IBM realizes huge savings with largest-ever enterprise Mac deployment: 100,000 Macs by end of year

“At the JAMF Nation User Conference (JNUC) this week, IBM’s Fletcher Previn delivered an update on the company’s rollout of Macs internally since it introduced Apple computers as an option for employees for the first time last yea,” Jordan Kahn reports for 9to5Mac.

“In just over a year, IBM passed its original goal of deploying 50,000 Macs and is now at 90,000 internally,” Kahn reports. “That makes it the largest enterprise Mac deployment anywhere… IBM plans to reach over 100,000 Macs by the end of the year and is now deploying 1300 a week on average.”

“Back in May of last year, IBM started offering its employees Macs as an official alternative to PCs and chose Jamf to support the rollout. Last year, it noted that Macs were helping it cut down on support employees needed,” Kahn reports. “This year, thanks to the continued rollout, Previn noted that IBM’s total cost of ownership for devices is significantly better than last year. With cost of device, OS, support, resale value and deployment considered, IBM is saving a minimum of $265 per Mac on average versus a comparable PC.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Recognizing TCO is a beautiful thing with which Windows PC dreck never could and still cannot compete.

Total Cost of Ownership should be of more concern to the world’s personal computer buyers than initial sticker price. You get what you pay for, so get a Mac. MacDailyNews, June 25, 2004

Why are so many people so afraid to imagine an end to the dark ages of personal computing? Too many MSFT shares in the mutual fund? We have no such problem. Apple Mac will embrace, then extinguish – whether analysts grasp what’s happening or not. — MacDailyNews, March 23, 2007

SEE ALSO:
Apple Inc., the enterprise IT company – December 15, 2015
IBM: Every Mac we buy is making and saving us money – October 28, 2015
Now we know why IT support hates Macs (hint: Windows PCs = job security) – October 19, 2015
IBM: Corporate Mac users need less IT support than those stuck on Windows – October 18, 2015
Just 5% of Mac users at IBM need help desk support vs. 40% of Windows PC sufferers – October 15, 2015

26 Comments

  1. I only wish every Enterprise software tool imaginable was available on the Mac to completely stifle the whining of the status quo, self-serving IT doofuses. The security arguments really don’t fly as Windows even with improvements is still one of the most notoriously poor security OS’s ever copied, I mean invented. Not that any OS is totally perfect. Some are just more perfect than others.

    1. Yes, because every enterprise software tool imaginable is going to just pop into existence because you think it should.
      OK, it’s not fair to expect someone that has never done my job to know what is involved, but to just make blanket judgmental statements like that is ridiculous. IBM’s deployment of Macs here is unique, notice that after a year no other companies have announced similar news? IBM and Apple struck deals behinds the scenes (with Jamf and a few others) and you think you’re witnessing a revival of the Mac. Those Macs are not being used for specialised applications, they’re for email and web use, that’s all. The moment you get into more technical areas there are simply no software developers willing to take on the task. Why? Because Apple is not interested in providing the support and tools necessary. It is Apple that hampers the widespread adoption of their products, not IT guys. I don’t get to decide what brand of hardware we use, vendors make their pitch and the we crunch some big numbers. The idea that “IT doofuses” are stopping Apple is moronic. Apple is stopping Apple.

      1. Why so hostile? I said it was a “wish” and I’m quite aware of some of the problems. IT Doofus because IT can be a roadblock without a good reason depending on the organization and it’s needs. Just as sometimes there are good reasons to go another way. I think we’ve all known for years the problems with Apple truly embracing the Enterprise which wasn’t Steve Jobs favorite thing either.

        1. I use a Mac at home but at work, it’s Windows. That was not my decision, that was as you said, Steve’s. A PC goes down, I can have another in its place, ready to go inside 20 minutes. Mac? Not a chance. Are hands are tied. Apple has no proper tech support for us. As I said buying decisions are made with respect to the current environment, and that is totally PC based. There is no IT “roadblock”.
          We all speak English at work too. You may like French but at work it’s going to be English. Germans and Italians will communicate with each other in English. A company decides they’re moving to Dutch, well, they’ve got issues. Give me one good reason why i should learn another language? For the 3 companies that use it? Not a chance in you-know-where.
          The entire world runs on PCs, and there is only one company that can change that. If Mr. Cook decides to spend some of his $200b on something other than headphones and Chinese rideshare companies he could make it happen.

  2. How much more ironic can this story be. Apple’s main nemesis from the 80s, is the one now launching the largest ever enterprise deployment of Macs.

    Now if only MS would learn from IBM.

  3. When you read the article, you discover some staggering numbers. First, the TCO comparisons are quite dramatic and some go to over $500 on a $2,000 device.

    But even more dramatic numbers are the support tickets (as a percentage of user base). As the Mac installation had progressed, to total percentage of support tickets had declined to less than half the initial rate, which was some 7.6% of all (initial) Mac users (around 8,000 of them), and is now just 3.2% of Mac users (around 80,000 of them). That in itself is a powerful trend, showing steady decline on a per-user basis (although, in fairness, total number of actual tickets has gone up, as the user base rapidly grew).

    However, the most staggering difference is when we compare this number (7.6% at first, and 3.2% now) to the same for Windows users (25%). In other words, at IBM, on the average, one in four Windows users has called helpdesk support during the same period when one in 20 Mac users needed help.

    How can businesses using Windows survive with such excessive overhead for desktop support??

      1. Hmmm. IBM says MCSEs are not really a necessity anymore as they go all Macs (or getting closer to it).

        Gregory the tech-tard, on the other hand, tells you with his beer gut and stupid beard that Windows is still necessary and he knows more than IBM. lol

        1. 30 years of Windows experience. Wow, that makes you an awesome Mac expert.

          The moment someone throws their “years of experience” as to why they can’t switch to Mac is the moment you realize they’re so heavily invested in Windows PERSONALLY, they don’t know anything else.

          Just another “IT Doofus” you are, to quote MDN.

  4. I just took a tour of a computer forensic lab in Orange County yesterday for a story we are working on. (unfortunately, the FBI wouldn’t let me take photographs inside their lab)
    What surprised me was that more than half the computers they use to perform their tasks were Macintoshes. They had tons of them, mostly iMacs.
    They told me that the Mac could run any OS and therefore could examine and work on whatever items they received. They were also using them for office work.

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