
Mac at Work: IBM Launches Services to Deploy Macs at Scale to the Enterprise - robin_reala
https://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/47386.wss
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lukeh
This could also read as an April Fools' Day article circa about 1998!

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wehadfun
Surprised there is a market for this. Besides maybe Apple are there any
companies that have large (>10,000) MAC deployments.

~~~
swalsh
Its a growing trend though. Go to almost any university, and 90% of the people
there will have a Macbook out. Employees are increasingly going to start
demanding them, and it makes sense for IT to find solutions for it. IT's
purpose isn't to dictate, but to respond. An organization will run more
efficiently if the employees are more comfortable in their computing
environment.

~~~
rebootthesystem
My comments are about NORMAL businesses with NORMAL margins, not the Google's
of the world operating at 60%+ margins with the ability (and a need due to
taxes) to burn cash.

> Employees are increasingly going to start demanding them

Employees who demand that a NORMAL company pay 10x for a computer are not
employees. They are babies who have not a clue as to how business runs and
don't care to burn cash in exchange for zero returns. They either get fired or
not hired at all.

> An organization will run more efficiently if the employees are more
> comfortable in their computing environment

Well, how do you explain the fact that PC's running various versions of
Windows grotesquely dwarf Mac installations in companies of all sizes around
the world?

Want them to be more productive? Buy them a second monitor. A Mac is going to
do exactly zero.

BTW, I am not a PC or Mac fan-boy. We have large numbers of both platforms,
with PC's running Windows or Linux depending on usage. However, we have them
for a reason and not because we like one or the other. In the case of Macs the
only justification we've been able to find so far is working on iOS apps.
Other than that engineering, business, graphics, etc. can be done equal to or
better than on a Mac on PC's running Windows or Linux.

NORMAL businesses can't justify paying 10x for computers just 'cause.

Let's put it this way. Money isn't infinite. NORMAL company:

A CEO decides to allocate $200K towards buying a bunch of Macs ('cause they
are cool) instead of spending $20K for an equal number of equally capable (in
a business context) PC's and allocating the remaining $180K towards sales and
marketing efforts.

Again, money isn't infinite.

Do you know what you are looking at in this scenario?

A CEO about to be fired by the board.

One of my standard interview questions is: If we hire you, what kind of a
computer do you need?

You can learn a ton about a person from the answer to this question. Some will
say "anything will do". Some will say "I have to have a Mac". Yet others will
ask pointed questions about the tools we use, how we use them, how the various
teams work and what the various business processes require. The last group are
the keepers. And, you know what, in a lot of cases the right answer turns out
to be that they need one of each, or even three computers. The point is that
they UNDERSTAND these are tools that have to exist in the context of a
business process, not on a teenager's desk at home to watch YouTube videos and
be cool at Starbucks.

~~~
robin_reala
So IBM, one of the biggest consulting companies in the world, is rolling out
Apple Macs to 50-75% of their workforce because they want their employees to
be cool at Starbucks? I’d suggest you’re missing something in your analysis.

~~~
rebootthesystem
Did you even BOTHER to read the FIRST LINE?

Fabricating a conclusion from something I did not say is remarcable but
nothing less than utter nonsense. You went from me talking about an inmature
engineer wanting a Mac for the wron reasons to claiming I said companies
deploy such technology to have employees look good at Starbucks.

And that's exactly the problem: People are in love with Apple and the ability
to reason goes out the window.

Again, read the first fucking line.

99% of businesses in the world are NOT IBM. They simply cannot spend 10x on
hardware that buys them exactly nothing for the money or close to it.

The myopia that exists around Apple is truly infuriating at times. It is
completely irrational by almost any metric. The evidence is in the tens of
millions of businesses world wide who do not use Apple computers and never
will. Because it makes no sense whatsoever from a purely objective point of
view.

~~~
robin_reala
Fair point, I’d forgotten the first line by the end of your comment. Mea culpa
and I’d give myself a downvote if I could.

Either way, let me give you the reasons that Macs were cost effective from the
point of view of a small (20 person) agency I recently worked for:

* primary development of the web stack we worked on was on Macs. Windows PCs were difficult to get running properly, and Linux while generally OK often had smallish bugs unless you were using LTS releases which quickly became outdated.

* Our designers used Photoshop and other Adobe products and helped out with front-end dev so they were stuck on Mac full-stop if they wanted one machine.

* We had an Apple store 5 minutes walk from our office, so hardware support was immediately available if required.

* Standardised hardware on the Mac platform meant standardised connectivity: everyone had a Mac charger at their desk, mini-DP screens, AppleTVs in the meeting rooms to stream your desktop to etc.

* Clients that were buying design services felt like they were getting their money’s worth if they walked into a room full of people with beards and Macs (I know you’ll hate that point, but that doesn’t make it less true).

* The PCs we had in the office on average had more hardware problems and needed to be replaced more often than the Macs.

People weren’t forced onto Mac hardware (we had Linux users too) but
objectively it generally made more sense for my company for the reasons above.

~~~
rebootthesystem
In your case the decision to go with Macs was absolutely justified. I would
have done the same.

BTW, Adobe products run just fine on Windows --we do it all the time. And
everything else you do can be done on a PC just as well.

Frankly, we've been using PC's and Macs since, well, they came out eons ago.
Starting with the original IBM PC and the first Macintosh. Hardware and
reliability problems are exactly the same on both platforms. In the early
years of "pc clones" there were lots of problems with crappy third party
hardware. Today you could blindly purchase anything at a place like Best Buy
and walk away with a reliable and very capable machine.

It's the same with cars. Thirty years ago buying car was almost a lottery
outside of premium models and brands. Today you can blindly buy anything in
the US and walk away with a car you can easily drive 200,000 miles without
problems.

So, why did I say your decision was justified when most of your points might
be of questionable merit from a "parts and features" perspective?

Well, for one thing, yours is NOT a normal company. Your metrics are very
different from those of the average small business anywhere on the planet.
That is probably the case for any company that deals in knowledge or
information products rather than physical goods. It is likely that your
computers represent the single largest capex item in your books. You don't
have inventory, raw materials, warehousing, regulatory/recycling concerns,
etc. Your margins are likely far larger than normal businesses.

Yet there is one item in your list that justifies the decision far better than
anything else: Your client profile.

Presenting the right image to clients and customers is of paramount
importance. Nobody wants to walk into a dirty restaurant. You have to
communicate the right message to your clients the minute they walk through
your front door. A huge portion of the impression we develop of someone or
something happens visually.

When they open that door and walk into your lobby they have to see elegance,
sophistication, inventiveness, creativity or, depending on your niche, an out-
of-the-box and maybe even extreme sensibility. When walking into the
conference room, same thing. While doing a tour of your working space they
need to have the same message communicated over and over again.

This is a case where Apple has done an amazing job of communicating technical
and aesthetic sophistication, creativity and a whole list of qualities that
absolutely speaks to your clients like almost nothing else could. If you had
beautiful tables and conference rooms with amazing PC's on them you would
probably be missing that extra element. This, despite the fact that the PC's
could do absolutely everything you are doing for a lower capex cost.

Having Apple products throughout makes that lobby, desk and conference room
far more valuable as a marketing and positioning tool than anything else you
could showcase anywhere in your company. You could have a bunch of Teslas
outside. If they walk into your creative space and see a bunch of PC's you
would have made a huge mistake. The same would not be true if you were running
a garment manufacturing business, a food co-packer or dry cleaner. In that
case the Apple hardware would say nothing and provide little value.

So, yes, I agree, not for all of your reasons but for perhaps the most
important one: Positioning.

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BillAtHRST
One of the things I _like_ about using a Mac at work is that IT guys dont know
how to deal with it ;-)

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pavs
IBM is such an iconic and Big company and yet I have no idea how they make
their money. What are some of their best selling product/services?

~~~
tjakab
Mainframes. If you're a bank or an enterprise of a certain size, then a chunk
of your annual IT budget goes right to IBM for mainframe maintenance and
licensing every year.

~~~
aus_
In 2012, The Economist reported that mainframes accounted for about a quarter
of IBM's revenue and about half of its profits. [0] [1]

IT budgets for large banks and financial firms usually dedicate something like
20% their budget to mainframes, but it usually accounts for about 80% of the
firm's workload/processing.

[0]: [http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2012/09/ibms-
mainf...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2012/09/ibms-mainframes)
[1]:
[http://blog.nullspace.io/mainframes.html](http://blog.nullspace.io/mainframes.html)

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fpp
To me this sounds like the final step to the end of Big Blue's organisational
culture and corporate identity.

Sold off most of their manufacturing and now becoming one more "service
provider" \- classic setup: 6 overhead / 1-2 delivery (1 Programme Man, 3 PMs,
1 engagement & liaison man. - 1-2 tech staff doing the implementation). Target
task: sell more IBM services to the client.

Or maybe they want to live off their vast patent portfolio - when will we
start to call them a non practicing entity?

Sad story.

~~~
smackfu
IBM is a software and consulting company. It's a very profitable business.
Much better than selling hardware.

~~~
scott_s
Not entirely. About a quarter of our revenue comes from mainframes - not just
the hardware, but the ecosystem around it. See the bottom of
[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/21/technology/-2015-07-21-tec...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/21/technology/-2015-07-21-technology-
ibm-revenue-falls-13-percent-despite-big-gains-in-new-
fieldshtml.html?ref=topics).

I work for IBM Research, but not in hardware.

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kuanlnaie
with ibm crap-ware on all their macs. sure! :)

~~~
compostor42
I've had a great track record with various Linux distros until I used the RHEL
IBM edition. I've been plagued with problems and crashes on it. Don't know if
they distributing a special OSX IBM edition or not.

~~~
dade_
Yeah, skip the RHEL version unless things have changed. I recall a very old
kernel, terrible driver support and ancient Gnome desktop. However, using the
extra-non-supported IBM Fedora builds worked really well and the packages for
the IBM apps worked very well. Lotus Notes was actually usable on Linux. THat
said, I still needed to use VMware/Windows for Visio and the proprietary Word
templates that GTS uses.

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loukrazy
Does anyone know how the software license costs compare between Windows
Enterprise and OS X and Enterprise Linux?

~~~
skuhn

      OS X: $0
      RHEL 7 Workstation: $180
      Windows 10 Pro: $200
    

In the grand scheme of things, licensing the OS doesn't matter to IBM. They
can negotiate site licensing at a considerable volume discount.

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holychiz
hopefully, Mac deployment upticks will finally convince MS to bring Mac Office
to parity with Win Office.

~~~
MaysonL
[http://answers.microsoft.com/en-
us/mac/forum/macoffice2016-m...](http://answers.microsoft.com/en-
us/mac/forum/macoffice2016-macstart/office-for-
mac-2016/bb68a187-5cb4-4dc4-95e7-86c4ff5a9cc9)

~~~
glhaynes
This doesn't say anything about Office for Mac's parity with Office for
Windows.

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spacecowboy_lon
Pity that Apple seems to be abandoning its professional market to chase
consumer market maybe apple needs to split into two.

~~~
odiroot
Isn't this exactly opposite? They're trying to move from hobbyists to
enterprise users.

~~~
c0wb0yc0d3r
I think what he's saying is that it is pitiful that Apple is seemingly
abandoning enterprise. I just skimmed the article, but it seems like IBM is
doing this on their own.

~~~
mhurron
It's a partnership between Apple and IBM. Apple has basically acknowledged
that they sucked at Enterprise support.

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fyolnish
So it's Little Blue and Big Rainbow now?

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rebootthesystem
The fact that one has to struggle to name companies with large Mac deployments
is a sign of the reality of Apple's ecosystem: It's a premium (and expensive)
device that can hardly be justified for the average mid to large business.

Of course, there are industries and use cases where they just make sense. Web
development being one of them, mainly due to it's unix underpinnings. Although
I have to argue strongly that Linux is a far superior choice. We deploy on
Linux and it just makes sense to work on Linux. In terms of web development
there's nothing whatsoever on a Mac that provides an advantage over, say,
Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.

The CAPEX side of the equation is i portant for most companies. We can't
compare a Google or Facebook to a car dealership (even a large one), a
fulfillment center or a manufacturing operation.

As one small data point, I just bought two brand new HP laptops for my kids.
They have 15.4 inch screens, powerful quad core processors, huge hard drives
and tons of memory. Quality is excellent. Cost? $249. These would be perfectly
good business machines.

To a business this is huge. A Mac laptop of the same screen size starts at
$2,000. You can buy excellent computers for EIGHT PEOPLE for the cost of a
single Mac. Or, you could buy a few less and outfit each one with a second
monitor, something that is absolutely proven to increase productivity by a
significant margin for certain use cases.

And so, when faced with having to outfit 100, 1000 or 10,000 desks one cannot
ignore a CAPEX differential of 8x to 10x.

Support. It is a myth that PC's require an innordinate amount of support.
Before having my own business I worked for companies with deployments of a
couple hundred Macs and lots of PC's. The support nightmares were there just
the same simply because most issues were "operator error" rather than issues
inherently related to the computer hardware or OS itself. In fact, it was
weird to see Mac users (people who used them at home and work) drown in
relatively minor problems while PC users typically needed help with higher
level issues. The typical user at this company was a graphic artist (stills,
video, animation, 3D modeling).

I could not imagine most businesses being able to justify such CAPEX
decisions. The Google's of the world get away with it because their profit
margins are huge and there's a culture to support. At the opposite end of the
scale is the owner of a chain of restaurants operating at 5% margin. That's
probably closer to where most of the businesses in the world exist.

~~~
odiroot
You can tell your opinion is unpopular, you're already getting downvotes.

I would have to mostly agree though, maybe besides the HP point. It's not
quite a proper comparison.

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evgen
The down votes are not because the opinion is unpopular, it is because it is
so easily demonstrated to be incorrect. The rehash of the "mac tax" arguments
(e.g. claiming that a $250 HP laptop is in any way equivalent to what you
could get for $2K at Apple), misunderstanding how enterprises discount capex,
anecdotes about support requirements, etc. The companies that are mainly Mac-
based know what they are doing and what works at scale.

~~~
slantyyz
>> (e.g. claiming that a $250 HP laptop is in any way equivalent to what you
could get for $2K at Apple)

If you're focused on specs, build quality and performance, etc., of course
they are not equivalent.

On the other hand, if you look at how they are to be used in the real world
(i.e., a typical staffer who primarily does e-mail, Office and accesses web
apps), they could be equivalent in terms of end-user
effectiveness/productivity. A lot of people use computers that have _too much_
capacity for their daily tasks.

~~~
mokus
Absolutely, but it is incorrect to cast that as a problem of the units being
overpriced. I don't need Teledyne-LeCroy's 100 GHz oscilloscope at work, so if
I bought one anyway when a 1 GHz unit would do, it'd be hardly fair to claim
they overpriced it. I'd just be an idiot for buying a machine far more
powerful than I can justify.

