Macs Cost Less to Manage 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 said Macs cost less said they were more than 20% less expensive to manage than PCs. Of those who asserted that PCs cost less, the majority always asserted that PCs were between 0 and 20% less expensive to manage than Macs.

The respondents noted the following:
* Software license fees - 23%-PCs Cost Less, 47%-Cost the same, 31%-Macs Cost Less
* Time troubleshooting - 16%-PCs Cost Less, 19%-Cost the same, 65%-Macs Cost Less
* User training - 16%-PCs Cost Less, 36%-Cost the same, 48%-Macs Cost Less
* Help desk calls - 16%-PCs Cost Less, 29%-Cost the same, 54%-Macs Cost Less
* System configuration - 25%-PCs Cost Less, 24%-Cost the same, 50%-Macs Cost Less
* Supporting infrastructure - 25%-PCs Cost Less, 38%-Cost the same, 37%-Macs Cost Less (servers, network, printers)

About the Survey:
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. We excluded from the results all but the respondents from organizations with both Macs and PCs whose sites had 50 or more servers or over 100 Macs. Relative to management cost questions, in our reporting we excluded the responses of those who selected "Don't know" or "Not involved in cost calculations," which left 260 respondents for this section of the survey. See press release: "Enterprise Desktop Alliance Survey Reveals 66% of Enterprises Expect to Increase Mac Systems" (EDA Survey (PDF)).