Real World - cost of Macs v PCs

[Stella]

Interesting article from the real world. From this article - real world accounts - yep, generally Macs definitely cheaper and less stressful - unless you've got to have virtualization for Windows.

http://www.macworld.co.uk/mac/news/index.cfm?RSS&NewsID=3217406

 

[djellison]

From this article - real world accounts - yep, generally Macs definitely cheaper and less stressful

Did you even read the article?

"One other thing: there is no "right" answer to this question."

 

[Stella]

Did you even read the article?

"One other thing: there is no "right" answer to this question."

Err, I did.

Depending on *what* you are using Macs for, they are cheaper. In my comments above, based upon the article - I used the example of VMWare.

RE:
"Generally Macs definitely cheaper and less stressful - unless you've got to have virtualization for Windows."

 

[belvdr]

Err, I did.

Depending on *what* you are using Macs for, they are cheaper. In my comments above, based upon the article - I used the example of VMWare.

RE:
"Generally Macs definitely cheaper and less stressful - unless you've got to have virtualization for Windows."

In other words, Macs are cheaper at the consumer desktop level and offer no advantage in the enterprise data center when you need to virtualize many systems. I can agree with that.

 

[LethalWolfe]

So an article based on the comments of another article about a survey conducted by a group who's goal is to deploy and manage Macs at the enterprise level is telling us that Macs may or may not be cheaper than PCs depending on the situation. Awesome.


Lethal

 

[thejadedmonkey]

And I'll just say that as the person doing the IT at a small business, the Dell Vostro PC's require about 1/2 the setup of the Macs, less support calls, and less employee training.

Someone should write an article

 

[hakuryuu]

And I'll just say that as the person doing the IT at a small business, the Dell Vostro PC's require about 1/2 the setup of the Macs, less support calls, and less employee training.

Someone should write an article

If a user is not used to Macs then that would be expected. That is why my budget for the rest of the year is allowing for user choice in a new machine (and we need some new machines desperately). Many people in our office have Macs at home and so would prefer to use one here, especially those that don't have a reason to use Windows. With many functions either native to OS X (Office 2011 will bring the return of many features that were lacking in 2008) or web based there is a decreasing reason to use Windows.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

I agree, the user can be attributed to a lot of costs, however there are other issues, such as networking, which we were never - even with the help of an Apple engineer - able to solve. That was couple hours I spend on the phone, just trying to see the networked computers.

Add $19 next-day on side support from Dell, and suddenly the mac seems like an over-priced, unreliable, and ill supported computer.

Maybe if the office had virus/spyware issues, I would be singing a different tune, but when my biggest worry in the past year has been dealing with an off-site email server that didn't always want to accept imap connections, Windows just seems to make more sense.

Like I said though, YMMV. Also, Apple would benefit from setting up a dedicated SMB/Enterprise area.

 

[hakuryuu]

We've never had any issues with networking between XP/Server 2003/OS X/Ubuntu all bound to AD. 7 on the other hand doesn't like Ubuntu and OS X on its end, but OS X and Ubuntu can see 7 just fine. That I still haven't been able to fully understand, yet. Though I am willing to bet the rumors that MS intentionally messed with Samba are not exactly unfounded. At home everything appears to be working just dandy, though. Mac Mini Server, MBP, Win7 Desktop, and Win7 Laptop.

The real fun will begin when I, hopefully, get to integrate Xsan, two Xserves and a Promise RAID into our network.

 

[maverickguy]

Apple vs Mac prices..

From the point of view of a non networking guy that primarily uses a mac at home but used a pc for years...the mac is much friendlier. I cringe when I have to use the ole pc--it takes at least 5 minutes to boot up if im lucky. Then I hope and pray and keep my fingers crossed when I click on something that it will work. Sure they cost more--hopefully it keeps the rift raft out so they dont create a bunch of viruses for macs.....

 

[KingYaba]

PCs are cheaper. Especially if you build one yourself. Bonus points if you run a GNU/Linux distro.

 

[AV8TOR]

You have it all wrong, your title says " Real World - cost of Macs v PCs". The article however is "The cost of managing Macs vs. PCs:" That word managing changes everything.

The line "It's no secret that Apple prices its Macs on the high end of the retail computer market." says it all but the article is about managing the computers in a work environment.

With that said I work for Nike and we have both PC's and Macs and use an outside company for our tech support. The cost per call regardless is the same regardless of platform.

 

[LethalWolfe]

From the point of view of a non networking guy that primarily uses a mac at home but used a pc for years...the mac is much friendlier. I cringe when I have to use the ole pc--it takes at least 5 minutes to boot up if im lucky. Then I hope and pray and keep my fingers crossed when I click on something that it will work. Sure they cost more--hopefully it keeps the rift raft out so they dont create a bunch of viruses for macs.....

Sounds like operator error. Neither one of my Windows machines take 5 min to boot up (one is a relatively new laptop running Win7 the other is a 7-8yr old tower running XP). Guess I just got lucky.

PCs are cheaper. Especially if you build one yourself. Bonus points if you run a GNU/Linux distro.

Like they say, Linux is only free if your time isn't worth anything.


Lethal

 

[MisterMe]

...

With that said I work for Nike and we have both PC's and Macs and use an outside company for our tech support. The cost per call regardless is the same regardless of platform.

Absolutely correct. The total cost is the cost per call times the number of calls. So ...

1. ... how many calls do you get for the PCs?
2. ... how many calls do you get for the Macs?

 

[AV8TOR]

Absolutely correct. The total cost is the cost per call times the number of calls. So ...

1. ... how many calls do you get for the PCs?
2. ... how many calls do you get for the Macs?

I don't work for IT so I cannot answer it. But I can say that in our department which has both that almost all of service calls are the same because the only problems we have are network, password and security related and that affects both equally.