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

[todhug]

IBM this year began adopting Macs for its employees, a move the company says has been highly successful. Speaking at the JAMF Nation User Conference (via AppleInsider) earlier this week, IBM vice president of Workplace-as-a-Service Fletcher Previn said that far fewer Mac users require help with their machines than IBM's PC users.

"Every Mac that we buy is making and saving IBM money," he said, as the Macs require less management and setup effort than PCs, even though they cost more up front.

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. According to Previn, these numbers point towards the Mac's ease of use and the solid job the IBM team has done setting up Macs at the company. IBM's Mac onboarding experience is highly streamlined, making it easy for employees to do much of the setup work themselves in a short period of time.IBM is rolling out 1,900 Macs to its employees each week, and there are more than 130,000 iOS and Mac devices being used by IBM employees at the current time. In July, IBM CIO Jeff Smith said he thought IBM might end up purchasing 150,000 to 200,000 Macs on a regular basis for the company's 400,000 employees.

As of 2014, Apple and IBM have been working together to create specialized enterprise-focused apps and services for iOS devices. Under the partnership, IBM is selling iOS devices to its corporate customers, developing apps, and providing on-demand AppleCare service.

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

 

[MH01]

Sorry Microsoft, your annoying "PC does what?" tagline and cringe-worthy ads make me less likely to buy a new Windows PC, not more.

https://t.co/qgKlmT1Hqa

1. Not relevant to this thread.

2. You would never buy a PC, less of 0% = 0%

3. The first ad with highway to the danger zone , cool just for the song and reference to TopGun

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

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.

I'd love to see the research you found that allowed you to state that! Oh wait...you just made it up because you THOUGHT it to be true.

 

[todhug]

I purchase quite a few iMacs and PCs (in the hundreds). Not only are the iMacs less overhead to manage but we have found the PCs start breaking down quicker. So our policy is to sell the PCs after 3 years and the iMacs after 4.

So we get one more year out of the iMacs. NOT ONLY that but after 4 years our iMacs will bring in about $250 more than the 3 year PCs bring when we resell. When I looked at a 8 year plan the iMacs have been a much better deal. They save us a lot of money.

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

I'm curious what exactly people do to their pcs to break them. My college laptop from 2004 still works, dont use it anymore, but it works. My desktop from 2007 has upgraded parts and is still my main desktop (core 2 quad extreme edition, ssd, new gpu - dont use the pc to game anymore, work related now mostly). Laptop from 2010 still going strong, added ram, ssd, can upgrade gpu if I want. Both on latest windows 10 and wouldnt be on latest osx if they were macs. I didn't buy the cheapest thing on the market when it was new, but they sure seem to last.. Perhaps it helps that I have some technical knowledge, but I couldnt see myself still using an unupgradable imac from 2007.

I agree 100%.
The difference is you can't go to Best Buy or Staples and buy a $299 Mac. That's what people do, they go shopping for a PC and buy the cheapest piece of junk with a sale tag hanging from it. So, of course it isn't going to last. Or perform. Now, if you were to poll PC users who spend >$2000 on their desktop or laptop, I bet you'd have a different set of statistics then what "Mac people" see as PC users!

My PC's last forever also, but I don't buy junk.

 

[MH01]

I heard Microsoft, Intel and some Windows OEMs are doing a huge ad campaign this fall focusing on what a PC can do. Apparently the marketing chiefs were having a conference call with Wall Street investors today to talk about it. Really, in 2015 you need an ad campaign to remind people what computers can do?

Owww the irony.... We got iPhone 6S ads in 2015..... How dare apple or Microsoft advertise improvements!

so why the blatant hate of Microsoft. That is, why are you bringing Microsoft into a discussion what is irrelevant to the topic? A few posts now, a good troll, but really??

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

I purchase quite a few iMacs and PCs (in the hundreds). Not only are the iMacs less overhead to manage but we have found the PCs start breaking down quicker. So our policy is to sell the PCs after 3 years and the iMacs after 4.

So we get one more year out of the iMacs. NOT ONLY that but after 4 years our iMacs will bring in about $250 more than the 3 year PCs bring when we resell. When I looked at a 8 year plan the iMacs have been a much better deal. They save us a lot of money.

And the selling price of the PC's vs. Mac's when you bought them new?

 

[MH01]

I agree 100%.
The difference is you can't go to Best Buy or Staples and buy a $299 Mac. That's what people do, they go shopping for a PC and buy the cheapest piece of junk with a sale tag hanging from it. So, of course it isn't going to last. Or perform. Now, if you were to poll PC users who spend >$2000 on their desktop or laptop, I bet you'd have a different set of statistics then what "Mac people" see as PC users!

My PC's last forever also, but I don't buy junk.

Spot on . Invest around the same money as a Mac, and the PC will last just as long. Though at the same time don't compare a $1200 Mac to a $299 PC and complain about the components used.

 

[citysnaps]

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

A "guess" indeed. However, large companies such as IBM try to go with products that reduce their costs, downtime, and service needs.

With respect to Apple not selling enough, here's some data relative to other manufacturers.

 

[hiroden]

I gave my parents an older macbook (I bought a new one!) to use, with their iPad. They are much happier... way less issue, and I don't get call every few days for "my PC is slow".

 

[8281]

Macs are more expensive. However, they last longer than anything on the market.

They won't with those base 5400 RPM hard drives.

 

[Jimmy James]

I was always a of guy until a few years ago.

On a Mac force quite actually closes the program. SOLD!

 

[TheHateMachine]

I'd love to see the research you found that allowed you to state that! Oh wait...you just made it up because you THOUGHT it to be true.

People wonder why there is a smug apple user meme out there.

What is funny is all the people latching onto this news. I mean it's not like IBM is in its like 13th quarter of falling revenue and is desperately trying to reinvent themselves to start growing again. It seems people forgot the news where IBM entered into an agreement with Apple to develop services and promote Apple hardware in corporate environments. Of course they are going to talk up their product as if it is some sort of magical IT solution.

 

[the-oz-man]

People still don't understand me when I tell them a computer is supposed to last more than 2 years and can't comprehend how I get by with a 7+ year old comp (bought used 3 years ago) even though my 7+ year old comp runs circle around their brand new PCs in every performance benchmark.

This is true for me as well. I have a late 2008 iMac that is still a great machine. I've upgraded it a few times with ram and now 2 SSDs (removing the optical drive). It's a work horse that keeps on delivering for me.

 

[Rocketman]

Windows 10 is real. So PCs are not dead yet. The problem is the lack of software and hardware integration. Hence Surface Pro.

When is Apple going to make an expandable (graphics, PCI card, memory, HDD, ports) Mac Mini for all the utility (POS, machine control, headless) applications commodity PCs are used for now? Hobbyists and gamers have been clamoring for it for a decade. Oh, wait! Hobbyists have been distracting Apple from the industrial massive market.

RM

 

[MrNomNoms]

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

Because Windows is a mess of multi-generational layers of crap piled on top of each other so even if you as an end user do everything right by following 'best practices' things still go pear shaped. Apple on the other hand took the bull by the horns 15+ years ago when it decided to start a fresh with their buy out of NeXT resulting in a well thought out operating system that isn't riddled with hacks, work arounds, shims and other crap that add complexity and make the system more fragile. Microsoft has decided that layering crap upon more crap is a 'winning strategy' and even their WinRT platform is still yet another layer upon the rickety piece of crap that is win32 (check out 'Dependency Walker' on the number of dependencies that go back to win32 technologies such as GDI even though there are superior replacements such as Direct2D and DirectWrite). Windows 10 just makes the problem worse or tries to ignore it - Redstone promises to bring Win32 applications to the store using a stripped down App-V like virtualised environment that shields the operating system from things going wrong but that is merely moving the deck chairs around on the titanic rather than addressing the massive hole in the side of the ship.

 

[CEmajr]

IBM is just now figuring out what us Mac users have known for years now.

Macs do indeed cost more upfront but over time come out cheaper than a similarly speced Windows machine. Not to mention being far less frustrating. All the annoying maintenance, antivirus, and other crap is non existant on macs. This in turn saves a lot of time and frustration. I never use Windows unless it's required for work and will never waste my own money to buy one again.

I'm still using a 2011 MacBook Pro that I bought for $900 used back in 2012. It's fast and working great today. The HP that I paid $1500 for in 2009 turned into a frustrating mess with tons of issues in 2010. That's not even to say how Apple's customer support is light years ahead of any Windows OEM.

 

[santaliqueur]

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.

Perhaps a company worth $150B knows their business better than you know it.

 

[pat500000]

A "guess" indeed. However, large companies such as IBM try to go with products that reduce their costs, downtime, and service needs.

With respect to Apple not selling enough, here's some data relative to other manufacturers.

nice chart reference by the way. Forgot about that. Anyhow...those sales doesn't necessary mean it was being bought off from regular consumers like us...but it could have been bought by IBM or some unknown companies, right?

 

[acslater017]

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'm a fairly tech-knowledgeable person who loves Macs but has a PC for gaming. Here's an example of when literally every aspect of my experience went wrong when all I wanted to do is play games w my friends:

-I start up and Windows decides to run updates THEN, restarting 3 times in a row (imagine this holding up important business)
-graphics drivers had to be updated manually (went to GPU company's website, couldn't find my model, had to download/install NVIDIA app to manage drivers!)
-Samsung display kept putting up "HDMI port is not plugged in" message dead center of screen even though it was otherwise displaying perfectly fine
-keyboard kept typing "454545", mouse sensitivity was all over, volume mixer had to be adjusted several times between Skype, in-game volume, and master volume
-the game starts up and THEN tells me I have to run an update before I use it
-controller kept disconnecting, so I tested the USB dongle, replaced AA batteries, etc. until realizing the battery contacts had corroded and were cutting out; had to clean with vinegar (!) and hair dry and they ultimately failed a few weeks later.

Granted this was a worst-case scenario but it sums up my frustrations with Windows. Imagine a technophobe handling this or not having the right permissions to run updates. Granted, the gaming situation overall is worse on Mac - but I wouldn't be dealing with drivers, game-stopping updates, display incompatibilities, unknown accessory statuses, etc.

 

[Dekema2]

I guess Apple should resurrect the Xserve!

 

[Corrode]

Just sent this to my boss.

 

[Wallabe]

I find this piece of news ironic for IBM.

I used to joke on system requirements: It says IBM PC or better, so I got a Mac.

I wonder what IBM is doing with all their IBMs?

 

[Rocketman]

Granted this was a worst-case scenario but it sums up my frustrations with Windows. Imagine a technophobe handling this or not having the right permissions to run updates. Granted, the gaming situation overall is worse on Mac - but I wouldn't be dealing with drivers, game-stopping updates, display incompatibilities, unknown accessory statuses, etc.

Horribilistic scenario snipped for brevity!

For goodness sake simply have a version of Mac-Mini with user accessible graphics, PCI slots, memory, HDD, and expansion ports compatible with PC old school. Heck make it a PCIe and also a USB-3 dongle if you want!!

I for one want a 2016 Mac I can install 10.4.11 on (Classic). May I pay double please?

 

[username:]

Microsoft are ****ed