When 5 percent equals 20 percent

A lot of companies have torn down the PC Berlin Wall and now allow employees to use Macintosh computers as well as PCs. Apparently, this creates some interesting dynamics for PC support people.

From what I've heard, most organizations settle in at approximately 95 percent PCs, and 5 percent Macs. Seems like a small and manageable percentage, but here's the rub. According to some services vendors and PC administrators I've talked to, a large portion of the Mac users are executives--CEOs, COOs, chief legal counsel, etc. These folks get top priority and can be very demanding, so network and endpoint administrators have to be on their toes and establish strong Macintosh "chops" quickly. As a result, some IT professionals claim that 5 percent of Macs may as well be 20 percent of the total PC population. Thus 5 percent equals 20 percent.

Historically, IT pundits would point to this inefficiency as a reason why organizations should not allow employees to use Macs. Heck, maybe some analysts still do. There is more in play than just labor cost and accounting here however. "C-level" people tend to get what they want and, obviously, they want Macs.

Do Macs make these folks more productive, creative, or engaged? I don't have any data suggesting that they do, but this would be a worthwhile study. In any case, if Macs make the mucky-mucks happy and a happy worker is a productive worker, those excess PC support costs may be well worth it.

[iptofar]

Ok, where's the data because it looks made up or second hand. We run a small office of mostly macs and lots of computer ignorance. If they were PCs we would have to have a full time IT guy.

[Chapmaniac]

You don't have a suitable frame of reference. As you stated, your viewpoint is based on "a small office of mostly macs" which means a majority of same-styled systems on a small network. Most companies operate a large network of hundreds of (Windows) computers. Throwing even a few non-standard (Apple) computers into that environment means there will be hurdles to overcome. Add to that the fact that these particular (Apple) computers are used by the more, shall we say "vocal and important" in that environment and it places an (unecessary) strain on IT personnel. In that scenario, a 5% shift in platforms could result in a 20% increase in work (for IT personnel). Whether or not that added cost is worth the few minutes a day some (Apple computer) user feels they're saving with their new computer is doubtful.

[Dalkorian]

by Chapmaniac March 19, 2009 1:02 PM PDT
Throwing even a few non-standard (Apple) computers into that environment ...

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ROFL. Non-standard by M$'s proprietary "standard", maybe. This is only difficult for M$ monkeys who know nothing past AD.

[Synthmeister]

Or what about when management's decision to go with PCs causes the whole network to go down because of viruses and trojans.

This just dumb argument. The 5% people in management always suck up 20% of the resources of most companies because they are "management' and they get what they want, when they want it. My ceiling tiles are ugly because of water damage. Does it get fixed? NO. Funny how there are no damaged ceiling tiles in management spaces.

[Pishkado]

It takes X amount of time to get up to speed on any technology, whether you're supporting one user or a hundred. From there on the amount-of-time curve goes up linearly with the number of users, but it doesn't start at zero. So of course a technology, whatever it is, with fewer users will use proportionately more resources than one with more users. Please apply elementary logic to your "discoveries" before posting them as new information.

[the Otter]

My company is essentially 100% Mac-based and we don?t even have an IT department. From what I?ve seen, the only reason Ms Windows?based PCs still exist in the business environment is because a) people want the cheapest of the cheap in up-front cost; and b) IT professionals (of which I am one) realize they?ll be out of a job if they let too many Macs in the door.

(For the record, I develop cross-platform software and use both systems regularly.)

[sartor1]

What he said!

[bgnm]

Right on the money!

[dudemanguysondog]

Why is this news? Companies can use whatever platform they want, and apparently are doing just that. If it is just the so called important people using them, maybe it just makes them feel important. They all use the same parts now, and mac has really just become a buzz word anyways. Perhaps that could be a study too?

[vbresponse]

Whenever Mac is involved in any environment, it is immediately followed by religion. This is what causes most of the waste of time / resources. Just like we are doing right now.

[Chapmaniac]

Makes about as much sense as IT allowing corporate uses to install whatever email program they want - no matter how much time it wastes. You want Smiley Central and the MyWay Search Toolbar too? No problem! After all, we're not here to do real work, right?

[monkphin]

I'm willing to bet both people posting about using almost an entirely Mac based office have some form of IT support, despite not having someone in house.

Its easier to get away with it using Macs because to be honest, Applecare is pretty damned good. However, if this were the norm, companies like mine who offer support contracts for Mac based firms ranging from just looking after the hardware, right through to showing users how to type their passwords day in day out, wouldn't exist.

[ballmerisanape]

Macs run windows.. since when does IT not support windows?

[scweezil]

What an out rage everyone in my office uses number 2 pencils & a couple people wanted pens & I just can't deal with it.

[babeam]

I once did contract Mac support for a Fortune 500 corporation. At the time, they were reducing the number of Macs in the company because of the relatively higher number of support calls they had for Macs vs PCs. Fact is, this number was artificially inflated. In the departments that used Windows machines, those machines were so unreliable that there was at least on more technical person in each department who the rest of the department relied upon for the day-to-day break-and-fix. Thus most of the Windows technical issues went unreported, and therefore unnoticed by the higher-ups. The Mac users, however, experienced relatively few problems. However, the problems they did encounter went straight to the IT support department. Additionally, many of the C-level people were Mac users and they tended to be more demanding. Thus Macs were viewed as needing much more support than PCs, and they were eventually eliminated almost across the board. That was quite a few years ago. I would be curious to know what their IT environment is looking like now, though.

[enb14]

"Do Macs make these folks more productive, creative, or engaged?" Certainly not right away, and in my experience, switchers rarely take the time to learn the most basic productivity tips to get them as productive as they were on Windows, much less take advantage of the Mac's strengths in this area. If you or your employees are switching, budget some money to get some training too -- otherwise you're flushing productivity down the toilet.

Having a Mac in your office is like having a happy and obedient, tail-wagging dog there to enjoy and serve you. Its very existence makes you more productive, because you want to use it and reward it for being such a good boy and always ready to go. Contrast this with your typical office PC that is just like some finicky cat that doesn't care if you exist and gives you no sense that it will be there for you from one instant to the next, unpredictable. A problem animal that you wish someone would take to obedience school, but people don't do that with cats, you just always hope and worry it's one of their good days. Tell me I'm wrong if I'm wrong, but when Macs need more support it's just training them to do more and better tricks, not obedience school.

[udzipl]

I am a veteran Macintosh user and began employment at a 100% Microsoft organization after over 18 years of maintaining my own computer as a freelancer. From the perspective of the employee (me), I found IT's attitude to be condescending -- such as locking out any web site that used the word Open, thus not allowing me to do my job which was to introduce Open Source software into this office. I hear an echo of this IT-centric (poor us, we have to work harder and learn a new operating system) in your report about introducing Macs into a PC office. I also resented not having access to TOOLs such as Firefox extensions for Web developers since everyone had to be running the same vanilla systems. I finally achieved Administrator rights on my PC and still couldn't work on Open Source content management (Joomla!) because the IT department was still thinking software development we have to own all rights and locked the Internet off including FTP. So I moved my work home to my Macintosh and used VPN and my Parallels Windows XP setup to telecommute and finally was able to get my work done.

Please don't belittle employees who are creative and need unique solutions and the versatility of a dirverse range of computing tools. IT should turn itself from inside out to a true customer service orientation because not all Mac users are executives and most Mac users are quite knowledgeable about their machines.

And Apple has numerous studies by independent organizations such as Gartner Group, that proove the increased productivity provided by Linux, Mac OS 10, and the computer and software's orientation to the visual vs. the textual.

Please separate IT paranoia about security and the workload of managing different configurations on computers from their fear of learning new things. My experience was that the IT department blocked every effort to introduce PHP, Apache, and Linux through FUD and ignorance--even when presented the facts. IT has to change in a distributed computing society.

[molkood]

@ babeam... I concur
One large company I do video support for has about 200 Macs(plus about 1400 pcs) which I manage on an ad hoc basis and bill for on a monthly basis. It's peanuts, takes no time and is mainly concerned with file maintenance(duplicates, duplicates, duplicates!!). Just before the new year I was asked to justify my billing for Mac support - they said it was far too high and almost twice the yearly cost of their pc costs. The guy in procurement was obviously keen to replace them when he looked at the figures. When we sat down to go through them, I was able to show him that the main IT support guys were loading all the network hardware replacement costs on the Mac support account and inflating the true costs by around 4000%. The guy was livid initially but after a chat with support just shrugged and accepted it. Later, when chatting to the IT head honcho, he justified it on the basis that it was hard enough to get the money they needed anyway and he thought the Mac account could stand it...
***
When I tried to show him how increasing the Mac count would actually give him more money to play with he wasn't interested.
I guess this actually goes on in quite a few organisations, amongst other scams and unfortunately will lose a lot of Mac friends along the way.