Isle of Man Education Dept Apple Macs

[gill]

Just been told our school is looking at copying the Isle of Man and going down the Apple Mac route and I wondered if there was anyone out there from the IOM who had experience of how well or otherwise this has worked.

 

I'm always sceptical when I'm told that Macs never break down and that 4,400 Macs can be maintained by just 2 technicians.

 

What are the benefits or problems of getting rid of a very reliable network of pcs and laptops (450 machines managed by 2 techies) and moving over to Macs?

 

How does it save money unless of course the plan is to get rid of the technical support (me!) as these new machines won't ever break down!

 

Any info gratefully received.

[Flatpackhamster]

I'd be interested to know, too, because I just can't see how doubling your hardware replacement costs can save you money.

[localzuk]

The Isle of Man is no longer a haven for Apple computers from what I can tell (I grew up there, and have family over there - including my dad who is a teacher at one of the secondary schools). The primaries are still all Apple but the secondaries definitely aren't. They have a hybrid system with, from what I've seen, a majority being PCs now.

 

Regarding reliability - I'd be highly dubious of that claim. When I went to school there, the school was entirely Mac computers until the last couple of years, and during that time they had lots of repairs going on - the machines appeared to break just like PCs do. The support system over there is a hybrid also - with some onsite support (eg. network manager etc...) with the purchasing, repairs etc... being done by 2e2 (a managed service provider). So, their 'technicians' won't actually be doing anything 'techniciany' - they'll just be going in and boxing up units to give to 2e2 to sort out repairs.

 

Also, Apple computers do *not* double your hardware costs. They are marginally more expensive but that's it.

[Dos_Box]

Does this have to be in BTRD? Moving to Mac forum.