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IBM's 200,000 Macs Have Made a Happier and More Productive Workforce, Study Finds (appleinsider.com) 169

Posted by BeauHD from the satisfaction-guaranteed dept.
sbinning shares a report from AppleInsider: IBM has published its latest study focusing on the benefits of Apple products in enterprise, and has found that a fleet of over 200,000 Macs leads to far lower support costs, smaller numbers of support staff, and happier employees versus a Windows deployment. In the study presented on Tuesday, IBM says that employees that used Mac machines were 22 percent more likely to exceed expectations in performance reviews compared to Windows users. Mac-using employees generating sales deals have 16% larger proceeds as well.

Turning to employee satisfaction, the first-of-its-kind study shows that Mac users were 17 percent less likely to leave IBM compared to their Windows counterparts. Mac users also were happier with the software available, with 5 percent asking for additional software compared to 11 percent of Windows users. A team of seven engineers is needed to maintain 200,000 Macs whereas a team of 20 is needed for that number of Windows PCs. During setup, the migration process was simple for 98 percent of Mac users versus only 86 percent of those moving from Windows 7 to Windows 10. Windows users were also five times as likely to need on-site support.
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IBM's 200,000 Macs Have Made a Happier and More Productive Workforce, Study Finds More

IBM's 200,000 Macs Have Made a Happier and More Productive Workforce, Study Finds

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  • Standardized hardware (Score:3, Insightful)

    by EODisFUN ( 1437955 ) on Tuesday November 12, 2019 @07:09PM (#59408468)
    Leaving aside Windows vs MacOS for a moment, this is bound to happen simply because of hardware. Windows environments are always a wasteland of incompatible drivers and incomplete patching.

    • Re:Standardized hardware (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Xenx ( 2211586 ) on Tuesday November 12, 2019 @07:15PM (#59408494)
      Most big businesses tend to use standardized hardware for their Windows machines as well.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by khchung ( 462899 )

        Most big businesses tend to use standardized hardware for their Windows machines as well.

        But still didn't work because next year the vendor changed components due to pricing/availability/etc.

        With Macs, Apple will make sure the OS will work with the different components they chose.

        • You have a strange view of the world. Aside from a line of Dell Latitudes being available for many years precisely to avoid your scenario, it's very likely the future replacement model will have one generation up in Intel processor, use the same Intel graphics driver package have the same Intel pro network card, the same Intel chipset drivers etc.

          In the corporate world there is very little that changes. In fact I'll go as far as to say I'm running the same driver packages for the same hardware vendors now a

      • yes and no. dell/HP/Lenovo etc all change their chipsets and driver packs so regularly that a lot of the time even buying the same model (assuming it is still available 6 months after you start) is no guarentee they are even the same device internally.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Xenx ( 2211586 )
          That all depends on what you buy, and where you buy it from. If the business is doing it right, your point doesn't apply. That's the reason businesses overpay vs consumer hardware, and pay for support contracts.

    • I doubt if IBM employees are going out on lunchbreak and buying stuff at CompUSA to plug into their work computers.

      Granted, by comparison there is almost no freedom whatsoever to change the hardware configuration on a Mac, but still.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by MrKaos ( 858439 )

      Leaving aside Windows vs MacOS for a moment, this is bound to happen simply because of hardware.

      More than likely the ability to ssh into a desktop plays a very large part in how easily a MAC, which uses NetBSD (IIRC) to provide an operating system, can be supported.

      • It's called Darwin yes it's a BSD derivative.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by MrKaos ( 858439 )

          It's called Darwin yes it's a BSD derivative.

          Looks like quite a few products are based on NetBSD [netbsd.org].

          • It would be correct to say they've borrowed from several products, including NetBSD. You can check the man pages if you want, but there was at least FreeBSD, CUPS, Mach/XNU, Kerberos, and some of KDE in there; they even had an Xorg port to Quartz at one point. Apple has stopped merging most of those FLOSS changes and rarely gives back anymore (maybe just to CUPS). You'll notice NetBSD's hyperlink back to Darwin is 404.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Doubtful. When you have a large network of machines you don't want to have to SSH in to them for management. You want something like Active Directory that lets you do central management and then handles everything on your behalf. When they go wrong you either Remote Desktop in for a quick poke or replace the machine and fix the old one at your leisure.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hawguy ( 1600213 )

      Leaving aside Windows vs MacOS for a moment, this is bound to happen simply because of hardware. Windows environments are always a wasteland of incompatible drivers and incomplete patching.

      On the other hand, you're more likely to get the kind of hardware you want to use if you aren't stuck with Apple. You don't get stuck with a crappy butterfly keyboard and flat panel "touch bar" that replaces usable keyboard keys because that's literally the only choice.

      And you don't have to wait years for 32GB of RAM because "16GB is good enough for anyone". If you really need high-end laptop specs (like 128GB RAM and multiple hard drives), you can get that in a Windows laptop (it won't be light, but it'll

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by lsllll ( 830002 )
      Bullshit. At least when it comes to drivers. I'm not Windows fan by any means and used to double boot between Linux and Windows for games only while I still run Linux at work, but I've gotta hand it to Microsoft when it comes to drivers in Windows 10. I think they learned their lesson and include a shitload of drivers now, just like Linux does.
    • I say it's the OSX dock. Most people are too dumb to find an app unless it's right there at the bottom of their screen.

    • I'm not sure what hardware you're using but I haven't had a driver incompatibility issue since vista. Likewise in not sure which organisation you work at but our hardware is vetted, standardised, and so are drivers and the accessories we're allowed to plug in to our devices. A driver not working for another device not vetted, ... Assuming you could install it ... Is a feature not a bug.

    • Nope.

      Windows is just a steaming pile of shit.
      (What hardware has to do with Outlook not registering that a mail is read, is beyond me. (Oh, actually I know: there is a 'company wide setting' that forces you to right click on an email and select 'mark as read')

      99% of windows problems is either windows or absurd policies supported by windows.

      I have admin rights on the PC at my company, but admin rights are not admin rights ... so many things I can not do. And people wonder why I develop in a Git Bash.

  • Peasants

  • How Does That Even Work (Score:4, Funny)

    by Cmdln Daco ( 1183119 ) on Tuesday November 12, 2019 @07:14PM (#59408490)

    How can 'IBM Employees' and 'Happy Productive Workforce' get forced into the same topic? Is this an article by the HR Recruiters?

    • When you fire all the talent and hire outsourced copy and paste monkeys that are just happy to have a job, of course it looks like suddenly everyone is happy.

    • I think our DOORS machine had all of a one nine uptime. 90%.

      DOORS NG was worse. Then there's Jazz SCM. Maybe it was Stockholm syndrome but clearcase was decent because it was built before IBM touched it and easily scrip-table. But Jazz SCM was a special level of hell to use.

      And midlevel managers bought it because "No one has ever been fired for picking IBM".

    • The really amusing part of this story is that IBM can't make their own OS that makes users happy. Nobody ever liked sitting at AIX. OS/2 was not very user-friendly, and now it's [all but] dead. In fact when I was an IBM employee in support at just-post-acquisition Tivoli, everyone had to have two machines on their desk. The idea originally was that one ran whatever you wanted to run basically (we were almost all former sysadmins, and none of our machines were managed by anyone but ourselves) and the other r

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dwywit ( 1109409 )

        Never used OS400, have you?

        I mean, it's got its flaws, but it's still the best OS I've ever used.

        Maybe that should be "least worse", but you now what I mean.

        • Only slightly, I got some training in it while working for IBM but never actually put it into practice. It seems to have had many advantages, especially in its day, but most of those have been made less relevant over time, and as computers became more powerful. There is little need today to link object files from different languages, for example, and having an RDBMS come with the system is no longer unusual. And when you control the source, you can use portability rather than backwards compatibility (which

  • largely worthless data, sadly (Score:5, Insightful)

    by quenda ( 644621 ) on Tuesday November 12, 2019 @07:17PM (#59408498)

    Aside form the bits we already knew, like Macs are simpler and easier to support, we know nothing from this because:

    we introduced our employee-choice program to IBM employees in 2015

    it is a self-selecting sample. People who mach the choice to commit effort to switching platforms are doing better.
    Also, perhaps employees are happier if they feel some control over their work and environment. The actual choice may not matter.
    You'd have to also see data for people switching from Mac to PC, which is not here.

    Now if instead, IBM had randomly assigned new employees to PC or Mac, *then* we would have some interesting data!
    And best throw in ChromeOS as well. That will lower support costs even more.

    • A lot of specialized software does not run on Macs. And even things like Excel work a bit better on Windows if you are doing heavy stuff.

      So that probably further biases the sample.

      But then again, I have never understood how Windows can be properly managed in a large organization. What a mess!

      • With the sole exception of a few keyboard shortcuts, I have to disagree on Excel. Actually being able to bypass the ribbon can be huge.

        The results... sure, there are problems with the methodology, and really does a 0.0001% vs 0.00035% support cost differential really make that big of a difference?

    • Also power users tend to have a "choice".

      This study identified all of the company's power users who use Macs. I'm sure IBM's linux power users also used fewer IBM resources and IBM's windows power users are also less frequently using IT time.

      Force me onto a Mac though and I'll use up all of IT's budget for me and then some because I won't be able to get it to do anything that I want.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jeremyp ( 130771 )

        Force me onto a Mac though and I'll use up all of IT's budget for me and then some because I won't be able to get it to do anything that I want.

        I think we'd fire you if you are too incompetent to use a Mac.

      • Force me onto a Mac though and I'll use up all of IT's budget for me and then some because I won't be able to get it to do anything that I want.
        If you think that not having used a Mac before, you are a moron and have mental problems.
        If you experienced that, you are indeed a moron. How you can not be able to use a computer which is just a linux box in disguise is beyond me.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MrKaos ( 858439 )

      Aside form the bits we already knew, like Macs are simpler and easier to support, we know nothing from this because:

      we introduced our employee-choice program to IBM employees in 2015

      it is a self-selecting sample. People who mach the choice to commit effort to switching platforms are doing better. Also, perhaps employees are happier if they feel some control over their work and environment. The actual choice may not matter.

      Ah, I think you have found it!

      Professor Robert Cialdini [wikipedia.org] identified sequences such as these as "pre-suasive" (in his latest book) techniques that create a greater commitment to a particular course of action. According to his research the very act of filling in the survey starts a chain of commitment that produces the very effect you have described.

      According to his previous research if 200,000 people were doing this it would also create social proof, oneness and liking. All of which would contribute to

    • No if it’s like my workplace, new employees had a choice. For my job some software was only on PC and while I could run a VM, it was just easier to use a PC.

    • Perhaps you should re read the article.
      How many people do you need to support 200000 macs?
      How many people do you need to support 200000 Windows PC's?

  • ... if the employees were able to choose whether they wanted to use a Mac or a Windows PC, or whether employees were just given the Macs, regardless of any employee preference? Thanks.
    • Ahhh... the answer to my question was posted just a head of my question. Well, that then puts a pretty big bias into this report.
      • It might put a bias on how “happy” users reported. It does not put a bias on how fewer support calls Macs got compared to Windows.
        • quote>...It does not put a bias on how fewer support calls Macs got compared to Windows....

          .
          Those who wanted Macs were probably already Mac users. You cannot say the same about those that had Windows thrust upon them. They may be first-time users of a computer. So, yes, it could have placed a bias on the fewer number of support calls from Mac users.

          • You can’t say that users that chose Windows were not Windows users but you can say the same about Mac users?

            They may be first-time users of a computer.

            At IBM? I don’t see IBM as a beacon for lots of new hires coming out of colleges that never used a computer before.

            So, yes, it could have placed a bias on the fewer number of support calls from Mac users.

            So your explanation for fewer support calls on Macs at IBM is that all the Macs went to experienced users while their Windows users were all noobs. Sure, whatever.

  • Is being given a Mac instead of a PC going to make them less likely to leave a company? That's a tough sell.

    Now if the metric was "less likely to want to kill themselves and everyone around them" - that I can buy.

  • Are other operating systems taken into consideration? IBM did do some high budget Linux commercials. Plus there are so many other cool and fun operating systems out there besides just the Windows and iOS ecosystem. Or is that not a thing?

    • Well you can run AIX on a POWER9 box if you want but there are zero desktop applications for it. You could try V7R3 but it does not support a graphical interface. There are also zero pieces of commercial software for it. Everyone rolls their own. From a user standpoint AIX/Linux/FreeBSD are identical.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kenh ( 9056 )

      Sun also had IBM mainframes...

    • How sad. I really liked Solaris. And back then, you could actually get apps for it, like Photoshop. Although in my first sysadmin job I did introduce Linux, which we used mostly as a glorified X-terminal. Back then there was no OpenSolaris, and Linux did the same job for free.

  • Additional details (Score:5, Funny)

    by Areyoukiddingme ( 1289470 ) on Tuesday November 12, 2019 @07:28PM (#59408554)

    In the study presented on Tuesday, IBM says that employees that used Mac machines were 22 percent more likely to exceed expectations in performance reviews compared to Windows users. Mac-using employees generating sales deals have 16% larger proceeds as well.

    In addition, employees that used Mac machines were 34% more beautiful, with the women having noticeably bigger breasts and glossier hair and the men becoming taller with whiter teeth. Mac-using employees are expected to cure cancer, eliminate hunger worldwide, and usher in a new era of peace and prosperity by 2030.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by balbeir ( 557475 )

      In the study presented on Tuesday, IBM says that employees that used Mac machines were 22 percent more likely to exceed expectations in performance reviews compared to Windows users. Mac-using employees generating sales deals have 16% larger proceeds as well.

      In addition, employees that used Mac machines were 34% more beautiful, with the women having noticeably bigger breasts and glossier hair and the men becoming taller with whiter teeth. Mac-using employees are expected to cure cancer, eliminate hunger worldwide, and usher in a new era of peace and prosperity by 2030.

      Wow, how do you know all that?

    • Well, that's because Mac PCs have electrolytes and everyone knows electrolytes are good.

    • Correct, but this is a site for news so you don't need to repeat what is already known :)

  • Will IBM now switch from Mac O/S to Red Hat Linux? If not, why buy Red Hat???

  • Turning to employee satisfaction, the first-of-its-kind study shows that Mac users were 17 percent less likely to leave IBM compared to their Windows counterparts.

    I can't imagine basing career decisions on the operating system on the x86 computer on my desktop.

    • Probably the people that chose a Mac were younger, and the older ones either retired or were laid off because of their age.

      • This is exactly what I was thinking. Unless normalized, you will get older workers preferring what they know, which would lean to Windows, and the younger people would shift to include Apple more. This alone would shift the demographics and variables they measured.

    • Re:Overly identify with thier desktops? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Yaztromo ( 655250 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2019 @12:29AM (#59409164) Homepage Journal

      I can't imagine basing career decisions on the operating system on the x86 computer on my desktop.

      I think it's more about respecting employee choices as to what works best for the job they need to do. I (like I'm sure many of us here) have worked for places where you got the most bargain-basement (*ahem* Dell *ahem*) Windows laptop that weighs as much as a cinder block, which is overly-locked down to the way IT thinks you should be using it, even if it's not optimal or suitable for the work you're doing. So making a career choice between an organization that is willing to invest in the tools you need to get the job done in a more efficient and enjoyable manner should count quite a bit over another organization that wants to dictate your tools for you, and which (frequently) goes with the most bargain-basement systems.

      Does your employer respect you and get you the best tools, or are you just another drone to them? Which one would you rather work for?

      Yaz

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by zdzichu ( 100333 )

      If you are frustrated by your work environment, you should leave. There are tons of companies looking for IT people. For some reason, people tend to be less frustrated when working on MacOS than on Windows.

      I see this in my current company: some people are tasked with developing Big Data solutions on/for Linux, but are only provided with Windows laptops. This is a recipe for constant workforce churn. Number 1 reason on exit interviews: no Linux on developer's laptops.

  • Haven't we known since the '70s that Unix makes you happier than VMS?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by kenh ( 9056 )

      I never heard that, I know there a many happy VMS admins, are you thinking of the IBM mainframe OS MVS?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Dog-Cow ( 21281 )

        The GP is referring to the old meme that Windows NT == VMS(+1). It was cute 30 years ago, but never funny, or true.

  • Are they using the Macs with a terminal app to access some large database on a mainframe, preparing documents, spreadsheets, managing sales and support using email, reading manuals for IBM stuff for phone support, doing software development with some programming language, or more? It would be nice to know the fraction of employees using their Macs for each kind of activity.
    • One thing that can be done on a Mac is run a VM with other OS like Windows and Linux. Other thing is that Macs are Unix machines so an engineer supporting IBM mainframes and servers are probably used to a lot of command line. It would not surprise me if some of the Mac users were power users.

  • Correlation. Cause and effect. Arbitrary personell cross sections. Comparing apples and oranges.

    This research is about as meaningful as researching whether people that wear high heels are more likely to get pregnant than those that do not without acknowledging that specific physical properties tend to increase the chance of both wearing high heels and getting pregnant.

    Notable questions include: are Macs and Windows equally available to everyone? Are support employees comparable in skill and salary? Is OS su

  • At my work, Mac users don't need more support because we just don't support Macs. You can't have what isn't offered. We make specific services COMPATIBLE with Macs, like RDP/RDS. But that's it; don't call us if you can't figure out how to set up your corporate email on your home Mac system. We do support IPhones, and very specific IOS tablets for a specific group of employees.

    I would bet that there is some MASSIVE shadow IT going on with these Macs at IBM, and they are being allowed to just "do whatever

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