Mac or PC's?

Yea, that made me feel not so bad for using a PC..lol

On 7/18/04 12:33 AM, in article cdd22p$1ob$1 (AT) forums (DOT) macromedia.com,
"ShowtelPromotions" <webforumsuser (AT) macromedia (DOT) com> wrote:

Yea, I feel you there...Thats way I went with the pc, it was more practical at
this time for my company. Maybe one day I can drive the benz of computers,
the G5....

Actually, the Gartner Group would tell you that the Mac is less expensive to
own, than a PC. About 6 or 8 months ago, Gartner released their TCO Report
and it showed that, at least in large companies, which were the only ones
that they surveyed, although the Mac had a somewhat higher entry cost, it
had a significantly lower TCO. This was due largely, to maintenance and
down-time issues with the PC's.

The biggest factor was that there were fewer incidents and less down-time,
per incident, on the Mac side of the house. Not only did that translate
directly into maintenance savings, but because there was less down-time,
users were more productive. Software installs and system updates seldom
required reboots on Macs, as they almost always did on PC's. Down-time
related to malware was virtually non-existent on the Mac and little money
was spent to protect against it, while the PC network required elaborate
firewalls and each PC required software to scan for malware that got through
the firewall and even then many PC's became infected with some sort of
malware, requiring help desk attention and loss of user productivity.

There was another factor that Gartner pointed out, that does not apply to
individual owners, but is interesting to note. The complexity of all
Microsoft based OS's meant that the help desk personnel on the PC side of
the house had to have much more training (MCSE, MCSP, MCxx), than their Mac
counterparts and therefore, represented a much higher personnel cost per
seat, both in salaries and in continuing education costs (that large
companies tend to reimburse).

I forget the break-even point in cost, but I'm pretty sure that it was less
than a year. In other words, although the Mac had a somewhat higher entry
price, it became less expensive to own, before the year was out.

John Gaver
Action America
(forget everything to contact me direct)

Microsoft: (n) Job security for IT consultants.

John Gaver wrote:

Actually, the Gartner Group would tell you that the Mac is less expensive to
own, than a PC.

John,

I heard about that before, but despite thorough searches at the Gartner
website, I never managed to find the research. Do you have a link?

Dan

About 6 or 8 months ago, Gartner released their TCO Report
and it showed that, at least in large companies, which were the only ones

that they surveyed, although the Mac had a somewhat higher entry cost, it
had a significantly lower TCO. This was due largely, to maintenance and
down-time issues with the PC's.

"somewhat higher entry cost" has historically been a factor of 2x or 3x per
machine depending on the purchase.

Plus maintenance and downtime are notoriously difficult to measure
accurately. Few companies keep accurate written records of it so estimates
can vary markedly.

Plus many companies have part-time IT personnel who often have to learn
(read up on a problem) as they troubleshoot so these hours can also vary
enormously.

Due to the interchangeablity of PC hardware components, many large companies
have found that no-name PC's are generally more prone to failure than their
brand-name counterparts. Thus, a company's purchasing policy (cheapest
option with each rollout vs. brand name only) can have a significant effect
on maintenance and downtime.

It would be interesting to compare what conclusions Gartner's TCO report
would have had 10 years ago.

Good discussion points, John.

--
Regards

John Waller

Then, it's like this island I discovered by chance, which is so pure and
protected from tourists. I don't want anybody to know about it, because
that's what makes it so pure.
If everybody switches to Mac, Mac is going to become the new PC. The
reason why Macs work so well and why there are no viruses for Mac, is
because only 5% people use Macs. Therefore there's no insentive for
hackers to hack it, and Mac HAS to be EXCELENT to convince its
difficult, rare customers...
If it becomes mainstream, it will become another touristic venue, cheap
and low-key, and a prey to hackers and viruses...
It seems that the higher quality product needs to stay somewhat
ellistist to subsist as such.
Just a thought.

John Gaver wrote:

On 7/18/04 12:33 AM, in article cdd22p$1ob$1 (AT) forums (DOT) macromedia.com,
"ShowtelPromotions" <webforumsuser (AT) macromedia (DOT) com> wrote:


Yea, I feel you there...Thats way I went with the pc, it was more practical at
this time for my company. Maybe one day I can drive the benz of computers,
the G5....


Actually, the Gartner Group would tell you that the Mac is less expensive to
own, than a PC. About 6 or 8 months ago, Gartner released their TCO Report
and it showed that, at least in large companies, which were the only ones
that they surveyed, although the Mac had a somewhat higher entry cost, it
had a significantly lower TCO. This was due largely, to maintenance and
down-time issues with the PC's.

The biggest factor was that there were fewer incidents and less down-time,
per incident, on the Mac side of the house. Not only did that translate
directly into maintenance savings, but because there was less down-time,
users were more productive. Software installs and system updates seldom
required reboots on Macs, as they almost always did on PC's. Down-time
related to malware was virtually non-existent on the Mac and little money
was spent to protect against it, while the PC network required elaborate
firewalls and each PC required software to scan for malware that got through
the firewall and even then many PC's became infected with some sort of
malware, requiring help desk attention and loss of user productivity.

There was another factor that Gartner pointed out, that does not apply to
individual owners, but is interesting to note. The complexity of all
Microsoft based OS's meant that the help desk personnel on the PC side of
the house had to have much more training (MCSE, MCSP, MCxx), than their Mac
counterparts and therefore, represented a much higher personnel cost per
seat, both in salaries and in continuing education costs (that large
companies tend to reimburse).

I forget the break-even point in cost, but I'm pretty sure that it was less
than a year. In other words, although the Mac had a somewhat higher entry
price, it became less expensive to own, before the year was out.

John Gaver
Action America
(forget everything to contact me direct)

Microsoft: (n) Job security for IT consultants.

On 7/18/04 3:21 AM, in article cddbtl$3ai$1 (AT) forums (DOT) macromedia.com, "Dan
Vendel *GOF*" <see_my_signature_ (AT) _the_bottom_of_the_post (DOT) org> wrote:

I heard about that before, but despite thorough searches at the Gartner
website, I never managed to find the research. Do you have a link?

I looked back at my notes and it was a private report for Melbourne
University, that was delivered in June 2002. Although it isn't in my notes,
I recall that it was reported on in one of the major Australian newspapers.
It showed a 36% savings over PC, in the "surveyed environment".

As I pointed out before, in the individual environment, some of those
factors don't come into play. (i.e. As an individual, you don't employ a
staff of PC or Mac techs, so the salary and training cost differences
doesn't apply.)

The interesting point that I made note of, was this statement"

"Perhaps even more importantly, when questioned on how they felt about their
networks, Mac users were happier than their PC counterparts."

John Gaver
Action America
(forget everything to contact me direct)

Microsoft: (n) Job security for IT consultants.

On 7/18/04 3:45 AM, in article cdddbt$cl9$1 (AT) forums (DOT) macromedia.com, "seb"
<sebnewyork (AT) earhlink (DOT) netTakeThisOut> wrote:

It seems that the higher quality product needs to stay somewhat
ellistist to subsist as such.

Agreed. That's why I like Microsoft for other people (note my signature tag
line). My lifestyle would not be nearly as good as it is, if Microsoft made
good, solid products, nor would it be as good as it is, if I had to use
those products, myself.

John Gaver
Action America
(forget everything to contact me direct)

Microsoft: (n) Job security for IT consultants.

ShowtelPromotions wrote:

Now with these new power PC's, can they stand up to the G4 and G5's. Or is the
Mac still superior in graphic and web design. Just curious on what the masses
thinks. Feel free to offer your opinion....

As a professional digital photographer, I work with other creative
professionals who use both systems. Many major software applications are
available for each OS and they produce pretty much identical results.

I happen to prefer the PC environment, in spite of Redmond, for two
reasons. First, I can get at the interface. I've worked with PCs, inside
and out, since DOS 6 and like being able to burrow down into the
non-windows environment to fix stuff when all else fails. That's the
reason I stay at Windows 2000 and have "downgraded" (their term not
mine) XP machines back to it. Having tried them, I would not use an XP
machine. Also, Win2K allows me to completely remove vulnerable elements
such as Outlook Express completely from my machine - XP doesn't.

Anyway, that's the first reason. The second is that many of my workflow
applications simply aren't available for the mac OSes. Some have similar
software available, some don't. But I've developed workflows for my
three areas of professional creativity (photography, web design and
writing) and am not inclined to make a change.

But I do have to say that I'd make a huge (really huge) effort to redo
my workflow if a suitable Linux environment were available. It's totally
not comfortable being a real MS-phobe and still using - and, yes,
advocating, their products. Early on they were good and that created the
reason for staying with them, I guess.

Anyway - for graphics and web design, the choice is the UI - both
perform fine.

You knew that. Time to cut bait and fish elsewhere, I'd think.

O.

like being able to burrow down into the
non-windows environment to fix stuff when all else fails.

FYI, you can do that with OSX as well, as it's Unix at it's core.

Anyway - for graphics and web design, the choice is the UI - both
perform fine.

Yep. That's pretty much it.

Also, your work environment may make that decision as well. If your web
development is more MS-centric (ASP/.net/etc.) then you'll probably want to
use a windows box. If it's more open source (PHP, MySQL, etc.) then you'll
probably want a linux or OSX box.

Ideally, you'd have both. I tend to work in Windows XP (really, NOT a good
UI), Win2k, Linux Mandrake 9 (for the server stuff) and OSX.

You can't argue that the new Macs are the prettiest of the bunch, though.
;o)

As for reliability, your mileage will vary. My Win2k system is fairly
stable, though my dual-monitor set up + a few Macromedia Apps will cause it
to freeze solid.

The XP machine has been fine.

My two OSX systems go down maybe once every 3 months at the most.

-Darrel