total cost of ownership for Macs

[danbuntu]

Hello

 

There have been debates here over the total cost of ownership for Macs Vs PCs. Googling around I could find some information about this from and enterprise perspective but I could find much for education.

 

Does anyone have this that they could share?

 

One argument that has been mooted is that Macs are better built and so break less - ie the hinges break less from continual opening and closing etc etc.

 

I'm not sure I buy this at all.

 

Dan

[3s-gtech]

I don't have exact figures across a wide spread here, but TCO for Macs can actually be pretty good. The below is our example:

 

15 x Apple iMac (Early 2009 model) - these were Edu models at £632 each back in August 2009 when we bought them.

 

Obviously, no screen needed nor keyboard and mouse.

 

We had to buy iLife (for Garageband) and Logic Pro - £150 and £1500 for permanent licenses. We also bought 10.6 licenses at around £150 all in.

 

In use, we've added RAM and SSDs - total cost £100 per machine.

 

Total cost so far - £12780. We've replaced a few keyboards and mice through keys being picked off - they're expensive but I won't include them here as you could use cheap keyboards to replace them.

 

These machines are over 7 years old and still performing the task they were bought for. They still work well, are well built, and still look good. The real cost saving is the licensing I feel - having bought iLife for them (and 10.6) all upgrades since have been free, so they're running the latest software at no extra cost. iLife and OS upgrades should be no-cost on a new Mac. IMO these work out cheaper than a Windows suite once software licensing for a Garageband equivalent is factored in - if you're doing GCSE (and even some A-Level) music composition, it's an absolute godsend.

 

I've bought Macs since, and found that with edu pricing and some shopping around I can get them at a similar price to a well specced Windows machine. I absolutely hate the soldered RAM on the newest models, which will knock the TCO badly in time. Our newest Minis are working out quite well anyway, but we had to spend extra to replace the rubbish 5400rpm drives with SSDs.

[mthomas08]

Hello

There have been debates here over the total cost of ownership for Macs Vs PCs. Googling around I could find some information about this from and enterprise perspective but I could find much for education.

Does anyone have this that they could share?

One argument that has been mooted is that Macs are better built and so break less - ie the hinges break less from continual opening and closing etc etc.

I'm not sure I buy this at all.

Dan

 

Physically built better? Less likely to be broken? More reliable?

Our Music Macs have been struggling in the last 24 months and they are 7/8 years old. They were not cheap (around 4x price of Windows PCs I buy now) but compared to the spec I would buy I’d still be saving quite a bit. You can get equivalent “pretty” looking PCs which we have but because they are in an area widely used and frankly abused the PCs have struggled. USB ports galore are broken, cables constantly unplugged, even the occasional smashed screen costing around £150 to repair.

 

Our Macs have survived better because they are used a lot less, physical looked after and the software installed has been unaltered in quite a few years. Our Windows PCs are generally used all day to the point we struggle to gain access to a single IT suite during normal hours, their software changes occur far too often. We've got Windows equipment far more reliable than those Macs but others far worse. All down to being looked after.

 

I don’t spec a £500 PC that does internet, word and a bit of Photoshop once a blue moon. What we’ve done is put a teacher Windows PC in the Music room to see if a slightly higher than normal spec can keep up with the job (it has so far).

 

After all the debates that has occurred here, it all came down to one thing "preference". If you're a full Mac system it makes no sense to then revert to Windows PCs > training > software purchased > licenses > servers configuration etc. Likewise if you're a full Windows setup.

 

Let’s face it, many of us here have Macs (certainly my experience) because the Head of Music walks in with their MacBook and has a Mac at home and instantly compares it to your Music PCs.

• Which are 50%+ slower through domain logging on compared to the home Mac which turns on and is ready

• Are most likely 5 years old on average

• A ton of software etc installed

• Low specifications through having no budget

• Not looked after

• Reimaged about once every two years through lack of time

 

And I for one can speak from personal experience directly with the above. Hell once we had a suite of PCs that the Head of Music (a previous school) organised himself, they were fully custom built from a local owned shop (no joke), he did his own networking, installing and setting up.

 

We ended up redoing the entire thing, struggled to create an image for the poorly built machines and had endless amount of errors etc… in the end the Head again fell in to believing that the Head Music could fix the entire thing by having a full set of Macs. Those Macs like many of us at first were for "turning on and go" then they want network drives, logons, security permissions, customisation - none of it pre organised or planned....

 

Another clean up mess which was made relatively perfect by one of the IT team. The Head at the end of it all admitted that he shouldn’t have believed in the usual “gunk” that comes from Heads of Music (sorry but my experience).

 

We are at the stage where we are considering either replacing them with new Macs/Server or PCs. We’ve got a site wide Adobe license so we have the Windows equivalent. It’s a question of what the HT/Music Teacher wants to spend. I will revise my report and leave it in their hands.

Edited March 8, 2017 by mthomas08

[Stormborn15]

Just come across this post - interested in more views on this...

Potential new build coming up. We are a macbook for teachers school with imacs and mac minis around as well.. opportunity to save money and get decent windows machines.. but veering towards sticking to macbooks ?... initial cost high.. and maintenance can be costly but... (barring accidents) good longevity and fairly easy to manage...

 

Thoughts?...

[3s-gtech]

Agreed that Macs can make sense for you, but I think Macs/Windows need a whole usage case to be looked at. What do you need to run, and what will you be looking at in the future? How good is your infrastructure to support them (server, storage etc). How is training for staff to use them going? Do you have a channel for repairs?

[Stormborn15]

Agreed that Macs can make sense for you, but I think Macs/Windows need a whole usage case to be looked at. What do you need to run, and what will you be looking at in the future? How good is your infrastructure to support them (server, storage etc). How is training for staff to use them going? Do you have a channel for repairs?

 

Being a primary and using GAFE extensively, once the macs are joined to AD, and ARD, they seem to manage very well here. Any new staff who are new to Apple, after initial training and pointers seem to work it out and manage well also. I tried to set up a mac server, but haven't really missed it since it kind of died following a server rebuild.. Repairs are done by a local company where we have built up a good working relationship..

Though not sure how long that would work if Apple keep changing their specs..

Accessories can be costly..

 

My only bugbear is that Office staff got moved to iMacs ( inherited decision) and they still struggle when dealing with windows specific software they need more than teachers.. we have also almost moved away from office for teachers.. not many using it now..so could ditch the licensing for that..

[3s-gtech]

We have RDP for staff on Macs that need to use Windows applications (mainly SIMS). Obviously licensing that alone can be costly, but depends on your school-wide setup.

[Sheridan]

We went with the attitude that 'why do you need a mac over a PC?' as in most cases the extra cost couldn't be justified.

 

We also have a suite of 2009 Macs which are working fine still, but we also have a good amount of 2009 era PCs which are also working fine so the TCO of Macs in our case would be higher.

[Snoochieboochies]

I've always viewed Apple products in a similar vein to designer clothes.

 

They are over priced for a reason.

[keyboards]

Where money is a massive issue in education don't see how schools can go with Macs.

[Norphy]

Where money is a massive issue in education don't see how schools can go with Macs.

 

That depends on various factors. You can't take the cost of the Mac in isolation. You have to think about the whole picture. For example:

 

Lets say for the sake of argument that my music department has a load of Macs for which they use to teach Logic. They're up for renewal this year. What's cheaper? You might shout "Buy a PC" but is it really?

 

Yes, a Mac Mini is more expensive than a PC from Dell. However, Logic is very cheap compared to similar sequencers available on Windows such as Sonar or Cakewalk. Last time I looked, a Mac Mini with Logic on an educational license was very close in price to a Stone PC with Sonar, even with the additional cost of the Mac management solution we were using at the time.

 

You then have the cost of training and teaching materials to take into account as well. Not only would the teacher or teachers have to get used to a new OS, they'd also have to learn a new software package. That takes time and it will probably take money too. The school would also have to buy or produce new teaching materials as well, again not a free exercise. The training and teaching material costs might not be coming out of your budget but the school would have to pay for them.

 

I'm not saying that the Mac is always going to be the better value or cheaper solution. That would be stupid. I am however saying that you need to look at more than the initial sticker price when you decide whether you're going to get them or not.

[3s-gtech]

Agreed. Logic is ridiculously cheap for what it is, and damn good it is too. Add in that Garageband is a great package too, and its equivalents on Windows aren't cheap either. That's where the costs get more interesting and a PC doesn't necessarily work out cheaper.

[mrnoisy]

We have approximately 200 iMac. 50 MacBooks running alongside our windows infrastructure. Macs all day long for me, they just work, yes they are costly to repair but they are well looked after.

[Stormborn15]

It's not an easy one ... pros and cons for both.. windows machines cheaper , but don't last as long, logins begin to be a pain once updates start to kick in etc... bloat ware...

[Sheridan]

It's not an easy one ... pros and cons for both.. windows machines cheaper , but don't last as long, logins begin to be a pain once updates start to kick in etc... bloat ware...

 

I've found our windows pc last easily as long, we don't have a problem over time as we run regular scripts to purge profiles etc. The iMacs we have are harder to update though! Putting an ssd in an iMac takes a lot longer than popping one into a standard pc case.

 

Having said that, windows 10 is now an entirely different matter [emoji35]

[Stormborn15]

Ah - yes.. Windows 10 ... forgot about that ... clinging onto 7 for as long as I can for the few windows devices we have [emoji15] .. another pro for macs there lol

[mthomas08]

Just come across this post - interested in more views on this...

Potential new build coming up. We are a macbook for teachers school with imacs and mac minis around as well.. opportunity to save money and get decent windows machines.. but veering towards sticking to macbooks ?... initial cost high.. and maintenance can be costly but... (barring accidents) good longevity and fairly easy to manage...

 

Thoughts?...

 

As a Mac build it makes much more sense to stick to Apple. In the current financial climate though you may want to seriously weigh up the options for Windows.

 

We are Windows and my IT budget has been cut, now for any expenditure people will need to provide good arguments not just "it looks pretty". For us we have a plan B to switch from Macs to PCs which would save us a lot of money. At the end of the day though it's up to those running the school not me.

[gaz350b]

We've found it becomes an issue with keeping up with updates in OS X. The move away from workgroup manager to profile manager has been a farce. If you are only updating a small amount of macs every 5 years. You basically have to pay for upgrades on all kinds of software, not because you want to buy simply because you have to as it will no longer install.

 

We simply don't have the budget to go creative cloud, update logic, upgrade Sibelius and so on.We'd need to basically rip out all our mac infrustructure and start again.

 

iMac keyboards are expensive to replace and easy to break.Every other version of SMb seems to have its quirks and breaks permissions or something else on home shares.

 

I'm looking at a bill of £40k for our iMac update where as I have priced a comparable upgrade at £25k that could be deployed in 2 days using our current win 10 image with additional tweak.

 

Having a low number of highly intergrated macs in our network simply doesn't make sense to me any more with all our other time pressures.