On Wednesday, November 5, 2003, at 08:25 AM, Ken Anderson wrote:
Any information will be greatly appreciated!
Australian study finds Macs are 36 percent cheaper to run than Windows PCs (pt 1)
Posted on Jun 13, 2002
13 Jun 2002, Alex Summersby
A study by respected technology research company Gartner has found that Macs are up to 36 percent cheaper to own and run than competing Windows PCs, Apple Australia has announced.
According to Apple Australia's release, the study utilised Gartner's Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) methodology, which takes into account both the direct and indirect costs of owning IT infrastructure. Direct costs include all hardware and software costs for desktop and mobile computers, servers and peripherals as well as upgrades, technical support and annual depreciation. Indirect costs cover the costs of end-users supporting themselves and each other, end-user training time and non-productive downtime.
The research was conducted at Melbourne University's Faculty of Arts, which included 4,676 Apple computers and 5,338 Windows machines. The report compares the TCO for the University's Mac environment with its PC environment. It also compared the University's Mac environment with similar-sized PC installations around the world.
Cheaper overall
According to Apple, the relevant cost comparisons were $14.1 million and $18.9 million respectively. By our calculations, this averages out to a TCO of $3,015.40 for each Mac and $3,540.65 for each Windows PC. In other words, the Macs work out to be some 17.5 percent cheaper overall. This flies in the face of the conventional wisdom that Macs are more expensive.
When the study looked at running costs in particular, Macs did even better. Apple systems cost just $1,953 per year to support, Gartner found, compared with annual costs for Windows based machines of $2,522. If our sums are right, that means Windows PCs cost some 29 percent more to support every year.
Less support needed
In examining direct costs, Gartner found that Macs required less technical support and the hardware and software costs were lower. Gartner found that this translated into direct savings of 25 percent over similar sized organisations using personal computers. University of Melbourne IT staff were able to manage more Macintosh systems per person, servicing 30 Apple computers for every 23.2 Windows computers.
Apple Computer Australia's Marketing Director, Arno Lenior, said the findings illustrated how medium to large organisations like Melbourne University could save time and money by investing in Macs rather than PCs.
"There is a perception that Macs are more expensive than PCs, but this report proves what we've long believed ? Macintosh is the most cost effective and efficient platform available," he said.
Happier users
"Macs are designed to be easy to use," added Lenior. "The report highlighted this, proving that Mac users at the University required less formal training and didn't rely as heavily on technical staff as PC users. When something did go wrong, the technical staff solved the problem faster on Macs than PCs," he said.
The Gartner report found that the Mac's efficiency and ease of use resulted in additional indirect savings of 43 percent. When combined, the Total Cost of Ownership for Melbourne University's Macs was 36 percent lower than similar PC environments elsewhere.
Perhaps even more importantly, Apple's release concludes, when questioned on how they felt about their computers Mac users at the University were happier than their PC counterparts.
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