shortage of it) but it's the realization that I'm a mere mortal and I only have 50 more years to live from hereon. Mac helps me make them count.

 

[opfreak]

Why am i not surprised ? While MS hardware is making real progress, Windows 10 has become the worst privacy nightmare imaginable. They're now doing what Google does, but directly in your OS, wich is even more efficient. Win10 is basically a giant keylogger monetising everything you do on your desktop. They seem to be in a panic, to the point of actually FORCING Win 10 updates on 7 and 8 PCs : http://arstechnica.com/information-...ng-automatically-on-some-windows-7-8-systems/

No business ( or individual for that matter ) wants to have their business secrets in the hands of MS. Not surprised that IBM would start pushing OSX more and more..
I think MS is shooting themselves in the foot with their new I-Wanna-Be-Google-Too attitude. You can expect more and more businesses switching ( maybe reluctantly ) to Macs in the upcoming year.

Black helicopters flying over your head?

 

[jjduru]

...That is, you no longer have to worry about Patch Tuesday.

Well, of course. Try to tell that the admin dude in my company when I jokingly asked him what do I have to do to get a mac provided by the company. Standard answer: "I don't think it's possible for maintenance reasons, with macs you have to go to the store, blah blah blah. With Dell you call and the guy comes here and repairs them blah blah blah". He forgot to mention the rate of how many trips to the apple store he was doing and how many repair calls/re-imaging operations he was doing with Dell. I bet now he's keeping his mouth shut when there's a clear trend in the company to get more macs. I just wonder why...

 

[MH01]

Why am i not surprised ? While MS hardware is making real progress, Windows 10 has become the worst privacy nightmare imaginable. They're now doing what Google does, but directly in your OS, wich is even more efficient. Win10 is basically a giant keylogger monetising everything you do on your desktop. They seem to be in a panic, to the point of actually FORCING Win 10 updates on 7 and 8 PCs : http://arstechnica.com/information-...ng-automatically-on-some-windows-7-8-systems/

No business ( or individual for that matter ) wants to have their business secrets in the hands of MS. Not surprised that IBM would start pushing OSX more and more..
I think MS is shooting themselves in the foot with their new I-Wanna-Be-Google-Too attitude. You can expect more and more businesses switching ( maybe reluctantly ) to Macs in the upcoming year.

That article says the installer is being downloaded . The user is not being forced. It's like the AppStore saying Yosemite is ready for download. You still have to agree to install.

You don't trust Microsoft/Google , but you trust IBM ? intersting....

 

[jjduru]

What's not calculated and probably an even bigger number is the extra work folks with Macs are getting done since the help line is not on speed dial. Of course, they may use the extra time just goofing off...

Goofing off... no nevah, evah, evah!!!

Okay go buy the latest iMacs and u tell me how it is. With that given option.. Go buy it and tell me ur opinion. When u mentioned what the puck it means it's exactly what I meant.

Just upgrade the **** out of it when you buy it and stop complaining that apple put in a 5400 rpm spindle in it, will ya? Jeez.

 

[opfreak]

This is not a fair comparison. In general, Mac users are more intelligent than PC users. That's why the Macs require less management and help from the sys admins.

after reading this thread it seems like people that switched to Macs are less intelligence, they all complain about have issues and all these maintenance issues with PC's. I've never experanced all these maintance issues on Win7 machines. Then again I'm not an idiot. And at work all the win machines have admin access disabled, so how people manage to f there machines up when they are supposed to be working is mind blowing.

If current mac users had all these problems with virus, spyware, toolbars installed on a pc, that just tells me they are noobs.

Just upgrade the **** out of it when you buy it and stop complaining that apple put in a 5400 rpm spindle in it, will ya? Jeez.

but apple optimizes the hardware... to run slow?

 

[jjduru]

It's not JUST the use of OS X. It's the synergy between OS X and Apple's hardware that makes the Mac as great as it is. Putting OS X on Windows hardware is like putting lipstick on a Pig.

That "lipstick on a pig" quote brings out unwanted repubs nightmares. Don't do that again, please.

I don't think that's it at all. Based on what I see at my company, Mac users don't expect much from Help Desk drones, so they are more likely to try to fix things themselves.

Amen brotha, your statement won you a pedestal.

 

[ginkobiloba]

That article says the installer is being downloaded . The user is not being forced. It's like the AppStore saying Yosemite is ready for download. You still have to agree to install.

You don't trust Microsoft/Google , but you trust IBM ? intersting....

Actually, for many users, Win10 not only downloads itself without asking, but install itself when you restart your PC. There are plenty of users reporting that.
I never cared for Windows, but I always trusted MS over Google. But now this the new MS outgoogling Google :
http://arstechnica.com/information-...-much-privacy-by-default-heres-how-to-fix-it/
http://arstechnica.com/information-...ndows-10-just-cant-stop-talking-to-microsoft/
http://arstechnica.com/information-...ccused-of-adding-spy-features-to-windows-7-8/

And yes, I am now trusting IBM over MS. Ironic isn't it ? I am old enough to have lived through the " IBM-is-a-cold-hearted-Big-Brother-dark-monolith" era. How things change...

If you don't want your private life or business data "monetised", the only choices remaining now are Apple and Linux.

 

[jjduru]

if 40% of IBMs users are calling thier help desk, it's not a PC v Mac issue, they have some major software issues that are not being solved or who ever setup thier infrastructure , got it very wrong .

I bet most of those calls are to reset the passwords.

Read the article again, statistics tends to be a misleading bitch: "Just five percent of employees using Macs call IBM's internal help desk for troubleshooting, while 40 percent of the company's PC users make calls to the help desk."

40% of IBM's users <> 40% of the company's PC users that make calls to the help desk.

 

[lowendlinux]

Windows Home and Pro are not Enterprise. These things will be either gone or able to be fully turned off in Enterprise. MS knows who butters their bread.

 

[Max(IT)]

You at least have to buy me a drink before calling me dear ease up tiger...

you are correct, it happens more here, 2 reasons, some Apple fans are fanatical, and debates tend to be non technical , a trolls dream!

Ignore these people, but do not put people in the same bucket who have reservations about the evolution of Apple products who are disgruntled fans! The 5400rpm drive in a iMac in 2015 great debate, 16GB iPhone another great debate. Non upgradable / serviceable macs... ****** evolution for long term fans, where tinkering and thinking outside the box was the Apple way etc etc.

I have a love / hate relationship with Apple at times. I am fortunate to be able afford specs in the line up that are not gimped by Apple on purpose, through voice my opinion against say a 5400 drive in a non serviceable Mac or 16gb base 6s....u know what I mean .

You may also notice a few senior posters who are huge Apple fans , have done their part to derail this thread into a debate about Microsoft . These brothers / sisters are just as bad as the haters! Not cool either .

Well, lately what I'm seeing is the first wave of harsh comments coming from haters, and then some Apple supporter fight back....
But seriously the level of hysteria on this forum has reached an unimaginable height.

 

[anomie]

what exactly is easier to do on a mac than a pc? i've tried both and macs simply have less customization than pcs..?

Any network setup for example.
Maybe you should ask the guys at IBM, since they will definitely know better than you.

 

[Tiger8]

All that could very well be true, but that still doesn't change the fact that these kinds of headlines are a good measure of publicity to counteract some of those still stubbornly held views that in addition to being more expensive, Macs are not enterprise friendly, expensive to service, or even compatible with PCs.

And after Big Blue's selling their personal computer (2005) and x86 server business (2014) to Lenovo, IBM and Apple are no longer direct competitors. The current partnership between them is a mutually beneficial deal, and if on top of that Apple gets a little free advertising touting some possible advantages for enterprise to run on the Mac platform, while also selling a few hundred thousand extra Macs "on a regular basis", I'd say that's good news for Apple, backroom deals or not.

True, I'm not saying it's a bad thing, what I'm staying is that it's probably staged. IBM is notorious for that.

 

[vmachiel]

This works in my family as well. I'm glad they are listening to me and buying Macs. They pay a little more, but they rarely have problems and tech support (which is me) is way easier.

 

[mytdave]

And now you know why the new iMacs have 5400 RPM hard drives - they've been "corporatized".

 

[Crazyboy54]

This is not a fair comparison. In general, Mac users are more intelligent than PC users. That's why the Macs require less management and help from the sys admins.

In otherwords, when you switch to a Mac your IQ goes up!

 

[AFEPPL]

Well that was a complete waste of a read.
There's some really messed up comments....

 

[OllyW]

In otherwords, when you switch to a Mac your IQ goes up!

If you get to spend some time on these forums you might change that opinion.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

what exactly is easier to do on a mac than a pc? i've tried both and macs simply have less customization than pcs..?

I think it may have more to do with technical issues, bugs, crashes, etc., but I can't be sure. I do know that my mother could not use a PC worth a damn to save her life, but I got her a Macbook Pro and while I've still had to help her with various updates, etc., she has adapted MUCH better and uses the thing every day now for browsing, shopping, email, Facebook, etc. She kept having problems with the PC always wanting to update every single program (including constant Windows updates, many of which need rebooting) and ask permission and a password to do it (Windows7), constantly wanting to run malware scans, reboot, pop-ups on everything from messenger clients, etc. appearing on the screen and not knowing how to get rid of them (yeah basic windowing operations were still needed on a Mac, but the Mac doesn't throw a half dozen up at once too often). In short, she found the Mac a lot easier to use.

 

[paysdoufs]

what exactly is easier to do on a mac than a pc? i've tried both and macs simply have less customization than pcs..?

Same here: Using Win 7 day-in day-out for work and globally very happy (IE 11 really deserves to be retired, though). Having a MBP at home and I find that standard tasks are not more intuitive... just different.

This article actually sounds like IBM put much more thought into the roll-out of their Macs than they did/would have done for PCs. No wonder employees are having less questions.

 

[parapup]

what exactly is easier to do on a mac than a pc? i've tried both and macs simply have less customization than pcs..?

Haha - anyone working enterprise IT knows this Mac == Less Maintenance, No support stuff is made up BS. It's essentially being used to do a lot less than what Windows machines have traditionally done - do email and browsing (most of what office workers do) and bit ssh/web app here and there and I guarantee a HP-UX box with X11 install can do it without needing support!

It's kind of like the BYOD thing except you don't bring your mac, you just use it to do trivial things on your own. (And they're still using MS Office on the Mac. So there's that.) Try to do with a Mac what Windows machines have traditionally done in Enterprise and even then you won't need any support as none of the stuff will work with a Mac!

Edit: Also in past 15 years using Windows, barring XP days, I haven't needed much of a support except for asking password to enter McAfee unlock mode to enable firewall exceptions. (How do you do such a thing on a Mac - have admin control over which ports you can open and which you cannot?)

Edit2: Also how much exactly are they saving on support compared to the extra they are paying to buy Macs? Even a modest $250 per head extra they paid for a Mac - it cannot match the savings on a per person support cost in worst possible scenarios. (IT support is spread thin and outsourced to lower cost locations so to get one person to cause $250 worth of support would take them multiple years in the minimum.)

 

[MacBH928]

with 400,000 employees, not building hardware, what does IBM exactly do?

 

[recoil80]

This works in my family as well. I'm glad they are listening to me and buying Macs. They pay a little more, but they rarely have problems and tech support (which is me) is way easier.

Same for me.
My father has an iMac, an iPad and iPhone and he seldom asks for help and never complains.
They were pricey gifts, but I'm really satisfied

 

[paysdoufs]

Our family Macs have saved us £18,000 in the last 8 years, when compared to the previous 8 years when we had Windows machines.

Huge saving.

Sorry - but a claim that buying one piece of tech over another has saved you >2000 GBP p.a., w/o any explanation substantiating this claim, is pretty useless...

 

[Anti-Pop Superhero]

I guess if you can't sell enough low budget iwack (latest iMac) and wackPros, I guess IBM would buy it.

Have you seen the quarterly desktop sales report? Macs are actually selling and apple is gaining ground while all others are not. http://appleinsider.com/articles/15...show-mac-sales-up-161-percent-in-june-quarter
The hate is strong with this one.