PBS columnist: IT hates Macs because 'Macs reduce IT head count'

PBS's I, Cringely, the pulpit via MacDailyNews ^ | August 15, 2003 | Robert X. Cringely

[Swordmaker]

"Why aren't Apple Macintosh computers more popular in large mainstream organizations? Whatever the gigahertz numbers say, Macintoshes are comparable in performance to Windows or Linux machines. Whatever the conventional wisdom or the Microsoft marketing message, Macs aren't dramatically more expensive to buy and on a Total Cost of Ownership basis they are probably cheaper. Nobody would argue that Macs are harder to use. Clearly, they are easier to use, especially on a network. So what's the problem? Why do Macs seem to exist only in media outfits," asks Robert X. Cringely for PBS?

Cringely writes, "Apple is clearly wondering the same thing because the company recently surveyed owners of their xServe 1U boxes asking what Apple could do to make them more attractive? For those who own xServes, they are darned attractive -- small, powerful, energy-efficient, easy to configure and manage, and offering dramatic savings for applications like streaming. Yet, Apple appears to be having a terrible time selling the things."

"I used to think it came down to nerd ego. Macs were easy to use, so they didn't get the respect of nerds who measured their testosterone levels by how fluently they could navigate a command line interface.  Now, I think differently. Now, I think Macs threaten the livelihood of IT staffs. If you recommend purchasing a computer that requires only half the support of the machine it is replacing, aren't you putting your job in danger? Exactly," writes Cringely. "Ideally, the IT department ought to recommend the best computer for the job, but more often than not, they recommend the best computer for the IT department's job."

Cringely writes, "Now another question: Why are Linux computers gaining in popularity with large organizations while Macs, which are based after all on BSD Unix, aren't? While there is certainly a lot to be said for Linux in competition with various flavors of Windows (Linux is faster, more memory-efficient, more secure, has more sources of supply, supports many more simultaneous users per box in a server environment, and is clearly cheaper to buy), the advantage over Macintosh computers is less clear."

"Again, it comes down to the IT Department Full Employment Act. Adopting Linux allows organizations to increase their IT efficiency without requiring the IT department to increase ITS efficiency. It takes just as many nerds to support 100 Linux boxes as 100 Windows boxes, yet Linux boxes are cheaper and can support more users. The organization is better off while the IT department is unscathed and unchallenged," Cringely writes.

"I am not claiming that every organization should throw out its PCs and replace them with Macs, but the numbers are pretty clear, and the fact that more Macs don't make it into server racks has to be based on something, and I think that something is CIO self-interest," writes Cringely. "Macs reduce IT head count while Linux probably increases IT head count, simple as that."

Amen.

[Swordmaker]

Some comments from MacDailyNews readers:

Comment from: pkradd

I used to work for a company that employed 150 people. We all had computers on our desks. The IT personnel at the company hated Macs. One of them told me that it was simply a matter of economics - for him. Macs didn't break down as much and they would have less to do and hence no job security. Oh yes, this was 5 years ago!

Comment From: mattmattbobatt

About ten years ago I was running a department computing facility at a university. We used to pool research money to maintain the computing infrastructure and support about 150 users. When researchers at other universities were caught by NSF using research money for junkets and yachts they clamped down and we couldn't pool our grant money anymore.

So we ended up needing to analyze how our resources were being used, by platform, so we could switch to a chargeback scheme instead of a per capita fee. We had VMS, unix, Windows and Mac users to support. (remember this was the early 90's). The results weren't too suprizing. The VMS machines required the most man-hours per machine. Followed by Windows, unix and way, way down were Macs. When a new machine arrived we had to get it set up, install an OS and get it on the network. VMS machines took a day while unix and NT took about six hours. How long for the Macs ? About 30 minutes. Really.

Eventually we had to cut IT staff and we cut out all the specialists and kept guys who could do a little unix, Windows and Macs. They spent most of their time on PC stuff. When a new faculty member arrived we pushed them to the Mac so they could spend more money on research and less on support.

I did some consulting at a large consulting firm for a while and when I would go talk to the IT guys I was supporting they would tell you flat out that they didn't like Macs because they feared for their jobs. They plugged them in and they never touched them again. That's why IT staffs hate Macs.

Comment from: trevor7578

My company is run entirley on Macs. CAD, Filemaker, Flexware, FastTrack, Photoshop, Palms, AppleWorks, MS Office, Digital Photo Archiving, Safari Web ordering. We are not an advertising company. We are a high end construction company with about 60 networked macs. We have no IT department. I am in charge of sales and I run IT in my very spare time. I spend hardly any time or $$$ mainting the network. It's awesome. Any company that dismisses Macs in business is out of their minds. The employess easily learn how to use the computers and they very rarely break down. It's a complete joke that Apple gets pushed out of business computing!

[mass55th]

I'm a Mac User and most of the reasons I've heard that others don't use Macs is the lack of games to play on them. I've never had any problem finding games I like to play, but then, I don't spend all my time playing games either.

[wiseone]

I like Macs,but I don't like their sneaky management tricks ,like dumping extra fees,and costs for every flavor of OS every 6 mths,now online fees to access it's best features.Mostly I turned against them after Jobs stabbed the clone makers in the back.Unless they come out with a generic cheap G4 for $4-500 like Pcs,or Linux they wont be getting my vote,nor will i upgrade my 10yr old mac.

[pageonetoo]

My G4 is working fine, the two g3 wallstreet Powerbooks that my wife and I use, are never down, and my 14 yr old daughter has a Snow ibook!.
My darling wife of three+ years was a diehard pc user when we started dating, and she only began using my Macs after we married...
we have no pc's now, she despises them! I bought her a Powerbook to use away from home, and she can't leave without it...
She asked me one day, "How DO you crash this thing?
I told her to run something with "SoftWindows" (a PC emulator, for Mac) and it will surely lock up! Not the Mac, just the program!

[KeyWest]

The real reason is competition and cost. Apple set itself up as a monopoly. IBM opened up its design. If I were a CEO of a company and I looked at going to a closed source or an open source, there would be no issue.

There are many exceptional products that died because of short-sightedness (Beta anyone?). Look at the way Apple goes after any innovation of the Mac outside its company walls. Microsoft is the same to an extent, which is why you see alternate server software as well as whole new OS's and open source programs (another reason that IBM clones will be dominant).

If you are satisfied to be spoon fed, Apple is for you. If you want to innovate and go beyond what Steve Job's says is adequate, then its an IBM clone.

[Wingy]

For my personal use, I would have loved a Mac if I could have gotten a system that compared, dollar for dollar with my PC. While I cut my teeth on an Amiga almost 20 years ago, I hated PC's and would have moved up to a Mac, but I had to go to MSPC simply for cost's sake. The PC was about $2000 cheaper. Also back in those days, software availability and compatibility were a big issue. Now all my software is PC and I'm getting a little long in the tooth to learn a whole new language.

[RockChucker]

Is AutoCad and other engineering products available for the MAC?

[ColdSteelTalon]

Closed source VS open source hmmmmm the debate rages on. In my experience propeitary software protects that data much better and for one good reason, control. OS/400 keeps the data safe and hackers out. But for small scale take your pick Windows, Apple, Linux. Either way it takes more people to support those systems.

[Wingy]

Is AutoCad and other engineering products available for the MAC?

Swordmaker says he uses some cad program on his Mac.

[jimtorr]

I use PC's at work and I have a Mac at home.

There are 10 PC's used by 4 people in my office, and I know that 2 of them will break every year. That's quite a contrast with my Mac at home. It is 4 years old now, and I've never had any problems.

I would love to have a Mac on my desk at work. In spite of what most people say, it is easy to make a Mac fully compatible.

[zarf]

My Mac's rock. Never had problems.

If I want virus problems I open Virtual PC and dowmload .pif files.

[CurlyDave]

When I met my wife about 6 years ago I was a Mac user and she would consider nothing but a PC.


She is a University Professor and consults on the side. Over the course of 5 years, we had numerous incidents where her PC would crash hard enough to require days of troubleshooting to get it back up & running. Meanwhile my Mac would just keep on ticking.

The problem with the PC crashes is that every once in a while she would have a major report due in the next day or two. Five time in 5 years this happend with so little time before the report was due that the only solution was to go out & buy a "fresh" PC so she could restore her data from a backup, reload software and continue working.

She never bought "junk" PCs, Sony, & HP were the only brands she would touch. The only good part of this is that the consulting fee for the reports was more than the cost of the new PCs. On the other hand, having to set up a new machine is an hours long job.

Bottom line is she was forced to try a Mac as part of a technology introduction program about a year ago, and now her PCs are dust collectors. With OS X you just cant make a Mac crash. Sometimes a program will quit, but you just open the program again & continue.

To me, the deciding factor is "what are you going to use a computer for?" If you are a home user and just want a machine for email and internet browsing a PC is cheaper & when it quits working you are not under a deadline to get it up & running again. If you have any kind of serious use for the thing, a Mac will cost you more up front but you will save money because they just work.

The final advantage is--no games. Macs are incredibly deficient when it comes to games. This means the kids will not ever try to take over your machine for their use.

[Vermonter]

The final advantage is--no games. Macs are incredibly deficient when it comes to games.

A quick search of Apple's website turned up 1444 game titles available for the Mac.

Granted, they may not include the latest and greatest PC shootemup, but 'no games' doesn't quite wash.

[HamiltonJay]

Yea, IT managers are shipping jobs overseas to save money and but they would never institute MACs if it would save them large $$$? Be real. IT goes Linux to save $$, IT Does everything it can to save money. This author is just smoking some wacky tobaccee.

[MrsEmmaPeel]

I like Macs,but I don't like their sneaky management tricks ,like dumping extra fees,and costs for every flavor of OS every 6 mths,now online fees to access it's best features.Mostly I turned against them after Jobs stabbed the clone makers in the back.

That's been my experience also. I used to like OS X, but got tired of the change in policy from "free updates" to "gimme gimme gimme". The mac.com "free e-mail for life" lasted only 2 years before the rate hikes and the "gimme gimme gimme" drumbeat came back.

I got tired of Apple screwing the little guy - classic example was Karelia Software. Apple totally ripped off their Watson product without paying them anything. (Not the first time Apple has done crap like this - remember the Tony keyboard?) Since Apple prides itself on being different, its just another shark with an expensive product with fewer features. Why stay?

[eno_]

Keeping IT efficient is incredibly difficult.

That is because IT is purely a cost. And the only way an IT mananger advances his career is by running a bigger IT department.

Personally, I think IT should run only the servers and network. An individual PC is like an infantryman's rifle. If the infantryman can't take care of his rifle he is screwed. So it should be with laptops and individuals' desktop PCs.

[Kewlhand`tek]

i was going to buy into this mac thing, but its too expensive for my blood. I'm visiting a friend and he has airnet, my computer dectects it but it never grabs an ip :(

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

There are 10 PC's used by 4 people in my office, and I know that 2 of them will break every year. That's quite a contrast with my Mac at home. It is 4 years old now, and I've never had any problems.

You're statics show that the mean time between failure (MTBF) for the PC's is 5.0 years. You would have slightly less than 50% percent probability of experiencing a failure of your Mac if it exhibited the same MTBF. The best one can conclude from your experience is that Macs probably do not have a significantly higher MTBF. It could be significantly lower (lower is better), wait twenty years. Also usage at home my not be as demanding as at the office. Can't tell.

I've had two Macs and four PCs at home. My wife's an elementary school teacher and the town's school department had a "pass down" system where new hardware would start life in the HS be passed down to the lower grades, so that in 1990 the kindergarten had Apple IIG's. (Kewl machines, really). Anywho, I had to keep Macs for compatibility. These days the schools are mostly PC based.

In my experience, dollar for dollar, I could get more functionality based on initial investment in the PC. In addition, peripherals and software were also cheaper and more available. Since I was the IT department, I fixed my own problems and my wife's. I had to keep learning enough Mac to get her out of trouble. (Same as aol. I only use it when my wife gets into trouble.)

My impression is that prior to '95, Mac was easier to get started on, but it ate up a lot of resources with the interface and cost much more to purchase. Since Window's '95 they are about comparable. There are some nice widgets out there for the Mac, but probably more for the PC. BTW, I've programmed on the Mac, PC, unix and VMS. (I made a living for five years knowing only two things, VMS Fortran and Huygens principal.) I consider my self an analyst who uses a computer, not a programmer, although I did deliver about ~40,000 lines of unix application code in the years after the market for Huygens dried up.) I suppose I prefer the PC, just because that's what I'm most familar with these days.

[aruanan]

Now, I think Macs threaten the livelihood of IT staffs. If you recommend purchasing a computer that requires only half the support of the machine it is replacing, aren't you putting your job in danger? Exactly," writes Cringely. "Ideally, the IT department ought to recommend the best computer for the job, but more often than not, they recommend the best computer for the IT department's job."

That's been my observation in a large university/hospital setting. The PCs required far more support far more often for much more minor things than the Macs did. Virtually all Mac problems, as seldom as they occurred, could be solved by a Mac user. The PCs and their Windows systems seem designed to keep the ordinary user in the dark and in thrall to an IT department.

[HamiltonJay]

Agreed it is another issue entirely... it is next to impossible to justify spending 3-4 times the cost of a PC per desktop for a MAC. When you can get machines from dell for ~ $500 a pop spending 1000-2000 per MAC just doesn't cut it.