More Mac v.s. PC info

[Mackerhacker]

Hello,

I am trying to find information displaying stats on the number of full time equivalent (FTE's) employees required to support the mac platform compared to PC. I want to have a good graph to accentuate a case for changing our infrastructure to mac over pc. Is there an industry website out there with these kinds of stats other than Gartner research? Are there experts here who know this info and can provide insight?

Thanks!

 

[intendedaccel]

Yikes. You will be looking for that info for a while. The biggest aspect of support is supporting stupid users. Stupid users more often than not are most knowledgeable with using Windows as an OS. Windows gets all hosed up? Boom, support reimages the workstation remotely in an hour or two.

I understand what you are trying to do, but in large corporate environments mac based systems will simply need more support, 99% due to idiot users.

 

[MisterMe]

..., but in large corporate environments mac based systems will simply need more support, 99% due to idiot users.

What is this--proof by assertion? In my firm, the Mac users support themselves. The idiot users use Windows. At a previous employer, an IT staffer explained to a diehard Windows user friend of mine that Windows users placed 9 times as many support calls as Mac users. Don't think that this was because there were 9 times as many Windows users, because this was not the case. We had a number of OSes, including Solaris, Windows, and Windows. However, the Mac was the firm's preferred platform.

I am not aware of a comprehensive national or international survey on support costs for PCs, but there are several local studies. Most of them shows that switching from Macs to Windows include hiring a support staff. The Statesville, NC schools case is one of the more famous examples.