On Wednesday, November 5, 2003, at 08:25 AM, Ken Anderson wrote:
Any information will be greatly appreciated!
part 2
Consistent findings
These results from Gartner are consistent with other studies that find Macs to be cheaper in the long run, or offer a better "return on investment", despite a sometimes higher initial price to buy.
For example, a detailed independent study by Gistics, Inc., conducted from 1991 to 1998, included some 30,000 creative professionals in fields ranging from advertising to publishing, Web authoring, digital video, CD-ROM publishing, digital photography, marketing communications and training. This landmark survey found that Mac users were more productive than their Windows-using colleagues, spent less time on housekeeping such as "managing files, and installing, uninstalling, and reinstalling software", and earned more as a result.
Thanks to the Mac's "more efficient computing environment," Gistics said, "(i.e., integrated hardware and software platform, system resources optimised for media-rich processing, and third-party software), the Macintosh user gains per year an average 234 more prime time authoring and composition hours than a Windows user."
According to the 1998 Gistics report, "a Macintosh-using creative professional produces $26,441 more annual revenue and $14,488 more net profit than a Windows user of comparable skill engaged in similar work." This means that Macs pay for themselves in 4.59 months, Gistics said, while "a Windows-NT-based firm requires 12.58 months to recoup its investment ? eight months longer."
Falling costs
Of course, computing even in the Windows world has come a long way since 1998. In recent years, however, the historically-high initial cost of buying Macs has been falling. Apple's pricing has been more competitive, and the costs of its latest-generation products ? such as its current portable range, or the recently-announced Xserve rack-mountable server ? stand up well next to comparable offerings from other makers.
Last August, Gene Steinberg compared Apple's prices across its entire range with Dell's and found, to even his own surprise, that Apple's prices were competitive. One dedicated Australian maintains a "Mac-PC PriceWatch" which shows that currently Macs are cheaper than comparably configured Dell computers. Another Mac-advocate site provides very detailed "shootouts" comparing desktop and portable systems at a whole range of pricepoints, setting out exactly what you get for your money from several leading manufacturers.
What these price comparisons mean is that even if some of the efficiency advantages that Gistics identified no longer hold, the overall cost advantages may well still hold up. Gartner's new study certainly seems to confirm that the running costs of Macs, and therefore the total costs of ownership, are still substantially lower than those of Windows PCs.
Switching strategy
As I write, Apple US and UK have not yet picked up the story from Apple Australia. Gartner's findings do, however, come at just the right time for Apple's new, more aggressive advertising campaign in the US, which focuses on "real people" who have made the decision to switch from a Windows PC to the Mac. Quantitative evidence like this will be valuable ammunition to supplement the personal testimony of the "switchers" in Apple's ads, which Apple says have been running this week "on major cable networks like ESPN, CNBC, Comedy Central and Fox News and will appear this week on ABC?s Boston 24/7 and The Drew Carey Show, as well as NBC?s ER and NBA Finals broadcasts." Print versions of the ads are appearing in Time, Newsweek and "other major magazines."
There is no word yet on when, or indeed whether, the "switch" campaign will be running in the UK. The "switch" page has not yet appeared on Apple's UK Website. However, Apple is running another aggressive campaign here, with the message that "Everything's easier on a Mac", which does have a page on the UK site. Brochures promoting the message are also available from Mac dealers across the country, including consumer-oriented dealers such as John Lewis and PC World.
More information on "Cost of Ownership" etc.
The complete Gistics "ROI TechBrief" can be downloaded in PDF form from Apple's Website.
A 1997 IDC White Paper on "Total Cost of Ownership" of computers in schools says that Macs last longer in schools, are rated higher by teachers for ease of installation and ease of training, and suffered less "unexpected downtime". However, the White Paper was sponsored by Apple, so it's not exactly independent corroboration...
On the question of PCs needing more support than Macs, Gartner's findings are again consistent with other studies. Famously, Intel itself found that Macs needed fewer support staff than Windows PCs. McDonnell Douglas found that PC support costs were at least eight times higher than Mac costs.
Individual support-cost anecdotes abound, and you'll find plenty of links to them at Mac-advocacy sites such as John Droz's. One education tech support engineer writes of his experience at a school that switched from Macs to Windows PCs: ?The total amount of staff time required just to keep these machines functional is an order of magnitude higher than what we experienced with the Macs. It almost defies belief."
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