As you know if you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, I own both a Mac and a PC. I’ve been a PC user since MS-DOS-only machines. Two years ago I switched to a Mac after having to do three complete disk wipes + reinstalls on my Windows machines (two desktops and a laptop) in the space of six months. I continue to own both systems, and am often astounded at the lack of business thinking people betray when they shrilly scream their throats raw about how much more expensive it is to own a Mac than a PC. Here’s my response. I’m approaching the question like a business person and will try to show why, for me, it’s not even a close comparison.
If you’re a pure home user, my points may not apply to you. If you run your own home business, however, read this carefully.
A friend (“Murgatroid”) just posted this to Facebook: My friend wrote: Linux is cheaper than Mac…I’m gradually migrating to Ubuntu for my everyday stuff.
I was horrified at this penny-wise, pound-foolish decision. Here’s my response:
Murgatroid, if you’re looking at cost, my guess is that you consider maintaining your system to be a fun leisure activity. If not–if you think maintenance is part of your business–you need to take a good, hard look at how you value your time. Your time is not free and in an economy like this, spending it networking, establishing a reputation, getting your name out there, and doing billable work is far, far more valuable than using your time to save a few hundred dollars on a computer.
I find “cost of computer” discussions to be void of business logic. You’ll use a computer for 3+ years (if not, you’re buying a toy, not a business device), and for many of us, it’s our #1 most important work tool (with our phone a close second). Over three years, you’re probably paying about 66% less per day for your computer than you pay for your cell phone or cable TV, even if you have a top-of-the-line computer.
“Ok,” you say, “but what about the price difference between PCs and Macs? PCs are still cheaper than Macs.” Although a case can be made that Macs and PCs are comparable when you factor in the configuration and performance details, let’s pretend a Mac costs $500 more than an equivalent PC. Fine. Over 3 years, that’s 45 cents/day. If you save a single day of your time in increased productivity or decreased maintenance costs over that entire three years, you’ve more than made up the difference.
I’m sure Ubuntu is a great choice for you. Not being a techie, I have found most of the free software to be incomprehensible when it comes to installation. I never get to the point of being able to try it because the learning curve just to find and install it defeats me much of the time.
Download these 16 different subsystems from 9 different open source archives. Make sure to use “uhbykgu -gye” to install them and not “uhbykgu -gyf” as you normally would. If you’re using the Glorp CC#% compiler, try using “-ggg” to enable the advanced infrastructure option, but only if you have a ZZTOP 234/8 Motherboard.”
In short: if you factor in the cost of my time, the cost of ongoing maintenance, and the learning curve of open source, for me, it’s a no brainer that the Mac is the best business decision by a wide margin.
A random price breakdown of factors people rarely consider.
The software bundled with the Mac alone easily makes up for a big chunk of the price difference. iPhoto, iMovie, Mail, Address Book, and iCal all come bundled on the Mac. While Windoze has a few bundled pieces of software, I haven’t found them as functional or speedy as the Mac applications. For my main productivity apps, Mail, Address Book, and iCal, there’s simply no comparison. You’d need to buy Outlook or Office to get that functionality on Windows.
To get the full Office equivalent on the Mac does require a separate purchase. A five-seat license of iWork ’09 (so you can run it on all your family Macs) is $99. One copy of MS Office for Windows is $379.95 for a one-seat license of the standard edition. I’ve used the iWork applications for two years now and once over the initial learning curve, I can produce everything I can with Office, only typically it’s faster and looks prettier.
Upgrades are cheaper. Apple users bitch about paying $100 for an upgrade to the Mac OS. A first-time purchase of an iWork family license is 25% cheaper than a single-user upgrade for Office. If you ever plan to upgrade, your Windoze is racking up $$ much faster than your Mac.
Software updates are smoother. If you’ve followed me on Twitter, you know I’ve twice had Microsoft Update apply some critical update and destroy chunks of my system. I’ve never had that happen with Apple. It doesn’t mean it won’t someday, but the Microsoft updates seem to do it once a year or so. Walking in to a busy workday to discover my computer needs 3 hours of maintenance to recover from a security update is not fun.
There’s far, far less maintenance. I once had brief responsibility for administering a network at my first job, and I got in the habit of keeping logs of all computer downtime, the reason, etc. Even my one remaining Windows machine–on which I install no new software, I spend more clock time each month doing maintenance activities of some sort than I’ve spent in two years on my two Macs. There’s simply no comparison. (“What do you mean disk space is low? I don’t use this machine and I cleaned up disk space a month ago? Oh. Poking around, I see the Windows Update patch installer has gradually accumulated 5Gb of installer files. Are these safe to delete? … research, research, experiment, experiment, pull hair out …”)
For enterprises, the math may be different. If you have to remotely administer a gazillion machines, maybe it really does make sense to use Microsoft enterprise-wide management tools. But that’s if you look at the cost of maintenance as hours-of-IT-staff-time only. If you factor in user downtime, user frustration, mysterious lost files, etc., your total enterprise-wide cost to own those Windoze machines still may be comparable.
Geeks are different.
Some people loudly cry, “But I just do the maintenance myself!!” Yeah, yeah, yeah. And your opinion is irrelevant to the other 99% of the population. If you happen to consider maintaining your Windoze or Ubuntu to be leisure activity, then that’s fine. But don’t pretend that your situation compares to those of us who want nothing more than to leave our computers on a desert island forever so we can get on with our lives.
People who have to pay for maintenance typically pay $80 for a program installation and rates that go up from there for anything serious. That doesn’t include the expense of shipping or driving their computer to the repair place and being without it for days while they diagnose and fix.
And that doesn’t even begin to account for their time. Because for most of us, fixing our computer does not bring time, money, or happiness to us. That means it’s an expense, pure and simple. Time I spend recovering from Windows Update is time I’m not doing work that would bring me income, or playing with things that would bring me happiness. If you’re self-employed, unless what you do is extremely low-wage, it’s almost never a good business decision to fix your own computer if it will take more than an hour or two to diagnose and fix, even if you’re capable of it. Over my 10+ years of Windows ownership, I gradually noticed that most of the time, any problem that took more than two hours to track down and fix would ultimately take days. I adopted a new policy: if I can’t find and fix it in two hours, I simply bite the bullet, wipe the hard drive, and spend the 12 hours it typically takes to reinstall, reactivate, and reconfigure my Windoze. Yes, it takes out a day (thus sucking up enough lost productivity to pay for multiple Macs), but at least it doesn’t take out a week, which is what it used to take with Windoze.
In short: for me as a business user, the Mac is cheaper. The software is much cheaper. The upgrades to the software are cheaper. Plus, the saved maintenance time is super-low.
I love the fact that you focus on the value of time (as well as quality of life) in your discussion.
I don’t see how you’ve factored in the fact that many corporate applications run under Windows only. Yes, one can install Windows on a Mac, but doesn’t that then mean that one must assume all the maintenance then?
I know that more and more applications are being moved to web architectures, but it’s a ways off until all apps are platform independent.
This is the main reason why corporate businesses don’t move to an all Mac solution.
Dead on. Having read this, what’s mystifying is that this isn’t the standard argument for Macs. My Windows-using colleagues lose something like a day a month to insane, needless Windows trouble.
THE precise reason I am slowly migrating to a 100% Apple environment. Btw, keep the podcasts, really loving them
Wow! You’ve really laid it out for us. The entire issue of automatic windoze upgrades rang loud and clear because my QOSMIO laptop (not cheap) has been significantly degraded in performance, despite all the “recommended” auto updates at 3am daily. Also, I recently completely deleted Firefox since it began to crash without warning ever so often. Using Homestead.com’s SITEBUILDER may have created this problem and won’t run on Explorer. As you point out lots of problems are invisible until after you begin using software of updates; worse yet, you (I) don’t have a clue how to identify which upgrade or which softward is interacting with or affecting or conflicting with what other.
Please add me to you list, as I’d like to stay in touch with you.
By the way, the next computer I purchase will be a Mac, something I have resisted 20 years for all the wrong reasons. You have utterly smashed all of my misconceptions
Very well put. I’ve been Mac only for six years now, and have only had one significant issue (laptops don’t enjoy being dropped on concrete floors, regaurdless of OS).
The only Windows machine I have had regular interaction with over those years has been my dad’s computer, which he uses to remotely login to his companies system. It has been nothing but trouble, crashing regularly and always shouting errors with no obvious source.
I understand that for personal use, Macs are not always the wise option for all users, but as far a business practices, there should be no question.
I always find these comparisons to be humerous as they usually show the bias of the writer. Most of the article is devoted to saying that Microsoft Office is expensive, but you negelect to say that Office for Mac costs the same as Office for Windows therefore it is moot and not a negative for Windows. With Windows you still can use Open Office for free.
Having used IBM-PC compatibles since their launch I am also amused at the comparisons that forget to look at the multitude of options for software and peripherals available for Windows based computers vs. the much fewer and usually much more expensive ones for Macs.
Mac vs PC is to me like the argument of Ford vs Chevy, or for the Cambridge crowd Lexus vs Mercedes, it comes down to personal preference and not much more.
Interesting post. As a previous PC-only sort of person, now an Apple-enabled lifestyle convert, I love the business argument angle beyond the “rabid fan” angle.
Another business cost to consider is the nature of one’s business. In our case our customers use both Macs and PCs, so for us, it’s important to experience the websites and online tools the way they experience them. Thus we continue to use both Macs and PCs.
Here’s an important distinction to understand about different “versions” of software for Mac versus PC. In many cases, these applications are put out by a single company, but the actual applications between the two platforms are in fact different programs, meaning the functionality differs between the Mac and the PC version. Two big business suites come to mind: Microsoft Office and Intuit QuickBooks. Yes, both versions can share the same data files, but both programs do not have the exact same functionality–lots of similarities and certainly overlap in the major functionality areas–not the same program and many differences at the detail level. (The technical term here is “a different code base.”) Consider that at Microsoft the Office team is totally separate from the Office for Mac team. I’m not as familiar with Intuit internal structure.
I mention this factoid because if you are, for example, an accountant for small businesses, you either have to have and know both platforms, or you have to make a business decision about which platform to support.
Yeah, yeah, I can hear you now, Stever: this only applies to the 2% of us who support other businesses with technology-based solutions, but it also applies to anyone who has a web presence. You should be working with your web provider to make sure your website is tested across different platforms and using different browsers. If you’ve made the switch to a Mac, it doesn’t hurt to wander down to your local library and check out your website experience on the PCs there. While you’re there check out a few business books. Borrowing makes good business sense too!
Bob: I never said Office for Mac was cheaper. I said that iWork for Mac is cheaper than Office for either platform.
Karen: As I said in the original post, I am not talking about enterprise customers. If you need Windows-only software, by all means, buy it. But I wouldn’t make a business decision by saying, “We need software X so badly that we’ll base our entire corporate infrastructure on Windows” without evaluating the full cost of that decision. It may be that the maintenance and productivity cost from Windows outweighs the benefit from software X.
And if not, please, revel in your software. I found the software I use all exists on the Mac or has a Mac equivalent from a different vendor.
I’m so sick of how long it takes for ANYTHING to work with my laptop that it’s outta here when it finally dies. It’s less than 3 years old, and I’ve replaced both hard drives, the CD/DVD drive, and the motherboard. Is it too much to ask for a computer to play nicely with other components and software? I give Princess the PMSing Laptop another 6 months before she finally gives it up and I’m free to get a MacBook.
There is a sort of a consensus that a MAC is more expensive than a Windows machine.
It is just not true. Fact: I switched to a MAC Pro about four months ago. Choosing the one quad-core processor configuration I paid about CDN$3100 plus tax.
To compare with a Windows machine I went on Dell website since I am familiar with it, and Dell has the best prices for any Windows PC (I had used exclusively Dell desktop and laptop computers for many years before switching to a MAC). I built a desktop computer almost identical to the MAC Pro I had purchased.
The Dell machine was CDN$50 cheaper than the MAC, but it used DDR2 RAM instead of DDR3 in the MAC.
A few days ago I purchased a 17 inch MAC Book Pro laptop for about CDN$3100 plus tax.
I did the same exercise with the laptop as I did with the desktop computer, and . . . surprise.
The Dell laptop was CDN$300 more expensive than the MAC Book Pro.
Obviously you can buy a PC for under $800, but not a MAC. But . . . you get what you pay for.
That was just hardware. If we would consider the difference in quality of the two operating systems than the MAC is quite cheaper than the Windows PC.
Stever,
I’m disappointed. The post was entitled “Don’t use price to choose a computer”, but it really turned out to be a Mac versus PC/Windows rant.
You made some valid points, but only because I kept reading and ignored the Mac vs PC angle. Anyone else would take home that angle and not the rest. The real gems got buried.
I wish you had kept it to what the title really suggested it was about. Price in and of itself is not the criteria. Factor in productivity (good tools versus mediocre), time spent difference in slow machine versus fast, maintenance and downtime, etc and the equations change. The article should have focused on that entirely, and thrown in a few examples like the Mac to support. But examples from multiple areas, not just Mac, so as to feel neutral.
Just my $0.02.
- JT
JT:
The article was in response to a discussion elsewhere claiming that PCs running Ubuntu or Windows are a better buy than Macs, because the purchase price of the initial piece of hardware is cheaper. Thus, the title. All the points I made were framed as Mac vs. PC, because that’s how 99% of the people in the world frame the question to themselves.
Though I’d love to believe that there are other players in the personal computer space, the reality is that Windows vs. Mac is really the only comparison that matters at the moment. No other platforms have enough penetration to be on the radar screen of 99% of the population. Perhaps in a few years, Chrome will be in the mix, but right now Windows, and Mac OS (especially if you include iPhone/OS) are the only two serious contenders.
Hopefully, though, the portfolio of costs comes across: regardless of what you’re buying, your total cost includes things like specific software upgrade costs, in addition to initial purchase costs.
Anyone considering other operating systems is likely techie enough that they’re making their decision on a whole host of other factors (which in my experience, usually include hackability, ability to combine in cool new ways with other things, etc.). Also as you may have noted, techies tend to be oblivious to non-direct, non-technical costs when they make their tech decisions (e.g. the time needed to install, configure, and maintain their system is “free”).
You must have really bad luck.. because I’ve been using this same Dell PC on Win XP for almost 5 years.. it runs 24/7 as I use it as a media server and have backups run at night. I have had ZERO hardware or software failures during that time.
I find maintenance to be minimal.. and I haven’t even contracted one virus.. and I don’t even use an anti-virus program. I don’t even know what maintenance you are doing by the way? I maybe defrag once a year.. but that’s about it.
I just don’t get where all the hate for PCs comes from.
also in reference to my previous comment it’s a laptop (Dell D810) not a workstation.