The majority of Business today is conducted on Windows PC's with either an Intel or AMD proccesor. What you don't know or maybe had little knowledge of is that the Apple Macintosh geputers have been in the corporate world before we all were clicking "Start". Apple was the first to market with a Graphical User Interface, first spreadsheet and first word processor.
The facts are promising when you look at them and realize what would be better for your gepany. We discuss them here as well as throw in the math to help you decide whether or not switching to an All Mac IT/Partial Mac environment is viable. Of course Software Selections would also have to be taken into consideration but you'll find the software for Mac's is far superior than software for Windows, we'll discuss that at the end.
Just the Facts:In the USA alone the IT costs of maintaining and upgrading hardware alone average at nearly $70k per small geany (20-100 employee's). Hershey Foods alone spends nearly $2mil per year just to keep there current Windows based infrastructure alive and kicking. Miller and Assoc. conducted a survey in 2002 ending in 2004 of IT costs on both the hardware/software as well as the personnel level. The end report was surprising to say the least. Keep in mind for every hour your system is down it will cost you 2hrs of labor because your paying your employee's for the hour to sit and the hour to catch up.
What they found was the average Windows Based Network system in gepanies around the world averaged an 83% uptime. This means for every 100hrs your system is up, 17hrs are wasted in downtime by either software malfunction, hardware malfunction, printer issues, or network failure. These numbers did not include power outages that plagued Ca. during those years, they were deducted. Apple based networks fared much better at a average 98% uptime. With the majority of the downtime due to network devices failing. The average life of a Windows PC was shown to be 3.4 years where as the Macs were staying in continuous operation (most of which were never shutdown only placed into sleep mode) for 6.7 years without replacement.
Another interesting fact was shown in early 2005 when Microsoft released a tech note that was removed from their site a couple weeks later stating that the Windows 2000/XP operating system should be reloaded every other year to maintain file integrity. On the Macintosh you have never had to reload the OS, in fact the majority of Apples in existence today still have the same OS that was installed by the factory. Think of the time it takes to install the OS, the time it takes to backup your data and restore everything. Even with our 17 years experience dealing with Wintel machines it still takes us nearly 6hrs to perform this operation per PCand that includes installing all the patches and updates.
Some other facts to consider are the results of the 1999 survey that showed Mac users in a corporate environment were 24% more productive than windows users. Interesting and staggering! So for every 4 employee's a Mac office has it takes 5 in a windows environment to do the same amount of work.
Because Apple makes the hardware and the operating system everything works flawlessly. How many times have you heard from your IT staff or IT gepany that it's a software problem and the software gepany says it's a hardware problem? What this really means is your spending money on a blame game and not getting results. Imagine if your customers called in and were tossed from extension to extension just to place an order because one employee's job was to take the address, another to take the credit card info, and another to place the order then get sent back to the original person to correct a mistake they made in the first place. Exactly the same situation and your paying for this.
COST:Adding up the costs begees tedious to say the least but in the end you may find that switching to an all Apple Office will not only save you time but most importantly money and effort. With an average replacement cost of $2400 per PC every 3 years (hardware/labor/software total average sale here) gepared to a new Mac install which averages $1850 (hardware/labor/software) and Mac's tend to stay in use for over 5 years you begin to see the savings.
Not to mention the amount of money you need to spend for virus protection, service agreements, outsourced hardware support, and don't forget each call to Microsoft will cost you $220 each! Apple offers AppleCare for as little as $150 for three years. That includes hardware and software.
Software:It's been know to us as well as most IT specialists that Microsoft makes great bloat ware. The type of software that the more it's used the larger the files begee and the slower the machine gets. In fact update after update the software runs slower and slower (update Tuesdays). On a Mac this is 100% the opposite. OS 9 runs slower than OS X on the SAME HARDWARE! Apple has more time to optimize the code and are more concerned with keeping there older PC's in working and usable condition than Microsoft because they have to support them too. Gateway/Dell/HP/ etc... don't make any money if you continue to use the same hardware for years on end, so it's in there best interest to make PC's that fail. On the other side of the arm is Apple. There gemitment to hardware and the environment is top notch. By creating operating systems that keep older PC's alive and working they keep the landfills cleaner, customers happy, and overall make a better experience for all of us.
Software apps such as Accounting, scheduling, CRM, order processing, etc... are all available for a MAC. And since Intel based Mac's can also run Windows XP, Vista, 7, Server 2003/2008 while also running OS X you can continue to use your old software platform as well but get better support for hardware, fewer hardware related issues and enjoy the benfiets of virtual machines and their ease of backup, restoration and deployment.
Overall:In the end you'll find your staff more productive, your customers happy and your costs are down just by making the switch to an all Apple IT environment. Will this work for you? A few things to consider are Microsoft Terminal Services to run all your Client/Server apps off a server itslef, any legacy hardware you have that is not gepatible with Apple... It's not a clear yes/no answer but a 3rd party consultant can help you along the way. Contact Apple 1-800-MY-APPLE for an Apple Certified individual or gepany near you to assist. Still need to run Windows apps?Today's Intel macs can run Windows XP/Vista/7/Server 2003/2008. And can run natively XP/Vista/7 through BootCamp. But there's an even easier way to do this. Windows Server 2003 has a great little built in program call Terminal Server. Microsoft makes Remote Desktop Client for Mac and it's fully gepatible with every version of Windows. So install all your client apps on a terminal server, RDC on each Mac and you able to operate your business management system with ease. Microsoft Office for Mac is also available so your staff is not without their familiar applications.
-Simplistik Software, Co.Updated November 1st, 2009
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