Is Mac really cheaper as Windows overall?

IBM seem to think they are, see: https://www.businessinsider.com/an-ibm-it-guy-macs-are-300-cheaper-to-own-than-windows-2016-10?r=US&IR=T

Actually though the drive is device choice, the initial purchase price of a computer isn't really significant in terms of the total cost of ownership and given device should last 4-5 years. Happier employees are more productive employees so if someone wants to use macOS or Windows and can perform their job on that OS there is very little downside in letting them choose. The biggest growth area is in laptops and we have seen employees being given the choice of a Surface or MacBook with a dock and display for when they are on premise but they can also easily work from home, saving on building space is also a plus...

While the value is there regardless, cost savings is possible at scale. A significant part of that is the fewer # of IT staff required to manage and support the devices.

We have about 10-1 Mac to PC and I spend my time about 20/80. I remind people of this when they talk about the cost of JAMF.

One can make the argument either way but a lot would agree the Mac doesn't need antivirus. That's a cost savings as I'd never deploy Windows PCs without antivirus.

Purchase cost wise the Mac is about 3 times that of our windows machines, however, as we lease them all the residual value of the Mac is higher at the end of the lease period. Which means we dont pay for as much of the Mac over time, which brings the cost down lower.

Other savings are also possible on the Mac side. We are about 10% Mac to 90% Windows, but support tickets are about 2% Mac ones, which is why we have 1.5 Mac support technicians (probably really only 1, as I spend half my time on development), and 7 on the other side. We also have fewer Macs requiring physical repairs, at most 1 a year, whilst the Dell tech support guys are all on first name terms with the support techs here, as they are here every couple of weeks.

Another telling statistic is, all but one of the development team here have a Mac as a primary machine on their desk. That includes the guys who manage all of our in house servers and network.

We have found that residual value makes a huge difference for us in terms of cost. After a 3 to 4 year lifecycle the Macs are generally worth around 700-800 more than the equivalent Dell machine, pending type of machine. When we factored cost, this almost made up for the higher purchase price right there.

The summary of our basic ROI investigation was that comparable windows machines are less expensive. This persists across manufactures. Lenovo, HP, Dell, Microsoft, and even Alienware. This is due to less initial cost, lower price for extended warranty including on-site warranty service. While Mac devices are more valuable at the end of a normal lifecycle of 3 years, our Apple users have come to demand new devices sooner than our Windows/Linux users. The mentality of our Windows/Linux users is that they become used to their devices and like the familiarity of already having all their customizations, accessories and other device specific items (adapters, power supplies, etc.). The Apple users frequently want the newest stuff. We even had a user update their own machine to Mojave Beta just to get dark mode, and bricked their machine during the update process. The familiarity issue might be less of a problem with Mac users since most of their laptop generations are pretty similar to each other.

I hope this helps. I'm curious if you also see these difference between Mac and Windows/Linux users.

-Pat

Asking a bunch of guys who are probably Apple fan boys might not be the best people to ask.

I disagree with the notion happy users are more productive.
I disagree with the idea that Windows machines need antivirus and Macs don't. (This is complete nonsense)
I disagree with the notion that Windows machines are more "problem-prone" than Macs.

In my opinion, the price differences are about a wash. It really comes down to what the employee and their team are comfortable with. Also depends on the job. Apple computers also retain their value after 3-4 years and you could get some ROI. Lenovo's and Dell retain some value but it's probably half of what an Apple equivalent would go for. Apple's value here has been steadily decreasing, however. Mostly due to the high cost to repair an Apple computer after the warranty has expired. For example, you could buy a brand new computer for the price of a screen repair.

A well managed Windows machine can be very very cheap to deploy. Microsoft Deployment Toolkit + Group Policies/Active Directory. It's baseline management, but fairly cheap to deploy and scales well. If you have a bunch of users who require only email, office and web browsing... you could be some cheap i5's from Lenovo for $600 each and deploy them for next to nothing. The same apple machines would run about $400 more per unit.

Most new hires would pick a Mac because it's deemed "cool" and a status symbol. Makes them feel special. In reality, though, you can do everything you could do on a Mac on a cheaper PC laptop and in many cases, faster for less.

You got me ranting like I'm on 9to5 mac on Mac vs PC.

I disagree with the notion happy users are more productive.

This has been proven to be true. Happy employees are by far more productive than unhappy ones. They also produce better quality work. I can go into specifics but a quick google search will give you tons of data by people much smarter than me regarding this.

@hjcao The implication is that having an Apple computer over a PC somehow creates this level of happiness, which I disagree with.

@tnielsen the Mac itself inherently doesn't make people happy. But if you're given a choice, generally you pick the one you know and like more and that will make people happy. If I force someone to use and fight a Windows PC everyday when they're a Mac user mainly, it'll create unhappy workers potentially. And vice versa.

@boberito I disagree because that choice is not enough to make any real difference. Eventually the user in question will learn to use whatever the company gives him or her.

@tnielsen I disagree because if the user grew up using Apple, and have not had much exposure to Windows, they will be happier. They will be more productive with a machine they know, versus having issues figuring out a different filing system, OS and all around experience. These are hugely important because a user will get frustrated using a machine they don't know while trying to do their job. It will lower their quality of work. We offer choice at my company, and by far users are much happier, and more productive than at companies Ive worked for that didn't offer choice.

This cuts both ways, obviously. I've had windows users forced onto Macs that gave me headaches because they didn't understand the OS and made mistakes that they wouldn't make on a PC. In the long run, as an IT dept, as a company, you give your users the correct tools to do their job.

Some people might consider training cost in the picture.
We see a lot of people showing up that have a Mac and/or iPad at home so it eliminates most training cost. Normally, if a Windows user is hired they know a mac user to learn from or have an iPhone and already know iOS basics.

We'll have to agree to disagree. It is always "nice" to have a choice when you start a job at a new company, and in many cases productivity could be lost (depending on what the user's job is) if they get a computer they are unfamiliar with. However, if they are simply using office, email and internet... it's hard to believe that this fictitious employee is unable to figure out how to use those applications on an OS they are not used to. These operating systems have been so simplified that you'd have to be a complete moron to not get it within a day. I stated in my first post, with regards to employee happiness, that the job's complexity determines what the user should use.

If we were talking a developer position, I would surely give that employee whatever he/she is used to using. An email junkie is going to care less if they get a PC or mac for functional purposes. The only reason, in my 20 years of IT experience, that employees get upset when they are not given a system of their choosing, is when they don't get an Apple because of it's "status symbol" and "beauty". I'm not in the business of making people happy by satiating their desires in either of those categories.

Office for Mac vs Office for Windows have very nuanced differences. The windows version has options the Macs don't. You can't say you can put a windows user on a Mac and they'll just figure it out because there's some things that just aren't there. It will take them a while to figure that out, and they will be frustrated by the time they come to you, and who knows how many hours of lost production. Maybe that's okay for you and your company, but not for everyone.

These operating systems have been so simplified that you'd have to be a complete moron to not get it within a day

That's pretty offensive. My dad uses a Mac exclusively, and if he's forced to get on Windows for some reason, he can't "figure it out". Are you saying he's a moron? Well, he's not, he just hasn't had much exposure to windows. I think you take for granted your own level of experience and competency with tech and forget that not everyone is super comfortable with it. Changing OS's is much more stressful for some people than it is for you. You might be able to flip between windows, macOS, RHEL, centOS, etc with no issues, congrats. Not everyone can.

if you also look at the new MacBook Air, 16gb ram, 500gb hd its about a $2000 UNIT CAD. we pay about $1900 for our del 7490 ... so closer to the cost.

In my experience, supporting is far less, all the management garbage for windows, like driver updates, patching, is so much of a pain on windows, which is where you can save a lot more with Macs.

@tnielsen It sounds like you're from the "You'll get the computer we want to give you and you'll like it" school of IT. As others have pointed out in this thread today's mantra, which is backed by research as companies like IBM certainly didn't adopt it out of the goodness of their heart, is "Choice." Job complexity has nothing to do with what platform should be used, but obviously if a position requires a specialized application that only exists on one platform that will dictate the decision.

@sdagley I didn't say that. This topic is more complicated than that. I also disagree with this statement. "Job complexity has nothing to do with what platform should be used, but obviously if a position requires a specialized application that only exists on one platform that will dictate the decision. "

@hjcao You were the one to bring your dad into this, not me. Again, agree to disagree.

@jimderlatka The driver updating is surely something to be taken into consideration. For Lenovo it's fairly easy to do and they have enterprise level management tools to make it easy.

The downside of picking Apple is you are limited to what can be run on Apple software and their locked down ecosystem. That's a whole other debate.

I guess this thread proves you don't have to be professional to be an IT professional.

You were the one to bring your dad into this, not me. Again, agree to disagree.

Reading comprehension is obviously not one of your skillsets. Sad to see.

@tnielsen You absolutely did say that:

The only reason, in my 20 years of IT experience, that employees get upset when they are not given a system of their choosing, is when they don't get an Apple because of it's "status symbol" and "beauty". I'm not in the business of making people happy by satiating their desires in either of those categories.

Your idea of what's appropriate for a role appears to be your definition of complexity based on your statement

I stated in my first post, with regards to employee happiness, that the job's complexity determines what the user should use.

@larry_barrett @hjcao

I guess this thread proves you don't have to be professional to be an IT professional.

Sure does.

@sdagley @larry_barrett He's obviously looking to stir the pot, as evidenced by his above post and a few before that. What's the old saying..."Don't feed the trolls"? Yeah, I think that's it.