Re: AUGD: Cost of Ownership comparison
Re: AUGD: Cost of Ownership comparison
- Subject: Re: AUGD: Cost of Ownership comparison
- From: Anthony Caruana - President iMug <email@hidden>
- Date: Sun, 03 Sep 2006 09:42:02 +1000
- Thread-topic: AUGD: Cost of Ownership comparison
Cost of ownership comparisons are rarely listened to by folks that think
they already know the answer. My understanding (having tried to make similar
comparisons and then convince management of the outcome) is that purchase
price is only about a third of the device's cost over its life.
The cost is made up of a number of components
1 - hardware
2 - software you need (this is where iLife adds no value on corporate
environments as it's not usually considered a "productivity app")
3 - maintenance agreements (eg pay extra for next day, on-site repairs)
4 - transition cost (switching people from their old system to a new one)
5 - ongoing support
6 - ongoing costs (energy, space, etc)
There are probably other bits but for the sake of discussion that'll do.
In my mind and from my experience the hardware argument (comparing like for
like) probably falls to the PC. But build quality is highly variable so what
you get will largely depend on the parts and the assembler.
Software is probably lineball except that in management's mind there are
probably corporate apps that don't have Mac equivalents. My experience is
that that's a load of rubbish. I've found FREE alternatives for MS Project
(that can read/write Project formatted files) and a bunch of other handy
tools that replace their PC counterparts.
Maintenance boils down to relationships with resellers. Only you can strike
a deal and compare.
Transition will probably cost more the first time you go to a Mac (extra
training, etc) but until Apple releases OS XI you're probably only going to
need to do that once. Also, Apple's migration tools from one Mac to the next
seem superior to those of Windows. Another thing - Windows machines vary
greatly which means that IT teams need to create many different system
images to support their heterogeneous hardware environment. With OS X, you
can copy the system from one machine to another without any driver flakiness
(at least in my experience).
The Mac will easily win on the support side - no viruses, spyware, etc.
Anyone who denied that may well have their brain placed where the sun don't
shine.
Ongoing costs will require some analysis. Generally, this argument comes
down to a staff reduction one to save support costs. Unless those staff
members can be redeployed on other higher value tasks you'll probably find
that it carries little weight as reducing support staff is usually a very
unpopular thing thing to do.
One other thing - when looking at cost of ownership studies it pays to look
at not only at the authors but who commissioned the study. Many seemingly
independent studies have been bought and paid for by vendors. Such studies
shouldn't be relied on as they may be seen as tainted.
While this doesn't answer your request for data, it does reflect my
experience. I hope it helps.
Anthony Caruana
President - iMug
email@hidden
www.imug.com.au
On 2/9/06 8:57 AM, "List Account" <email@hidden> wrote:
> Can anyone please point me in the direction of information that shows buying a
> Mac is not the expensive option my co-director seems to think it is? I am
> looking for typical cost of ownership figures, compared not to an expensive
> Dell
> but to a bottom of the range, cheap and cheerful, no frills office PC.
>
> The cheapest Mac is the Mini, yet this is approximately 3 times more expensive
> than a cheap PC. How can I back up my case for buying 5 new Macs? I'm
> struggling
> to find data...
>
> Many thanks,
>
> Nigel MacGeorge
> Basel Mac User Group
> Switzerland
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