Analyzing Mac TCO
Want an easy way to start a holy war? Aside from putting a major holy city from three major religions together in one convenient location, the easiest thing to do is start talking about the nebulous and nefarious TCO, or Total Cost of Ownership.
Let's face it, Apple faithful are going to have their end of the argument (stuff like Macs are made for graphics), and the Windows faithful are going to have theirs (Photoshop starts up faster on a PC). And then there's Linux, where GIF is pronounced JIF (that's a joke, no flames just yet please).
Winn Schwartau has made his stand, like it or not. He says Macs are cheaper overall, once you've accounted for all the stuff you have to do with a computer, not just the initial cost of buying one. Because, as we all know, PC's from Dell are always cheaper. You know, I have purchased three different home theater systems lately, and all of them were cheaper than Bose or Sony— and all of them died within one day of the box being opened. So don't go talking to me about purchase price...
Anyway, Winn not only makes a compelling case, stating the obvious, "Most enterprises do not want users installing software on their machines - they want a box to run mail client and browser, and a couple of Office applications," and the obscure, "owning a WinTel box for three years costs twice as much as owning a MacTel." Better still, back in September of 2005, Winn posted his TCO analysis spreadsheet and PDF, which wil walk anyone through the same process of calculations he used, and can be applied to virtually any system. Naturally, a holy war erupted on his blog. Read through the comments for a ton of fun, or just work the numbers yourself. Or you can give up and call it a draw, as James Maguire did in 2003. Really he said what we're all thinking: Apple stuff costs more, but makes for less headaches in general and that's the bottom line for small to mid-sized businesses. Apple's low cost pitch can be found here.
