“Auto Warehousing Co. CIO Dale Frantz says his decision to go from a Windows shop to one powered by Apple [Mac] is based on time and labor spent maintaining Windows,” Larry Dignan blogs for ZDNet.
Dignan reports, “I emailed Frantz to get some more color on his decision. Without offering specific return targets he did tie up a the loose ends. Instead of interpreting his remarks and paraphrasing I thought it was best to let him tell it.”
We did a study to analyze the actual cost of “Windows” maintenance and support… When the analysis was complete, the results were unbelievable – simply unbelievable how much time, effort and money we were investing into the care and feeding of Windows on a PC. When you add that internal support cost into the ROI calculation for Macs the results were undeniable.
We found the true cost to support a single PC in the shop environment to greatly outweigh the minimal difference in hardware/software cost between a Mac and PC with Vista. It is our belief that we will achieve a significant savings with this move to Macs on the shop floor, as well as increase system reliability and user satisfaction.
Much more in the full article here.
Yikes! You can’t buy that kind of publicity… wow.
My Zune is magic, and it taught me how to be a better lover.
I think this is what’s called a “no brainer” ???????
Just amazing that people have been ignoring all the TCO studies done in the past.
This from the D.U.H. Institute.
Yeah, Mike. having a “real” business, not one those fruity “creative” shops … like mine ;^)… show some of the real advantages of Mac OS X over Windows in terms a bean counter can love, means a lot.
Finally the “real world” may be starting to get it.
In other news…
MDN’s server needs a faster modem. I’ve got an old 9600 baud modem to sell for a good price!
Call me…
Ouch this one is going to hurt….
Zune Tang
Is that some kind of brown, powdered instant breakfast drink?
Why eat shee-ite when you can drink it.
Tang…now in the new “Zune” flavor.Specially formulated for Windows PC users. Because they know what crap is all about.
Many of the rank and file end users have no problem switching once they get a taste of using the Mac, but top management and the IT guys always come with some reason not to change, why Windows is better and they don’t know anything about the Mac, ect.
Makes me sick.
“As part of my due diligence I have visited 2 companies that have between 10,000 – 20,000 Macs on their network. In both cases the companies have blended networks, supporting both Mac’s and Windows PC’s. In both cases Mac XServes were the controlling architecture. The network management tools and support software that Apple provides allows each of these companies to have fewer than five I/S support personnel. I have more than 5 just to support our fleet of Windows PC’s and related devices.”
Hmmmm. It’s no wonder why PC fanboys are resistant to letting Macs into their Microsoft centric environments. Most of their jobs would be eliminated. Imagine the savings a company can achieve. Many companies have already lost millions in fighting Windows viruses and malware. Tsk Tsk.
Well, I re-read this again, and while my comments were disputed last week by at least two people, I’ll repeat what I said then.
Nowhere does it say this company is switching from Doze to OS X. They are only switching from PC hardware to Apple hardware, NOT moving away from XP, now or as far as I can see, ever.They plainly state thet are staying in the Doze environment. OK, Apple makes great hardware. Next.
I’m connecting from a Mac to a PC via a remote desktop connection and need to print from the windows pc via my Mac. Unfortunately I can’t install any drivers on the remote pc and there is no printer configured on the remote pc. When connecting windows to windows they rely on a thing called tricerat screwdrivers to give access to all the printers on your machine to the remote machine but there is no mac version. If I can solve that then I can go Mac at work but I need to use the software that I connect to via RDC and without printing it’s of no use.
@jay
You missed this in the original story:
The company is taking 12 to 18 months to rewrite AWC’s vehicle inventory processing system to work with the Mac. That’s why they are recoding it in Java.
And running Parallels to make Macs work with some applications.
If they wanted to use a Mac to run Windows and existing Windows applications, they wouldn’t need Parallels. They’d use BootCamp and ignore OS X, but that’s clearly not what they are planning.
Jay
They are in essence sandboxing Windows with Parallels. So It makes no difference that it’s on a Mac. If you could install OS X on a PC it would have the same effect, I would think.
Comment from: jay
“Nowhere does it say this company is switching from Doze to OS X. They are only switching from PC hardware to Apple hardware, NOT moving away from XP, now or as far as I can see, ever.They plainly state thet are staying in the Doze environment. OK, Apple makes great hardware. Next.”
Could you please quote where “They plainly state thet are staying in the Doze environment.” They do say: “…to greatly outweigh the minimal difference in hardware/software cost between a Mac and PC with Vista.” This is an ambiguous statement – does Vista apply to PC’s and Macs? “[They] did a study to analyze the actual cost of “Windows” maintenance and support. Why would they be performing a study of the cost to maintain Windows, find it astronomically high and the switch to different hardware and stay on the same expensive software?
I agree that they do not state specifically that they are switching to OS X, and they may not be, but please do explain what logic they would have to switch hardware and stay on the same expensive software. You make this very clear cut, but they are ambiguous writers.
WOW (it does start now?)…JUST WOW…genuine lucidity in an IT analysis!…it boggles the mind!
“Tipping Point” ~ChrissyOne
@ Zune Tang
If your Zune taught you to be a better lover, your Judy doll must have been under inflated
@ Zune Tang
If your Zune taught you to be a better lover, your Judy doll must have been under inflated
@ Zune Tang
If your Zune taught you to be a better lover, your Judy doll must have been under inflated
@ Zune Tang
If your Zune taught you to be a better lover, your Judy doll must have been under inflated
Jay,
Let me re-dispute your comments again this week.
This week’s article states (much along the lines of the last week’s one) that, while they’re not moving away from Windows just yet, they will be RE-WRITING their front-end application in Java. Once that is done, they’ll shut down Parallels.
It also states that supporting XP inside Parallels is less demanding than supporting XP on non-Apple hardware. What is says is: they’re running Mac OS X on Apple hardware, and for ONE SINGLE application that is custom-built in-house, they’re (temporarily) using Parallels, while the development team is re-writing it and testing Java version of it.
They had two choices: buy new PCs, with Vista (XP won’t be selling beyond end of this year), re-write their apps to work in Vista, and have truckload of issues with the usual Windows/PC support; or, buy Apple hardware with mac OS X, buy Parallels, use existing XP licenses (he checked with MS, they said it was OK) and re-write your app to work with Mac OS X instead. The second option was obviously cheaper.
Apple makes great hardware. It also makes great OS. This guy realised both and is on his way to leveraging both in his business. Next.
@Quevar:
“There are no plans to move away from Microsoft SQL Server, only to rewrite the client app in Java.”
SQL Server only runs on various versions of Doze. The only use of OS X is only to run Parallels in order to run SQL on Apple hardware.
It’s the hardware they want, not OS X. Running parallels on OS X is only the means to an end; which is running M$-compatible software.
Hey, I’m Apple all the way; I’m willing to be shown I’m wrong here, but I just don’t see anything to get excited about, especially since almost all Apple HW is high quality but generic.
digg it: http://digg.com/apple/Switching_from_Windows_to_Mac_The_ROI_case
@jay:
“SQL Server only runs on various versions of Doze.”
True, but they don’t need to run the SQL Server client under Windows on the client if they are running a Java based app. All database functions would occur on the server and all clients could be OS X based.
hmmm–my post regarding the timeliness of this news seems to have ‘poofed’
@Jay:
“There are no plans to move away from Microsoft SQL Server, only to rewrite the client app in Java.”
I concede the point that they are staying on MS servers. What about the rest of the client machines? The client machines will make up the bulk of the operating systems that are in use. Rewriting the client app in Java would imply that they are in fact trying to be able to run the client app on other platforms. It makes no sense to rewrite the client app and continue running on Windows in a virtual environment. They will run it natively, unless I am missing something. If so, please let me know where they say otherwise.
Maybe this is somewhat a case of wait and see? I’ll admit the real possibility exists that I don’t fully understand the article, as my background is hardware, not so much the software side.
For now, I just don’t see a smoking gun for OS X down the road here; however I appreciate the clarifications following my posts.
Oh yeah Digg really makes a difference for the 5 people that use that site..
At work I have a PC with XP. I used to have PC’s at home but I switched to OS X about 6 months ago. Here are some examples of things that don’t work right on my PC. Now mind you, I have 15+ years experience building and fixing PCs.
1. If Internet Explorer is open, I have several programs that will not launch. Try and fix that problem.
2.If my logitech connect utility is running in the background, then my stamps.com program won’t work. Again, just try and figure out why and what the connection is.
3. Adobe acrobat prof 8 doesn’t work right on my pc. I have latest update of software and yet the program constantly freezes up. Reason: The logitech mouse. So, I have second mouse plugged in that isn’t wireless when I want to use Acrobat pro 8.
4. Other weird shit: when spysweeper is updating itself, everything on my system crawls to a halt.
5. Other random BS too numerous to list here.
The boss has graciously allowed me to get a Mac for work. I think I will wait for the next model coming in August.
This story is entirely true. Just a VERY small sampling of what is wrong with the Windows environment.
@Jay,
It is clear that it is the “care and feeding of Windows” that is the impetus for change. Running XP on Macs wouldn’t change a thing. Of course they are switching to OS X as part of the process, not just Macs.
@ Quevar
“What about the rest of the client machines?”
Good question. Apparently:
“it will take 12 to 18 months to rewrite the VIPS client software to run on Macintosh machines, and Frantz doesn’t want to delay the cost savings and efficiency enhancements tied to the migration to Apple hardware. So in the interim, AWC will continue to run VIPS on Windows using software from Renton, Wash.-based Parallels Inc. that lets Macs run Windows applications in a virtual environment.”
This is from Computerworld. Computerworld has run several stories on this move. ZDNet are late to the game. See especially:
Mac Attack! An enterprise PC shop switches to Apple:
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=298043
and
Editorial: Tale of an IT Hero:
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=298572
This has come about partly because of “Microsoft’s extremely poor judgment in selecting AWC as a target in a software-licensing intimidation campaign”.
More fool them. Now AWC has looked into it and found there are solutions that are both better and cheaper and that don’t expose a company to sole reliance on the bully-boy of the industry.
Jay: Nowhere does it say this company is switching from Doze to OS X. They are only switching from PC hardware to Apple hardware, NOT moving away from XP, now or as far as I can see, ever.They plainly state thet are staying in the Doze environment.
Uh, it’s a read between the lines thing.
You’re right in a few things. For example, they have some custom software which is being rewritten in Java so that “it can run on the front end on Apple Macs.” In the meantime, they will be running Windows on their Macs via Parallels.
So, yes, they will be using Mac OS X (otherwise, why would they be running Parallels?).
@ Zune Tang
and Rosey thanks you very much….
@whatever
“Oh yeah Digg really makes a difference for the 5 people that use that site..”
huh? Last I heard digg.com is one of the most popular sites out there… I just submitted the story to help spread the word.
I switched to Mac from an Amiga, in 1991 (Quadra), Mac has been born again (Mr Jobs infusion) it has only made my experience all the more satisfying
Now we know that they know what we have know all the time…
Since your business systems no longer runs on the OS you stop billing or collecting money from clients. Eventually you start having to fire people because you have no cashflow. You have to maintain less systems, so IT costs drop and you can fire some IT people. Eventually after a few rounds of layoffs, you shut your company’s doors and your IT costs have reached the magic number, $0. A move to Apple really does save IT costs!
@HowItWorks
WOW, where can I get some of the drugs you’re using???!!!????!!!!
Oh, I see, they can only be ordered online from a windoze pc 🙁
@HowItWorks
WOW, where can I get some of the drugs you’re using???!!!????!!!!
Oh, I see, they can only be ordered online from a windoze pc 🙁
@HowItWorks
WOW, where can I get some of the drugs you’re using???!!!????!!!!
Oh, I see, they can only be ordered online from a windoze pc 🙁
@HowItWorks
WOW, where can I get some of the drugs you’re using???!!!????!!!!
Oh, I see, they can only be ordered online from a windoze pc 🙁
@anthony007
They said that the most annoying non-smokers are ex-smokers…
1. Firefox or Opera?
2. Their recent drivers suck big time, you should check their support forum, I use the previous version (3.30).
3. Just uninstall the goddamn ’50MB’ mouse drivers, you won’t die just because you can’t use the 9th mouse button.
4. Use spybot or Window defender?
5. Maybe reformat the computer and try to spot the culprit by installing and testing your softwares one by one?
—
My Network Engineer skill’s is way above me. But his computer is crawling like snail the most time.
Reason? Since he is a genius, and geniuses like to make things complicated, he installed gazillionth of those freeware networking tools and apply a lot of those system tweaks scattering on the net to to ‘enhance his productivity’ which in turns backfired on him.
Solution: reformat the computer, and stick with the most important apps. (no more shaddy freeware apps or tweaks)
Sorry double post,
FYI: I’m a switcher too, And I really love my mac. To the point of not turn my fully performing Vista box except if it is really urgent.
But I don’t think that your reasons are strong enough for expert like you (there are solutions or at least workarounds for them), except for the fact that they had traumatized you. (Trauma is a big nullifier for any reasoning)
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