“The advent of Vista and Mac OS X, along with the ascension of Linux, add new dimensions to a long-time controversy. Now more than ever before, the Mac OS is the most cost effective operating system of all,” Jacqueline Emigh reports for CIO.
“Whether or not they’ve undertaken formal TCO or ROI studies, many customers today claim to be attaining substantial economic advantages from using Mac OS, either instead of or in conjunction with other OSes,” Emigh reports.
“Despite all the energy Microsoft has poured into the new Vista, Mac is still king of the hill when it comes to desktop ease of use—translating, at the end of the day, into higher productivity and lower tech support and training expenditures,” Emigh reports.
Why Mac OS X is the best choice financially speaking:
• Macs bring a better overall value proposition
• Macintosh licensing fees are cheaper
• The Mac desktop spawns fewer calls to the help desk
• Mac users are more productive workers
• Macs last longer
• Mac OS X is more secure
• Mac is just as cost-effective as Windows to manage and administer
• Add Macs while hanging on to your investments in other OSes
Emigh reports, “You’re probably not going to see Fortune 500 firms marching in droves to 100 percent Mac OS deployments, are you? Not yet, anyhow. But something else is afoot. Observers are already noticing a lot more penetration among enterprise departments and SMBs, as customers grow more aware of the multiple financial benefits of Macs. It’s certainly a start.”
Full article, discussing each of the bullet points above, here.
Try getting thru to the Windows entrenched IT guys. Not gonna happen.
We’re doing a gradual roll out of Macs, since the cost of buying 25 PCs and 25 licences for them to access the Server is more expensive than buying 25 iMacs.
Plus, buying Macs from the Refurb store saves you even more money!
Rules
This is all old hat to us, but seeing it in a magazine for CIOs is impressive. It’d be like Inside the Vatican running an article titled, “Atheism: Not Such a Bad Idea After All.”
“Try getting thru to the Windows entrenched IT guys. Not gonna happen.”
Don’t have to. Apple is doing an end run around drones like that by placing Apple technology in the hands of the end users (iPods, iPhones) and creating a situation where the end users will demand the IT drones give them what they want.
After all, don’t the IT guys work FOR the people they are supposed to be supporting?
Time for a generational change in IT department. Need to start firing the job security crowd … they are too costly to keep around a business any more.
They want to keep down the ruinous Microsoft path, fire their ass from the job.
@Stephan
Apple is moving forward and Microsoft is going backwards!
Those companies who transitioned to Vista are now being afforded the opportunity to “downgrade” to XP. Lenovo said that they will extend the XP program until summer of ’08 in spite of the January ’08 deadline imposed by Microsoft.
I’ll tell you what’s not gonna’ happen; Microsoft is not going to cut off support for XP come January.
How much you wanna’ bet we’ll see a SP3 and 4 for XP?
Where I work the IT guy is name Nick Burns and he’s a real condescending asshole.
Winston exaggerated just a bit, but certainly had the right idea. Ed Stephan has a point, though … most of the support people have a vested interest in keeping Windows around and will fight tooth and claw to slow the invasion. My daughter-in-law-elect (son’s fiance) was a bit concerned about supporting Macs until she got to play with my son’s Apples. Took the Certification course and passed the second time around. Now she’s as big a Mac-addict as he is. And knows more answers, too.
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The take-over will not be instantaneous, it may not ever become a Mac-dominated environment, but it will progress. Take five years to break into the double-digit market-share? OK. Five more to become the #1 enterprise brand? OK.
DLMeyer – the Voice of G.L.Horton’s Stage Page Pod Cast
@macromancer
no the IT guys do not work FOR the employees, that is the point. Death to the “entrenched” IT guy
the “end around” might just be the CEO using macs and loving it, and TELLING the IT guys to learn to support it or be fired
“After all, don’t the IT guys work FOR the people they are supposed to be supporting?”
This is what I thought too. I have always said IT is the only department that can constantly deny their customers. IT and Accounting are way too powerful, they make nearly all the decisions concerning the employees. Accounting, to a certain extent, I can understand. Once IT allows Macs on their network they lose a bit of power, and they don’t like that one bit.
@DLMeyer
your statement “until she got to play with my son’s Apples” confuses me a little. what are you REALLY saying there.
No I’m not.
The problem is this…(not troll, facts)
Corporations need CHOICE of hardware vendors because different ones supply different needs the market has.
Corporations want a Operating System that’s UNIVERSAL AMONGST all these hardware choices so the investment in software and training can be used.
Corporations want to be able to port their SOFTWARE choices and not be tied to a particular hardware lockin.
Apple DOES NOT…
1: Provide Mac OS X seperate from their hardware.
2: Provide a adequate range of hardware choices nor can supply the volume necessary for worldwide coverage.
Apple DOES…
1: Have a flaky history
2: Makes hardware choices against the needs of most of the computing public. (like mandating glossy screens for instance)
3: Charges high prices for their hardware and/or doesn’t offer stripped versions of their hardware.
4: Seems not to care about the corporate market, instead focusing on the consumer and media markets.
Ok , Apple does make great software and hardware Yes Apple is a hardware comapany and a OS war with M$ would be futile because it’s already entrenched.
The only way to win is if Microsoft just gave up and quit, then there would be a mad rush to Apple hardware and Apple could release Mac OS X seperatly.
@anthony007
Nick Burns runs an all Apple outfit too! Still one of my favorite skits!
Fatal is right. That’s how it works. Look at how the Blackberry came to be a supported. Macs, iPhones, and iPods are following the same trajectory.
A long time ago, when most people rode horses, and did not have cars, alot of people said the auto would never catch on-that is was just a fad for rich people. Some people even went so far as to say they’d NEVER buy mechanical transportation. Well, those dinosaurs are all dead now.
A lot of people still believe M$ has a future too. I’m not so sure. Ok, they’ve got IT sewed up for now, but considering the extremely large percentage of college-age Apple users, it’s only a matter of time until the Doze dinosaurs are dead too.
@IT Pro at work, Mac lover at home,
you are a troll
your post is filled with absolutisms (is that a word), when any one of those things can change in an instant. I.E. they could easily contract with 10 more assembly houses to produce a ton more macs, thus lowering their price with such high volumes.
A flaky history? flamebait if i ever saw it.
yes your post was troll
listen people, NO ONE, especially Apple, wants the planet to be 100% Mac. They do what they do VERY well. However, they dont fit into some situations, like cubicle office data entry, as well as say a $300 PC.
Apple fanboys: calm down, apple will never be microsoft (thank god)
Microsoft fanboys: relax, you can have the drone corporate world, apple WILL take over any place were creativity and productivity are required.
I envision the PC world being 35% Mac, 35% Windows, 35% Linux… the extra 5% is because NO estimate is 100% accurate.
(all above estimates are +/- 6.2)
Apologies to Foxworthy. But if you think the corporate and consumer markets can meaningfully be treated as distinct, you might be a PC thinker. Just like your ilk who endlessly debate whether Apple is a hardware or software company, or whether Apple can survive without utter market share dominance–you’ll never “get it,” you poseurs, so just GTFO.
I have always said that Macintosh is for people who NEED TO GET STUFF DONE. Windows is for people who like to pretend that what they do is important.
If what they did was truly important, then they would never be able to afford to deal with the time lost in trying to get that work done by using such an unreliable and unstable OS.
@Ed Stephan
It has happened.
Sure is tough – but changes do and have occured.
w
@IT Pro at work, Mac lover at home
“Apple DOES… 1: Have a flaky history”?
And Vista would be your example of a stable business operation? Amazing that people through the years suffer through such shoddy work from Microsoft and call it success.
@ Ed Stephen. “Try getting thru to the Windows entrenched IT guys. Not gonna happen.”
Unfortunately, you’re right. My IT dept have minds closed even tighter than ‘IT Pro at work, Mac lover at home’.
Every day, I watch my Windoze using colleagues struggle to achieve things that are a breeze on my Mac. Yesterday, one of my staff lost the ability to open Word on her PC for 4 hours, while IT bumbled around trying to fix it. Those time costs never get recorded or mentioned.
“IT Pro at work, Mac lover at home”
Your argument does not wash. Corporations now seem to be quite willing to hang their operations on a monopolistic supplier of software at exorbitant prices without regard to efficiency.
Would they not be much better off with a competent supplier of a hardware and software package that actually supplies better performance at a lower price?
x and Macromancer, you guys are right. The old guard PC-hypnotized, more-concerned-about-their-job-security-than-the people-they’re-supposed-to-be-supporting IT retards have got to go.
jay, I’d appreciate some acknowledgement if you’re going to quote from my posts verbatim like that (just kidding). I did just say the same thing the same way last week on a different topic on MDN.
However, I see the same trend you see about all the college-age Mac users who’ll be graduating soon demanding to continue using Macs once they hit the work world. That’s going to upset the Apple (no pun intended) cart in corporate America in the next few years.
CEOs with iPhones may help change things, too.
Peace.
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Olmecmystic