XPost: comp.sys.mac.advocacy   
   From: jpolaski@NOync.net   
      
   In article ,   
    Chrisr  wrote:   
      
   > On Mon, 21 Jul 2003 04:34:36 GMT, George Graves    
   > wrote:   
   >   
   > > I have to have to a PC due to the   
   > >fact that often I have to put together documents that will be used on   
   > >that benighted platform because corporations, for "financial" reasons   
   > >(that only look at up-front cost, not support costs), have gone with   
   > >PCs.   
   >   This is such a silly conclusion.  Do you honestly believe that 98%   
   > of large corporations blindly buy computers without fully   
   > investigating the TCO of their machines?   
      
   Yes. I've posted this some time ago but for your benefit, my Wife works   
   for a large financial institution here in Chicago. Her department   
   switched to pc's several years ago because "they had to have everyone   
   using WORD".   
      
   Several years ago she was sick for some amount of time and had to get   
   remote access. She was told to call IT. On that call the tech said they   
   would get her a pc laptop and try to get it all to work. She told them   
   she has a computer, a Mac. The techie said, " oh...those...just work!"   
      
   So I set about getting the access and dial in working. We could hook up,   
   but the permissions were all messed up on their server so I had to call   
   the techie. While he was changing the settings I casually mentioned to   
   him that if "macs just work" they should perhaps think about getting   
   more of them and reduce the burden on the techs.   
      
   His response was most telling. No, we don't need to get Macs, MORE WORK   
   is OK". So what it comes down to is job preservation. Corporations buy   
   what they get cheapest which in many cases is Dell.   
      
   Recently my wife had some other problems with her Dell crashing and   
   doing some other wierd stuff. It should be fine running W2K. So the   
   techie came up and banged on it for some amount of time. He then   
   announced that the problem was that she didn't have enough RAM, so they   
   would get  her a new computer.   
      
   The new computer, a Dell arrived and a week or two later, the same   
   problems are there. MORE WORK. Keeps the Techie's in jobs.   
      
   IMHO, I think M$ is greatly aware of this and as such, things are made   
   so that there is enough work to keep techies of the Wintel world   
   working. After all, M$ knows that they butter the bread with their being   
   the ones to make recommendations of what platform to buy, what hardware   
   and often software. I so often see them refuse to get software uses may   
   need, but that they don't want to learn to support. So the users suffer.   
      
   So don't go and make blanket statements that Corporations take TCO into   
   account. If they really did, IT support would not be so bad.   
      
   > Corporations do not base   
   > their purchases and desktop standards on which platform is cheaper.   
   > Many large corporations have mountains of home made software that   
   > would require mountains of money to change.  Asset management tools,   
   > Network monitoring tools, training, file conversion problems, document   
   > compatability, mainframe intergration, NOS the list goes on and on and   
   > on.  The cost of migrating from Windows to Macintosh is astronomical.   
   > Furthermore, the TCO costs, I believe are flawed.  TCO goes up   
   > disproportunately with the number of machines.  If you take the IT   
   > budget and divide by the number of PCs  you get a TCO per machine.  If   
   > you only have like 50 machines, you don't need an IT department, you   
   > can get away with 1 guy who basically does it on a part time basis and   
   > has some other role in the company but he just happens to be computer   
   > savy and inherits the job.  You are just looking at the machine and   
   > software costs.  when you have 1000 PCs, you're looking at funding an   
   > entire full-time IT staff.  people to manage the network, to handle   
   > upgrades, moves adds changes deployment planning, asset management   
   > help desk etc,etc,etc.  all of these people need managers , computers   
   > workspace , and so on and so on.  Mac's are rarely found as the sole   
   > desktop standard in a large corporation , and therefore it is very   
   > difficult to make a fair comparison for the total cost of ownership.   
   > Also with the new UNIX-based operating system,  one would assumethat   
   > the total cost of ownership has gone up significantly.  However that   
   > has yet to be shown far as I know.  So in all reality these purchase   
   > decisions are not made by shortsighted been counters.  Total cost of   
   > ownershipis is carefully considered before making any significant   
   > changes to a desktop standards.   
   >   
   > Chris   
   > If life seems jolly rotten   
   > There's something you've forgotten,   
   > and thats to laugh and smile and dance and sing!   
      
   --   
   Regards,   
   JP   
   "The measure of a man is what he will do while expecting that he will get   
   nothing in return!"   
      
   Macintosh for productivity. Linux for servers. Palm/Visor for mobility.   
   Windows to feed the Black Hole in your IT budget   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)