Macs Have Lower Management Costs Than PCs

In response to a survey conducted by the Enterprise Desktop Alliance, 260 IT administrators from large organizations with both Macs and PCs responded that Macs are less expensive than PCs to manage. In some categories such as troubleshooting, user training and help desk calls, three times as many administrators said that Macs cost less to manage.

29% of the respondents cited lower total cost of ownership as one of the key reasons their organization buys Macs. Overall 45% cited lower total cost of ownership, ease of technical support, or both, as a significant factor in their Mac purchases.

The full survey inquired about buying plans, IT management and administration issues, and the cost of managing the systems. Related to the cost of managing Macs, the survey asked the respondents to estimate the relative cost of a number of factors including: software license fees, time troubleshooting, user training, help desk calls, system configuration, and supporting infrastructure (servers, network, and printers).

"Administrators in organizations that have both Mac and PC platforms have the experience to determine whether managing Macs is less expensive," said T. Reid Lewis, CEO of Group Logic, and president of the Enterprise Desktop Alliance. "The members of the Enterprise Desktop Alliance provide products and services that make deployment and management of Macs easier to do."

The respondents were given the option to select from a range of cost differences. Not only did the administrators predominantly say that Macs were less expensive, in all but one category the majority of administrators who think Macs cost less asserted that they were more than 20% less expensive to manage than PCs. Of those who believe that PCs cost less, the majority always asserted that PCs were between 0 and 20% less expensive to manage than Macs.

	PCs are cheaper			Cost the same	Macs are cheaper
	20%	0-20%	Total		0-20%	20%	Total
Software licences fess	10%	12%	23%	47%	15%	16%	31%
Time Troubleshooting	7%	9%	16%	19%	27%	38%	65%
User Training	6%	10%	16%	36%	25%	23%	48%
Help Desk Class	8%	8%	16%	29%	22%	32%	54%
System Configuration	11%	15%	25%	34%	23%	27%	50%
Supporting infrastruture (servers,network,printers)	10%	15%	25%	28%	18%	19%	37%

The survey was conducted from December 15, 2009 until January 15, 2010, over 520 individuals from around the world responded to the online survey. This survey sought the perspective of enterprises and large-scale installations such as universities and government agencies.

For more information, visit www.enterprisedesktopalliance.com.

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