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Microsoft Businesses Apple

Mac v. Microsoft TCO 207

Posted by pudge from the here-we-go-again dept.
NickFitz writes "MacWorld UK has some comments from industry analysts on the question of whether Total Cost of Ownership, Microsoft's favourite metric, is lower for Apple Mac versus Windows. The MS website has no figures to refute the claim that 'An Apple technician may cost twice as much, but he comes to see you half as often.'" Bottom line: neither platform is the clear winner.
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Mac v. Microsoft TCO More

Mac v. Microsoft TCO

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  • Linux TCO? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Evanrude ( 21624 ) <david.fattyco@org> on Monday February 16, 2004 @12:30PM (#8295218) Homepage Journal
    Has anyone done a review of Linux TCO vs. the above competitors. It would be interesting to see how a "Linux Technician" stacks up with Windows and Mac techs.

    • Re:Linux TCO? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 16, 2004 @12:50PM (#8295496)
      Linux technicians may be cheaper, but you have to endure their bad hygiene and bad breath while they're working at your shop. I know from experience. I'd rather have a well-dressed Mac guy that impresses the clients around than a pear-shaped star-trek t-shirt wearing loser.

      • Re:Linux TCO? (Score:3, Funny)

        by denks ( 717389 )
        You forgot the flies. I really cant stress enough that flies will drive your customers away.

        Now if the Linux tech turned up with insect repellant, then maybe he could be allowed to work in some closed room out of sight.

        Now a Mac tech on the other hand...your customers will be wanting to come back just to see your sexy computers, but theyll just swoon over the tech.

        And you dont need to keep spare insect repellant and deoderant around the place either.

      • Re:Linux TCO? (Score:5, Funny)

        by NateTech ( 50881 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @12:30AM (#8302027)
        If that was a joke, cool.

        If that was serious -- you guys obviously don't know how to hire people.

        Plenty of well-dressed, hygenic, Linux folk out of work these days... no need to put up with smelly-boy.

        Oh wait this is /. -- I was supposed to say:

        "I know how to bathe you insensitive clod!!!"

        Or...

        "Imagine a beowulf cluster of smelly Linux admins."

        Or maybe...

        "In soviet Russia, the system admins smell neat and clean."

        Heh.

    • Techincian count (Score:5, Informative)

      by goombah99 ( 560566 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @01:51PM (#8296233)
      At my 10,000+ employee facility, we have loads of overworked microsoft techs and way too few linux techs. Whenever our institution tires to force us to standardize on a platform the techs vote and of course windows always wins because there are so many techs.

      if you actually normalized their numbers by number of machines they support I suspect that the mac techs would win. Hard to say about the linux techs. Linux techs tend to support giant computer farms. They have huge problems getting them all working nicely but they arent running around putting out virus and worm fires every week or searching for some stupid third pary driver.

      • 1) If your "loads" of ms techs are overworked, then I would say that you also have "way too few" of them. 2) Does "way too few" Linux techs mean they are also overworked, or that there are just fewer of them than the ms techs? 3) What kind of organization allows the techs to VOTE on strategic decisions? You're in serious need of a competent CIO.

        • Re:Techincian count (Score:5, Interesting)

          by goombah99 ( 560566 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @09:29PM (#8300717)
          The MS techs run around putting out virus fires, and unsnarling people's windows desktop machines. They dont actually do anything useful in terms of producing products. They just allow others to work. They are over worked because they worm-hole is an endless sucking vortex of time and paranoia. No matter how many people we hired we could not get ahead of it--always reactive. Sure we do the firewalls and have policies about clicking on e-mail messages but guess what, they dont stop the problems.

          The sys admins that dont get sucked into the widows vortex and do linux still have to deal with network probelms and shared disk space with rooted windows machines. But they actually do work that produces products so they are too few in the sense that every time we get someone good they seem to get drawn into the latest Worm crisis management is panicing over, and we lose them.

          as for what kind of management allows techs to vote? its the same kind that is everywhere and buys windows because its cheaper. If they understood the problem they would not be listening to the Windows people. But they are management. THe CIO is came from within so its a windows turd that floated to the top. But locally out CIO does get it. But windows is entrenched. the same secretary that cant keep her comuter virus free is also the one that would have to retrain to use a mac. Plus we have crap like "meeting maker" that runs best on windows. The Windows tech mafia picks software standards without regard to cross platform issues because all they are trained on is windows.

          see the point I'm making is that thw windows tech mafia rises to the top in sheer numbers and is guided by perpetual crisis management. They make the decisions because they are their and visible and numerous.

          there's an old managment adage that says the BEST manager is the one that builds an operation that does not need him: Make yourself dipsensible. But the manager that gets kept is the one that makes himself indespensible. That's mac versus windows techs in a nutshell.

  • My snappy comeback (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Fished ( 574624 ) * <amphigory@@@gmail...com> on Monday February 16, 2004 @12:31PM (#8295226)
    My snappy comeback to those who claim Macs are more expensive is:
    That's right, they are more expensive if your time has no value.
    That usually elicits at least a thoughtful look. With that line as a starting point, I've converted three organizations over to Macs in the past 2 years, so it's got something going for it.

    • heh... (Score:2)

      by pb ( 1020 )
      And you have jwz to thank for it [jwz.org], eh? I guess you can start moving people away from Linux next...

      • Re:heh... (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Fished ( 574624 ) *
        Yeah yeah. I knew of JWZ's rant, but thought (at the time) that he was mistaken. Remember, he was trying to discourage people from using Linux in favor of proprietary Unixes. My experience (going back to the early nineties) has always been that proprietary UNIX sucks more than anything.

      • Re:heh... (Score:3, Interesting)

        by daviddennis ( 10926 )
        I wonder if JWZ ever tried MacOS X. The ideas behind it seem like a very nice answer to his "The X-Windows Disaster" chapter.

        I guess he did - I read a few of his comments where he apparently got his xscreensaver application to work, and he mentioned in a few places that he was thinking of switching.

        I wonder if he ever did, and what sort of problems he found.

        D

    • Re:My snappy comeback (Score:5, Funny)

      by prockcore ( 543967 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @03:16PM (#8297176)
      That's right, they are more expensive if your time has no value.

      Your time does have no value. You're sitting here posting on slashdot. Fact is, your time is worth nothing.

    • 110 macs == less work than 15 ms boxes (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SgtChaireBourne ( 457691 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @03:16AM (#8302651) Homepage
      I find it hard to believe that there is any speculation. I've seen two technicians take care of 110 macintoshes with less time than they spend repairing the 15 windows machines remaining.

      Then there is the Total Cost of Sanity that many have mentioned. The Macs just work, but more importantly they are pre-installed. At a conference spanning several days, the first day and a half it looked any participant with a note book computer was runing either an iBook or a PowerBook. By the end of the week the ratio of Mac to Windows had droped to about 1:1 -- the Windows users had averaged about 20 minutes each with a technician to get the wireless cards working.

      Mac just work, but more importantly they are pre-installed. The common Linux distros are very easy to install and maintain since about 4 years ago, especially compared to Windows. But having OS X work out of the box beats even Linux and really creams Windows. When you start talking about corrective maintenance, then you couldn't pay me to put up with the garbage that I've had to watch Windows technicians deal with. However, the end user, not the technician is the real benefactor of OS X. They can use the computer for their job rather than having to call twice a week about problems which prevent daily activities.

    • That says it all for me. I recently switched to Macs for that exact reason. I spent several years running linux (as a desktop for personal productivity), and before that OS/2 with a brief side trip running Windows (that didn't last very long, was way too unstable compared to what I was used to). When you count the time I spent adminning/fixing/configuring other operating systems verses what I spend on my powerbook, Apple and OS/X are hands down winners for me.

  • great. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pb ( 1020 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @12:31PM (#8295242)
    So here's a story that outright says "we have no idea, and the whole thing is bogus anyhow".

    Well, at least it's honest.

  • You might remember me.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 16, 2004 @12:32PM (#8295250)
    Hi. I'm Troy McClure. You might remember me from such computer-battle movies as "Because I said so: Nyahh!" and "Microsoft vs the Smog Monster". The TCV (total cost of viewing) is a mere $9 at your local metroplex! Now that there won't be any damn hobbit movies, maybe the Troyster is up for an academy award in 2005? Let us see.

  • Lower TCO, higher ROI? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rqqrtnb ( 753156 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @12:38PM (#8295308)
    Is a Mac cheaper to run and does a Mac make a user more productive?

    If the answer is yes, does it really matter?

    More importantly, does ANYBODY in corporate America consider this when buying their machines? I'll betcha, TCO means buying a "reliable" PC that's not made of crappy generic parts, and nowhere does a Mac come into the equation, even though it might very well be the better choice.

    ROI means handing that machine down the line from programmers to office support, to milk as much out of it until it heads for a landfill, and nobody figures out how productive their people are on the thing during its lifetime.

    Why? Because there's really no choice. Not in any practical sense.

    So, it's really about how well a machine runs Windows, not how Windows compares to any other OS. That's because the market perception is that "the battle is over and Windows won." We feel enough anxiety about upgrading our machines, adding new software. To open up the decision process to worrying about entire platforms again ... just ain't gonna happen now.

    So Apple finds itself in a tough spot, appealing to those who want to "switch" in hopes that if it can gain enough market share and mind share, it can pry open the door of possibility eventually.

    But it's going to be almost impossible, not because Apple can't offer a better product, but because people have become so shellshocked from the PC/Internet experience that they just want to settle down and go with the flow... the Windows flow.

    So when I saw the above article, I thought to myself that even if Apple were to offer irrefutable truth to lower TCO/higher ROI, how much would it really, really matter?

    Not much, unfortunately. Not right now. But perhaps, little by little...

    • Re:Lower TCO, higher ROI? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 16, 2004 @12:40PM (#8295333)
      What is amazing is the dichotomy. In so many facets of corporate america we always hear how "bottom line" oriented today's corporations are.

      Yet, when it comes to computers, it hardly seems that the lower bottom line cost matters. Almost as if computers have a different yardstick.
      But why should they? The current "standard platform" only means one kind of PC which translates into lower costs since there is one company to look to for support, the OEM of your computers. But it still is not the most cost effective solution.

      It is as if you had Chevy's in your corporate fleet and to lower costs, you standardized on something else, that cost less to buy, but got 1/3 less gas mileage and more maintenance.

      • Re:Lower TCO, higher ROI? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by rixstep ( 611236 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @04:16PM (#8297774) Homepage
        Reliability is more important than ROI anyway.

        IBM support contracts? Who can charge more? And yet why do corporations sign with Big Blue?

        Because they know Big Blue know their shit. Reliability.

        Today every wannabe and their grandmother want to be online. MDs set up MS boxes with IIS configured and ready to run, and the next thing they know, all their records are out in the open and they're spreading Nimda all over the place. They don't have a clue.

        All the while the Dells and Gateways try to entice you with amazingly low costs.

        But the major players will never go that route - and if they do, they'll regret it and get out. For when one's business is important enough, it's not ROI - or, rather, ROI is measured differently, more realistically.

        By taking reliability into account.
        • Because they know Big Blue know their shit. Reliability.

          It may be that Big Blue knows their shit. In fact, the IBMers I've worked with were darn good. But the real reason is that no one ever got fired for going with IBM, and that is all that know-nothing managers need to know. The CYA factor is huge.

    • Re:Lower TCO, higher ROI? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by rixstep ( 611236 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @04:10PM (#8297707) Homepage
      TCO means buying a "reliable" PC that's not made of crappy generic parts

      Oxymoronic, because there is no such thing.

      But it goes farther than that, for while Apple support is not up to par for the enterprise, PC OEMs would generally fare better with no support at all, it's that bad.

      Badge #43579, may I help you?

      That just doesn't cut it either. The skinny: give admins Mac networks. Let everyone chill out a bit. The only people who don't want them are the bean counters - who never learned how to properly count beans anyway.

      That's because the market perception is that "the battle is over and Windows won."

      Uh - beg to differ. It's getting more and more Linux and Apple, and last week's events don't exactly slow this trend down. eWEEK writes 'Linux is everywhere - even on Mars'; several zines have declared 2004 the year of the Linux desktop; IBM, SuSE, Novell, Red Hat - they're all making massive inroads; Apache dominates like never before, with over two thirds of all web servers; if there is a battle, it is definitely not over, and Windows has definitely not won - in fact, Windows is looking more and more like the loser. Don't forget: the net may have whiskers, but the web does not. It's got about ten years of service to Harry Homeowner under its belt, that's all.

  • Tired... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Apreche ( 239272 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @12:39PM (#8295317) Homepage Journal
    I'm tired of all these slashdot stories that all have the same answer. The right tool for the right job. If you are screwing in screws you need a screwdriver. If you are hammering nails you need a hammer. If you want to buy hammers to screw screws it will probalby work, but with all the screws you bend it will cost more money and vice versa too.

    There is a best selection of hardware and software under a given circumstance. There is no way to say that linux is cheaper than windows, period. There might be a guy who gets linux for free, but he runs weird hardware and would have to hire someone to write a driver. Windows might be cheaper for that guy. There might be an artist who already has a copy of photoshop for mac, but not for windows. A G5 might be cheaper for that guy. TOS can only be determined on a case by case basis.

    The rule of right tool for the right job applies to so many slashdot stories I don't know if it's still worth posting it every time I see it. So next time someone says "my programming language is better than yours" or "this wireless protocol is better than that one" or "this software is cheaper/better than that one" point them here.

    • Re:Tired... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 16, 2004 @01:36PM (#8296062)
      Comments like yours, which *seem* insightful, have a pretty heavy assumption that everybody completely evaluates every tool available.

      Think about this: if you don't *know* a better tool exists, how can you know you've got the best tool for the job?

      I've opened a lot of people's eyes over the years by showing them mac and linux. Heck, I've even opened my own eyes, when I discovered that OpenOffice actually is *useful* now (bye bye windows).

      Yes it's true, some people actually *do* have the best tool for their job (including functionality, *licensing*, and other intangibles), but some are living in blissfull ignorance.

      Just something to keep in mind when using that tired phrase "best tool for the job".

    • But I have many brands of tools... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by csoto ( 220540 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @02:02PM (#8296319)
      Trust me, my Wiha tools are FAR better than the "junk drawer" tools I lend to my neighbors. As both a Mac fan and woodworker, I've learned that it does not pay, in terms of time, hassle or quality of work to use "any old tool." If I'm shaving a piece off the bottom of a door, I'll grab a decent Stanely hand plane. For fine furniture, nothing beats my Lie-Nielsens, which at over 8x the cost, are well worth it.

      Mac and Windows PCs do essentially the same things. There are a jillion more crappy games available for WIndows, but the good ones are on both. My G4 is an excellent gaming platform, plus it lets me talk to my friends, family and even get work done. My G4 Powerbook, even more so. I could do the same things my Dell, but the experience just isn't the same. Ergo, the Mac is a "better quality tool" for me.

      • Re:But I have many brands of tools... (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Yeh, more content-free Mac advocacy.

        Apple has a lot of nice "tools" in the graphics market and for home users, but once you get outside of those niches, there's a gizllion missing pieces. And I'm talking about business-oriented software, development tools, databases, and so on, not GreetingCardMakerPlusPlus or CounterStrike.

        Apple has always had an enormous TCO advantage over Windows -- but businesses were pretty much forced to buy Windows because Windows did what they needed and Macs didn't. I've been usi
        • Can someone please post a list of tools that are only available under windows?

          • Re:But I have many brands of tools... (Score:4, Insightful)

            by crazyphilman ( 609923 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @10:23PM (#8301168) Journal
            Tools only available under Windows?

            Hmm...

            Sobig; Slammer; Blaster; ILoveYou; Kournikova (remember her?); Um... This is a long list, how much time do you have? ;)

        • Just because the Extron Button Label Generator doesn't work on the Mac does not mean my staff should all have to use Windows. 99% of them do the things that can be done on Mac just as well, if not better than Windows (or Linux or Solaris, for that matter).

          VERY limited examples of providers of Mac software to your specific areas of interest:

          Business-oriented - Microsoft, Intuit, AEC, Nametschek

          Development tools - GNU, Borland, Sun, IBM

          Databases - MySQL, PostgreSQL, Sybase, IBM, Oracle

          Except for extreme
    • Windows might be cheaper for that guy.

      Given the right circumstances, 'perhaps'. Perhaps, if the machine has no diskette drive and is never connected to the Internet - much in the way NT4 got its Orange Book certification.

      But when eWEEK cite tallies that show the total cost of web damages inflicted on Windows computers and networks to be $132.4 billion, how does that divide?
    • To continue with your analogy, the problem is that management has no idea how hammers work.

    • Re:Tired... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Golias ( 176380 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @04:55PM (#8298192)
      I'm tired of all these slashdot stories that all have the same answer. The right tool for the right job. If you are screwing in screws you need a screwdriver. If you are hammering nails you need a hammer.

      Except the problem is that Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows are all screwhammers. The whole point of the "personal computer" is that it is not a specialized tool that does one or two things incredibly well, but a multi-function Finite State Machine for All Your File Processing Needs.

      Since just about any application can be written to run on just about any modern OS, the only two things that set them apart are 1: Application development for the platform, and 2: The user experience.

      Factor 1 is quantifiable, but arbitrary, based mostly on traditional market segments for the platforms. (Most of the best media software is written for the Mac because media people use Macs, because most of the best media software is written for the Mac, because...)

      Factor 2 is where the OS designers have control, but are very difficult to quantify, becuase almost any user with any real experience will ultimately be biased by those same experiences which qualify them to form their opinions. Put a Linux user in front of the legendary Mac OS, and he will complain about the lack of middle-click text pasting. Put the Mac user in front of a Linux desktop and they will complain just as loudly about the lack of universal drag-and-drop text pasting.

    • weak analogy (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Mr. Underbridge ( 666784 )
      There might be an artist who already has a copy of photoshop for mac, but not for windows. A G5 might be cheaper for that guy. TOS can only be determined on a case by case basis.

      Right, because that $300 copy of photoshop makes the difference between a $1200 and $2500 machine. Nice math.

      Also, the problem with your analogy, is that all these tools perform the SAME JOB, largely. So it's basically asking which screwdriver is better. Certainly, in some cases, you'll have to buy a Phillips head, because you

  • Unless QuarkXPress or Type Reunion is involved... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Bravo_Two_Zero ( 516479 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @12:47PM (#8295428)
    From my bad old days as a Mactinosh Systems Manager, I can attest to at least one thing... the only visits I made were to systems running QuarkXPress (which is... or at least was... notoriously breakable if you let graphic designers install anything) and Adobe Type Reunion. The general business apps (mostly Office, ironically) and internet apps just didn't create issues. I'm not really blaming the apps, since it was usually the result of an installation that overwrote a system extention. But, supporting PCs running QuarkXPress had way fewer issues. And, I don't think I've ever seen ATR on a PC.

    Hold down shift... Extensions off... problem solved! Now, just make an empty system folder, reinstall Quark and move the new extenstions back to the production folder... presto!

    • It was Mac IE, not Quark (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      In my tests, Quark XPress was stable if you didn't use Mac IE (or the Word filter distributed with XPress). Microsoft software put stuff in the Extensions folder that would make Quark crash. Often. Remove all MS stuff from the System Folder, no Quark crashes.

      If I put on my tinfoil hat, I saw Mac IE as a trojan horse. MS specifically designed Mac IE to crash the program most Mac holdouts used. That way they would think the Mac was unstable, and switch to Windows.
    • not only is that fix easy, it is impossible to do with windows. there is no 'extensions off' in windows. There are always two sides to the argument, but having mac be so dynamic in install/uninstall/extentsions and system folder 'stuff' is just awesome... no registry or similar crap to deal with.
      • *ahem*. yes there is. The superior windows "Safe Mode" not only boots up without some extensions, but returns the system to a simple safe mode bootable on any hardware any monitor. Can't say that for just booting with extensions off

        Not that you can boot with extensions off under OSX anyway
        • Actually, you can. Hold the Shift key down while starting OS X, and it also starts up in a Safe Mode. It also runs FSCK before you get to the login screen. I do that sometimes after a kernel panic or other problem just to make sure the hard drive is alright. But I never log in that way, I just restart normally when it's done checking.

  • Bashing MS isn't worth my intellectual integrity (Score:5, Insightful)

    by orthogonal ( 588627 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @12:50PM (#8295492) Journal
    The MS website has no figures to refute the claim that 'An Apple technician may cost twice as much, but he comes to see you half as often.'

    Yeah, and the article was no figures to support that claim.

    "In this coooorner, Anecdote, ladies and gentlemen! And in the opposite coooorner, Another Anecdote! Truly this will be the inconclusive fight of the century! Roarrr! Yeaaaaarrg!"

    Sure Microsoft sucks, but it doesn't suck so much that I'm going to sacrifice honestly reasoning from real evidence for the sake of becoming a zealot able to bash Microsoft even in the face of no conclusive evidence one way or the other.

    But, uh, thanks for offering me the chance.

  • hardware value too! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by quandrum ( 652868 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @12:50PM (#8295499)
    Apple hardware doesn't depreciate in value like windows stuff does. Companies could actually sell their old hardware, instead of chucking it in the garbage! However, I doubt most companies, when considering a hardware purchase, consider their next hardware purchase.
    • Apple hardware doesn't depreciate in value like windows stuff does. Companies could actually sell their old hardware, instead of chucking it in the garbage! However, I doubt most companies, when considering a hardware purchase, consider their next hardware purchase.

      That sword cuts both ways. Companies can save a fortune by buying a PC that is a year old.
    • Apple hardware doesn't depreciate in value like windows stuff does.

      That's because it doesn't advance anywhere near as quickly. You'll be able to buy (relatively) a hell of a lot better PC 6 months down the track than you would a Mac.

      Of course, the point is largely moot anyway for 99% of customers. A 5 year old PC may well be worth (as a proportion of its purchase price) less than a 5 year old Mac. However, it also almost certainly cost a lot less initially, and is probably still more than capable of ru

  • Test Bias (Score:4, Insightful)

    by stuffduff ( 681819 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @01:10PM (#8295777) Journal
    The test is biased by the presence of Microsoft's Office software. Are their any similar studies for Mac sites where Office is not a factor? It seems to me that more than half of support questions usually involve application software, so I'd like to see a study where Microsoft Office was not a factor.

  • I fix PC's by day... and use Macs at home. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dbirchall ( 191839 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @01:44PM (#8296156) Journal
    Some people might consider me a "PC technician" as various people pay me good money to take care of their beleaguered (Apple in-joke) PC's. I don't have A+ or Network+ certifications, but I've got 15 years of IT experience and familiarity with a good bit of hardware and more OSes than most people would ever want to touch.

    At home, I use primarily Macs running OS X. (There is one PC running Linux.) Why? Well, no one pays me to work on my own computers, so I choose hardware and software that won't require me to fix it all the time.

    Just an anecdotal data-point.

    • I second the motion.

      At work, I develop for Microsoft's .Net platform, so I'm pretty much stuck with Windows all day long. Our machines are always acting up, and it's kind of a pain in the ass. I mean, it seems like there's something wrong every five minutes.

      At home, I have two machines I work with regularly: an Apple iBook running OS/X, and a Sony Vaio Picturebook running Slackware.

      The iBook is a champ. I mean, it never gives me any trouble at all. The only thing I had trouble with recently was figuring

  • TCS (Total Cost of Sanity) (Score:5, Insightful)

    by chia_monkey ( 593501 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @02:11PM (#8296409) Journal
    It's funny that this debate still rages on and I'm sure it will for some time to come. While some may say "ok, it's time to stop talking about it", I disagree. I'm sure the TCO race is much closer now than it was a decade ago when Macs were rather flaky and there's wasn't as much hard core business and research software for the Mac, thus making it rather useless for non-creatives and such.

    Now for the sanity issue...time definitely has a value that nobody seems to take into account here. Same with sanity. For instance, with the PC you're constantly looking for drivers and DLLs that you need, that break, that disappear, that need to be updated, etc. With the Mac...it just WORKS. Any of you have a girlfriend that has a PC and it's constantly not working and YOU get all the abuse because of it? Then you suggest using a Mac because it simply works ("Look, all you gotta do is plug in your digital camera, and it works. And now you can view the pictures with no additional software. And check this out...you can burn them onto a CD now with no additional software..."). It really is that easy. I know if my gf had a PC, I would be a lot more sane from not having to listen to "great, I can't use my camera now because it changed the settings to HP instead of Sony and I can't find the software..."

    Sanity...it's a good thing. Just as "goodwill" isn't a concrete number to put on a company's spreadsheet, it still has a value. Same with the value of time and sanity. Let's not forget that.
    • Now for the sanity issue...time definitely has a value that nobody seems to take into account here. Same with sanity. For instance, with the PC you're constantly looking for drivers and DLLs that you need, that break, that disappear, that need to be updated, etc. With the Mac...it just WORKS.

      Er, with a PC these days it just works too. At least, with a modern PC (Windows XP).

      Look, all you gotta do is plug in your digital camera, and it works.

      Yup. Get the "Microsoft Camera Wizard" right off...

      And no

  • Half as often? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Trillan ( 597339 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @03:50PM (#8297517) Homepage Journal

    I've owned a Mac since I was in high school in 1993. The only time I've ever needed Apple's help was when I got an early Powerbook G4 with an inverter that whined. It went back to Apple and was returned less than a week later.

    In contrast, I've had to return my two most recent PCs numerous times due to heat issues. (And no, my work area isn't bad for heat... each time, it's been the CPU goo.)

    Now, if you want to argue monitors, you'll have a much stronger point. I had several AppleVision 1710s blow out on me. Each time, a tech would come out and replace it. Apparently that model was cursed. I eventually got another just because I was tired of the smell.

  • What have we learned? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by vga_init ( 589198 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @04:18PM (#8297788) Journal
    I fail to see the relevence of this story or article at all; having read it, there is really no useful information to gleam. Really, it's only a half page of some very generic and arbitrary arguments that don't come to any full conclusion and do not provide any real evidence to support what it's claiming anyway.

    The NewsFactor article it links to is a little bit more informative, but still falls along the same lines. It would be nice if we could *see* the results of these studies that they keep mentioning and were really able to get out the vague performance details they keep alluding to. Where is the real information?

  • Corporate America Spending (Score:4, Insightful)

    by customjake ( 662717 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @04:20PM (#8297807)
    Now while i don't work in the corporate scene, my experience with them shows me why they choose windows. Corporations don't really care about saving money, they care about making it look like they're saving money.

    A recent engineering department of a corporation cost reduced a a bearing, that will save them $6 on every $30 bearing. While this sounds like a good idea, the new bearing fails about 3 times under the warrenty period while the old bearing lived well beyond the warrenty period.

    Corporations wouldn't care if it costs $1000 per machine to set up and maintain for the first year, as long as they can say they're buying a $600 dell and saving a fortune.

    I truely believe that macs have a lower TCO, as i support all the windoze machines in my house. The only work my mac requires is the occasional software update. Windows requires updates weekly, reinstallation every 6-12months with heavy use. And i'm probably going to have to reinstall my mothers copy of XP home and my dads XP pro, as both are becoming incredibly glitch in recent weeks.

    Linux probably beats windows in the long term, but loses in the short term, which is the only place where businesses care about. Linux takes longer to install, setup and get running smoothly, especially in a custom environment.

    Mac are far more universal, as you can run X11, OS9, windows via VPC in addition to the Native OS X apps. This does not mean that Macs do not have their downfalls. Internet browsing still lacks the 'snap' that IE has on Win2k. But as i don't see MS doing much to innovate their os, i will stick with mac.

    Personally, when i have to use windows, i use Win2k as i find it much better in the long term for stability. But unless i have to use windows, i keep linux and os x running on everything i can, as my time is worth more to me than a few hundred dollars now.
    • I think someone over at PC Magazine once said that it's not a bad idea, every couple of months, to totally reinstall your copy of Windows and all the apps, because the system directory gets cluttered with dlls which don't always interoperate correctly. Reinstalling cleans out all the goo, you know? And cleans out the registry, which over time gets all chewed up.

      With a Mac, on the other hand, you've got the application folder, the individual user's preferences folder, and the system folder for that app, IF

  • Sigh... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Mildew Man ( 718763 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @07:03PM (#8299521)

    I don't know how this can be debatable.

    Everything that I have heard and read show that Macs are cheaper when factoring in TCO. In addition to less support (how many times have heard "...my company has 1000 PCs with 100 PC support techs and 2000 Macs with 3 Mac support techs...") and longer lasting hardware ("...we have a SE/30 that we still use as a mail server...") to increased productivity ("...virus? What stinking virus?...It just works!)

    Here's a few examples I found when googling for info on Mac vs. Windows TOC:

    Macs Shine In Total Cost Of Ownership [applelinks.com]
    "The TOC (total operating cost) for the Wintel machines amounts to $253.86 per year, every year until it is retired," Canterbury told Sellers. "The Macs run us $53.25 per year. Quite a difference and one our board and parents heard loud and clear."

    Return On Investments between the Macintosh and Windows platforms. [mackido.com]
    [NOTE: of course this is where the Mac shines but I think that it translates to other areas of general productivity]
    "This benchmark supersedes a common but misleading bench-mark: cost-of-ownership. An ROI benchmark correlates the cost of ownership and productivity of media producers to revenue and profit. Detailed ROI analysis reveals that a Macintosh-using creative professional produces $26,441 more annual revenue and $14,488 more net profit (per person) than a Windows user of comparable skill engaged in similar work."

    Why most people should buy a Macintosh rather than a Windows PC [netspace.net.au]
    A study from technology research company, Gartner has found Apple Macintosh computers to be up to 36 percent cheaper to own and run than competing PC products. The study utilised Gartner's Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) methodology, which takes into account the direct and indirect costs of owning IT infrastructure.

    And there are just so many other ones that I grow tired of providing the information

  • What TCO? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by claudebbg ( 547985 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @07:18PM (#8299623) Homepage
    Like other people here, I know windows quite well and can easily "support myself". I can even make Ms products work well together on a complex corporate architecture (I think it's the reason why they interviewed me on their site:-).
    When it came to my own personal computer, I bought a Mac, just because I don't want to make support@home! Obviously I use nearly the same tools I could run on a dual boot Windows-Linux PC (DVDPlayer/VideoLan, iTunes, jEdit, MsOffice, JBoss-PHP-Apache, tcsh, Mozilla/kHtml). But it works find, nothing more than drag/drop to install an application, no OS upgrade issue, a perfect statefull firewall included). In two years, I had no system or software issues. When came the day I wanted a laptop, I took another Mac, because I liked the first one, because it was cheaper than the same class of computer from Dell.

    I understand I overvalue my $/hour (I'm a bit more expensive than a 1st level support guy), but what can be compared to nearly $0? I helped some friends with their Macs (switchers, newcomers) and they were amazed how simple it was, how useless I could be for them (I love that because phone support at 10PM isn't my preferred friendliness).

    I also worked at my office with Macs (Os9), and of course when a user had a problem, and the support team answered, "oh, it's a Mac", they called me. It's not a statistical study (5 samples), but each problems were solved in 5 minutes and were caused by "not connected" or "not switched on the VLAN", things that can exist on a PC and that really should not happened. The "no-support" reason was always "I don't know macs" which shouldn't happen with MacOsX (open a Terminal, remember your Unix for beginners 1st class, solve the problem). Still the $0 comparison.

    With OsX, I believe there is a really good office alternative:
    • a real user/admin isolation
    • a realistic user rights limitation (you can install an funny screen saver with no possible impact on other users/ system files). Yes, don't tell me you plan to use the "no rights to the user" policy on windows, it's just not the job of sysadmins to forbid everything.
    • a good multitask behavior (I'm ripping a DVD right now and don't feel any slowlyness on a 2 years old entry-level computer)
    • all the classical usefull applications (Mozilla, Office, Mail, Calendar, Images management...) plus all the open-source world apps/tools.
    • a wide adoption of standards and a real work on Windows connectivity
    But a lot of people just don't compare anymore, are just too scary of innovation/new solutions (which is a real problem concerning technology). Too many people a ready to lie by not comparing Windows/Linux/Mac/Other before saying to the boss "here is the way". The scariest thing is the best way is certainly somewhere between those choices.

    Isn't it the entire "keep with the standards to keep the choice in your hands" lesson in first year of CS grade?

  • An older study from 1988: (Score:5, Informative)

    by bob_calder ( 673103 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @08:40PM (#8300287) Homepage Journal
    quote found here:
    University of Wollongong [uow.edu.au]
    In 1997, Gistics, Inc. published the following*:
    Macintosh users:
    spend 38 fewer hours per year 'Futzing" with files
    save US $4,950 annually on support and training
    use more tools (14.3 versus 8.3)
    Save US $2,211 in three-year cost of ownership
    Earn US $5.01 more per hour
    Earn US $12.22 more revenue per hour of labor
    Create US $14,550 more profits per year per person
    Earn 32 percent more net profit per project and
    Achieve platform payback in 7.2 months (versus 13.9)

    *Page 56 Vaughan, T. 1998. Multimedia, Making it Work, Osborne McGraw Hill, Berkeley

  • Linux, Mac, & Windows (Score:5, Interesting)

    by PhoenixK7 ( 244984 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @10:22PM (#8301157)
    You know what, I've had a box with WinXP on it, which was dual boot with linux. While Win2K and XP are far better in many ways than previous versions of windows, I still spent way too much of my time tweaking the hell out of it to keep it running efficiently. It seemed like weekly I was spending some serious time tweaking either one, or every month or so I was saying screw it, it'll take less time to just reinstall all this crap than fix it properly. Well, guess what, I've got a PowerBook with Panther on it and I haven't spent ANY time tweaking the OS on the command line, with utilities, or anything else and my last install was in November to upgrade the machine to Panther. It just works, no messing around, no tweaking. On top of that, there's no spyware and it doesn't get slower over time. I now forget the last time I rebooted my machine, it doesn't crash!

    OK, I've got my rant out. My name is James, and I'm a member of the Cult of the Apple.
  • Kay said: "Apple's view is that its stuff doesn't break and therefore costs less to keep it going. And it has some merit in that."

    There is some merit in most arguments.

    Would it be too inconvenient to point out that Apple has recently been forced to launch a reimbursement program for the thousands of iBook owners whose logic boards have failed?

    Or that, quite recently, it chose to settle a lawsuit brought by G3 owners who had terrible performance under OS X?

    Or that, in the last few months, it has rushed

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