Macs Are Cheaper than PCs 304
astrodawg writes "According the Gartner research firm, Macs are cheaper than PCs.
'It compared direct costs such as hardware and software for desktops and mobile computers, servers and peripherals, upgrades, service and support and depreciation. The study also examined the indirect costs of supporting end-users, training time and non-productive downtime.'
MacCentral posted a story; evidently, the full report from Gartner is a bit expensive." I think the news about this should be that anyone questioned it to begin with.
Got A Nice Example (Score:5, Interesting)
The thing about it is this: it's a Centris 650, built in 1993. $4000 is what it's cost, materials-wise, since it's birth. That comes to about $500 a year, or around $1.50 a day. That covers a full complement (128MB) of RAM, a monitor, a hard drive upgrade and software upgrades. That's all I've ever had to do with it, really. Actually, the best part is that I didn't have to pay the initial $2,700 purchase price: I purchased it used from a university for $25. So really my TCO, since I've owned for a year or two, is more like $300 (RAM and hard drive - the rest came with it).
Sure, that doesn't take into account the cost of my time, but I really don't have much in the way of non-productive downtime either. My other Macs have similar stories. Probably my best one is my Mac Plus. Last time I calculated, that machine cost about $.23 a day since it's birth. And it does everything the Centris does, only in black and white.
Linux (Score:2, Interesting)
With Linux, you do not need to recompile your kernel to get new features. Linux has had kernel modules since Linux 2.0. You only need to apt-get the right module and its dependencies. Rarely will "Grandma" need to recompile her kernel!
Plus USB and Firewire support is greatly improved in the new Linux 2.5 kernels, so there is no need to wait any longer. And with GNOME 2.0 (with Nautilus) just around the corner, Linux will be even easier to use than Windows and Mac combined.. Because Linux is open source, it will always be improving faster than closed source.
And their web servers run Solaris (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This is a load..... (Score:2, Interesting)
That said, the added traffic (as mentioned by LordNimon) makes it much easier to conenct/find/etc printers, machines, servers. In a small environment (most ad agencies), I think this added benefit of not having to constantly walk idiots through switching printers or connecting to a server is worth it.
Re:Gartner part of Apple advertising department (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Got A Nice Example (Score:2, Interesting)
1) No longer in use: an obsolete word.
2) Outmoded in design, style, or construction: an obsolete locomotive.
Well, if he's using it, it's obviously still in use. And who really cares if it's outmoded in design, style, or construction if it is still able to perform the majority of tasks that people use a computer for with reasonable speed?
Re:iMac is for PC now (Score:2, Interesting)
*Sigh* Okay, think about this one for a second: the iPod, by default, will sync its playlist with the one on your computer. OF COURSE it's only going to sync with one! What did you want it to do, keep separate lists and separate files for every computer you plug it into?
There is still the option to transfer files manually. It's a preference. You can change it. And you can still use it as just a FireWire hard drive.
Really, don't say something's "crippled" if you haven't thought it through. I doubt the majority of people have more than one computer.
Re:Linux (Score:3, Interesting)
And "greatly improved" doesn't mean much. I can take just about any Firewire device on the planet and it works with zero configuration on my iBook. Support only means it will function. OS X does much more than "support" Firewire and USB.
I use Linux alot, on both Wintel and PPC architecture, but it takes a whole lot of time, effort, and study to get to the point where it's as easy to get working as OS X is. As the tired old adage goes, "Linux is only free if your time is worth nothing."
Re:Why I haven't used Mac's. (Score:4, Interesting)
I grew up with Macs, and have many fond memories of those old days (when connectivity and interoperability weren't crucial situations) but frankly, OS 9 and back are just crap. Crap, crap, crap. No real multitasking. Random preference corruption. Extension conflicts arising out of the blue. Random crashes. Any application crashing kills the OS forcinga reboot. The damn Chooser just refusing to work. The fact that inserting a CD freezes the machine until it is finished mounting it.
To do any serious work other than Desktop Publishing or graphics/video processing work (word processing isn't serious work...it's menial idiot work that anything can do...I can do word processing on my Palm for goodness sake) the functionality had to be grafted onto the operating system, and it didn't work very well. Anything certainly COULD be done, but most of it is alot easier to do on another OS.
OS X changes all that. I do mostly Mac support these days, and we have one client that runs OS X on everything, and we have hardly hear from them unless they want a new machine installed, or their network is having issues. No problems with the OS that couldn't be solved with a quick page through the Admin Guide, and a little computing common sense.
I run OS X exclusively on my iBook, with OS 9 installed only so I can play all the old games I used to play when I was a kid. The only time I've had any problems was when I started deleting files instead of running an uninstall script for the Dev Tools. Aside from that, I've never once had a problem with it. I've had applications crash, but those were just beta browserware like Chimera. I've never had a kernel panic. Never a sad Mac. Nothing untoward at all, and I use this machine quite heavily (it's my laptop for consulting as well as personal stuff). I've compiled many programs for Linux that claimed no OS X support, but have run without a hitch. And for what doesn't compile out of the box, there's the fink project which ports a whole bunch of common open source software to OS X.
So basically, be glad you waited, it's actually a functional, stable operating system now.
Re:No. (Score:3, Interesting)
Somebody here has never used a computer with a fast hard drive. If you're compiling anything significant, your hard drive is a bottleneck on a modern machine. I don't care how fast it is, there's no single disk that is not a bottleneck these days. Lots of productivity software gains huge performance boosts from faster disks. Anything that uses databases (e-mail apps, financial software), and any graphics or media applications benifit from a faster disk.
30% you say? A good 10000 RPM SCSI disk will probably give you a 500% increase in load and search times when opening a mailbox with 1000 messages in it, and could cut compiling time in half for a large program.
You don't have to sacrifice speed to get a quiet machine. Just put it in a closet. Also, you'll find that commercially built machines are quieter then home built models. I have yet to see a home modded quiet case that compares with what you can just go out and buy from Apple or Dell. If quiet is what you want, it's worth the money. They don't cost much more then home built machines anymore. Really.
Inconsequential? (Score:2, Interesting)
Granted, once you got everything set up, you could leave the IRQs alone.
But continually bashing my head into the 640K barrier pissed me off to no end. I remember the whole stack of boot disks I had, depending on wether I wanted to play a game; WHICH game, or if I wanted to just surf the web or write a paper or something.
To this day, I'm STILL not sure exactly what the difference between extended memory and expanded memory is, or why gates decided to plague us with the two different kinds. And I still remember the horrors of trying to tweak himem *just* right.
Well, no more. I left that world behind a long time ago; when I found the Solaris and Mac labs at school. I don't miss gates' bullshit; and I haven't looked back since.
cya,
john