IBM seeing great returns on over 277,000 Macs and iOS devices issued to employees

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in Current Mac Hardware
IBM revealed over 277,000 macOS and iOS devices have been deployed to IBM employees around the globe with the 130,000 Macs in-place leading to consistently less IT support required over PC counterparts.

IBM and Apple


During the annual jamf Nation User Conference, IBM made waves with the announcement that they are open sourcing their in-house Mac@IBM provisioning code that should fuel Mac deployments at other companies.

Fletcher Previn, IBM's CIO that was appointed roughly two years ago, was on stage at the conference to discuss how the deployment has gone since the landmark announcement that they would allow employees to choose between Macs and PCs in 2015.

Previn revealed that Macs make up 25 percent of IBM's 537,000 active laptops, with 150,000 new laptops provisioned each year. This is up from 85,000 in September of 2016.

Previn also shared details on the IBM's Employee Workstation Buyback Program. After four years, when their Macs are refreshed, employees have the opportunity to purchase their machines from the company at their current market price. Fletcher told AppleInsider that this program was not intended as a cost-saving measure, but as "the right thing to do" for their employees.

IBM Mac Deployment Stats and Support Tickets


As a nice side effect for the company, they've seen reduced tickets for damaged machines now that employees see it as potentially their own. As the number of deployed Macs has risen, the number of support tickets has largely not normalizing at between two and five percent.

IBM Mac Deployment Stats


A team of only 78 deal with all Mac-related issues that arise. When a Mac issue does pop up, 91 percent are dealt with quickly within the first contact with IT, as compared to 86 percent on Windows 10 devices. Additionally, 14 percent of Windows 10 issues involves dispatching IT personal desk side, more than double the 6 percent of macOS issues that require it.

During his presentation Previn also outlined other optimizations IBM has made to help reduce the IT burden of such a growing number of machines, including leveraging its Watson AI technology.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 26
    eightzeroeightzero Posts: 3,056member
    I've been of the opinion that companies and governments that employ tech workers (individuals that use computers as a production device) should cease employing IT professionals. Just maintain a wifi network and printers. Then give all employees some sort of allowance to buy their own machine. When it breaks, they have to pay to fix it. If it never breaks, they keep the difference. Simple economics will solve this problem neatly. People care about their property, and will participate when they have a personal interest in the outcome.
    muthuk_vanalingamSpamSandwich
  • Reply 2 of 26
    Apple should take note that people (and large organizations) are actually interested in their laptops.
    radarthekatSpamSandwichwilliamlondon
  • Reply 3 of 26
    65026502 Posts: 380member
    I love Macs and have had one at home for 25+ year. But, I rely on Excel a lot at work and Excel just sucks on a Mac, and it's just not worth emulating it when I can just use a cheap W10 machine.
    GeorgeBMac
  • Reply 4 of 26
    eightzero said:
    I've been of the opinion that companies and governments that employ tech workers (individuals that use computers as a production device) should cease employing IT professionals. Just maintain a wifi network and printers. Then give all employees some sort of allowance to buy their own machine. When it breaks, they have to pay to fix it. If it never breaks, they keep the difference. Simple economics will solve this problem neatly. People care about their property, and will participate when they have a personal interest in the outcome.
    There is so much wrong with that. 
    netroxmac_doglollivermacseekerradarthekatroundaboutnowGeorgeBMacjasenj1magman1979
  • Reply 5 of 26
    netroxnetrox Posts: 1,415member
    6502 said:
    I love Macs and have had one at home for 25+ year. But, I rely on Excel a lot at work and Excel just sucks on a Mac, and it's just not worth emulating it when I can just use a cheap W10 machine.
    So, Excel is the only software you use therefore Windows is a better choice. Got it.
    lolliverracerhomie3magman1979watto_cobra
  • Reply 6 of 26
    I'm glad IBM has embraced Apple computers.  They have a very intuitive App Store that I can use to update software quickly and effortlessly.  I can easily update the operating system (and being old school dealing with numerous WinOS versions) rarely has there been an issue after an update unlike Win10.  This is exactly why I moved off Win10 for home use because of the various OS issues.  I know my Mac will just work.

    I hope other large enterprises catch on to this.  Even though the initial investment is higher than a generic PC, over the lifetime the ROI is definitely higher with Apple as evidenced by this keynote.  Also there is less complaints and support tickets.  Apple is known to tightly integrate hardware with software, this is the cost benefit few in IT truly understand.
    radarthekatmagman1979watto_cobra
  • Reply 7 of 26
    65026502 Posts: 380member
    netrox said:
    6502 said:
    I love Macs and have had one at home for 25+ year. But, I rely on Excel a lot at work and Excel just sucks on a Mac, and it's just not worth emulating it when I can just use a cheap W10 machine.
    So, Excel is the only software you use therefore Windows is a better choice. Got it.
    Yes, that's pretty much what I said, thanks for paraphrasing it for me.
    franklinjackconGeorgeBMac
  • Reply 8 of 26
    waltgwaltg Posts: 90member
    6502 said:
    I love Macs and have had one at home for 25+ year. But, I rely on Excel a lot at work and Excel just sucks on a Mac, and it's just not worth emulating it when I can just use a cheap W10 machine.
    </blockquote I’ve always found that Excel itself sucks, open office products work great on Macs if you don’t want to use the Apple Numbers, both will bring in Excel files and generate on the output side Excel files I do believe. One of the major reasons I always disliked Excel is that MS has the need to swizzle it all around every new release and you always have to hunt for where they moved or ‘hid’ things....
    lolliverradarthekatmagman1979
  • Reply 9 of 26
    So, clearly, Steve anticipated this from the very beginning !!!!





     (Fake WSJ used by Steve in 1985 at shareholders meeting (a Chutzpah story told by Guy Kawasaki ....))
    edited October 2018 SpamSandwichwatto_cobra
  • Reply 10 of 26
    6502 said:
    I love Macs and have had one at home for 25+ year. But, I rely on Excel a lot at work and Excel just sucks on a Mac, and it's just not worth emulating it when I can just use a cheap W10 machine.
    Are you at least using Mac Excel 2016 (with latest updates)? It's a lot closer to the Windows version than it used to be.

    I consider myself fairly proficient on Excel, and find everything I need to do on the Mac version works well. But then, there are still plenty of advanced features that I don't use, so maybe this is where the comparison breaks down...

    What are you doing on Excel that sucks on the Mac version?
    GeorgeBMacmagman1979sreewatto_cobra
  • Reply 11 of 26
    This article fails to cite a source for 2018 results...
    SpamSandwich
  • Reply 12 of 26
    6502 said:
    I love Macs and have had one at home for 25+ year. But, I rely on Excel a lot at work and Excel just sucks on a Mac, and it's just not worth emulating it when I can just use a cheap W10 machine.

    Ummm, no.  Microsoft developed Excel for the Mac, and later ported it to Windows.  It is still a native application in MacOS and “emulating” is not required.  If you really have had a Mac for 25+ years, you would know that Excel on the Mac used to be much more advanced than the Windows version and in more recent years the updates have not always remained in sync.  Given the capabilities of Excel for Mac, you’d have to be doing some rather esoteric edge-case tasks in Excel in order for the Windows version to offer any advantage.
    Rayz2016magman1979watto_cobra
  • Reply 13 of 26
    eightzero said:
    I've been of the opinion that companies and governments that employ tech workers (individuals that use computers as a production device) should cease employing IT professionals. Just maintain a wifi network and printers. Then give all employees some sort of allowance to buy their own machine. When it breaks, they have to pay to fix it. If it never breaks, they keep the difference. Simple economics will solve this problem neatly. People care about their property, and will participate when they have a personal interest in the outcome.
    And data breaches will be all over the place.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 14 of 26
    hydrogen said:
    So, clearly, Steve anticipated this from the very beginning !!!!





     (Fake WSJ used by Steve in 1985 at shareholders meeting (a Chutzpah story told by Guy Kawasaki ....))
    Ha! Almost had me there but, yeah, Garamond font headline....
    hydrogenwatto_cobra
  • Reply 15 of 26
    hydrogen said:
    So, clearly, Steve anticipated this from the very beginning !!!!





     (Fake WSJ used by Steve in 1985 at shareholders meeting (a Chutzpah story told by Guy Kawasaki ....))
    Ha! Almost had me there but, yeah, Garamond font headline....
    (cult book "The Macintosh Way" - Guy Kawasaki  ISBN 0-06-097 338-2 (not so easy to find ...))
  • Reply 16 of 26
    The reason IBM is "seeing great returns" on Macs is that so many IBMers are leaving the company and handing them back.
    williamlondon
  • Reply 17 of 26
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    6502 said:
    I love Macs and have had one at home for 25+ year. But, I rely on Excel a lot at work and Excel just sucks on a Mac, and it's just not worth emulating it when I can just use a cheap W10 machine.

    Ummm, no.  Microsoft developed Excel for the Mac, and later ported it to Windows.  It is still a native application in MacOS and “emulating” is not required.  If you really have had a Mac for 25+ years, you would know that Excel on the Mac used to be much more advanced than the Windows version and in more recent years the updates have not always remained in sync.  Given the capabilities of Excel for Mac, you’d have to be doing some rather esoteric edge-case tasks in Excel in order for the Windows version to offer any advantage.
    I imagine by emulation he means getting the Windows version of Excel to work on a Mac, via virtualised Windows, or Crossover.

    I don't think it matters all that much that Excel for Mac used to be more advanced.  And I agree with him that there are some significant power user features of Excel that are not available in the Mac version, especially around data connectors and analytic add-ins.  These are not all that esoteric in a professional environment.
    GeorgeBMacjasenj1
  • Reply 18 of 26
    GeorgeBMacGeorgeBMac Posts: 11,421member
    netrox said:
    6502 said:
    I love Macs and have had one at home for 25+ year. But, I rely on Excel a lot at work and Excel just sucks on a Mac, and it's just not worth emulating it when I can just use a cheap W10 machine.
    So, Excel is the only software you use therefore Windows is a better choice. Got it.
    For many, spreadsheets are the primary user tool they use.  And, Excel is the industry gold standard for a reason.

    Apple knows (or at least knew) that its first obligation was to meet the needs of its customers and make their lives better.   He is simply pointing out that a Windows machine makes his life better.

    Steve knew that he couldn't be everything to every person.  His company still can't and never will.  That's just reality.
    6502
  • Reply 19 of 26
    GeorgeBMacGeorgeBMac Posts: 11,421member
    ...
      Apple is known to tightly integrate hardware with software, this is the cost benefit few in IT truly understand.
    True.  But that's only part of it.   Another facet that few can see or understand is that Apple maintains tight control over a closed loop.   So, when they make an update they know exactly what they are updating both from a hardware end and a software perspective.   It's one of the reasons why they object to user software customizations/hacks as well as user hardware repairs and modifications.

    Apple has been solidly criticized for its "walled garden".  But, while those criticisms have merit because the walled garden places restrictions on users, it also has a ton of (mostly intangible) benefits.

    Just as in medicine, every pill has its good points and its bad points.  
  • Reply 20 of 26
    GeorgeBMacGeorgeBMac Posts: 11,421member
    crowley said:
    6502 said:
    I love Macs and have had one at home for 25+ year. But, I rely on Excel a lot at work and Excel just sucks on a Mac, and it's just not worth emulating it when I can just use a cheap W10 machine.

    Ummm, no.  Microsoft developed Excel for the Mac, and later ported it to Windows.  It is still a native application in MacOS and “emulating” is not required.  If you really have had a Mac for 25+ years, you would know that Excel on the Mac used to be much more advanced than the Windows version and in more recent years the updates have not always remained in sync.  Given the capabilities of Excel for Mac, you’d have to be doing some rather esoteric edge-case tasks in Excel in order for the Windows version to offer any advantage.
    I imagine by emulation he means getting the Windows version of Excel to work on a Mac, via virtualised Windows, or Crossover.

    I don't think it matters all that much that Excel for Mac used to be more advanced.  And I agree with him that there are some significant power user features of Excel that are not available in the Mac version, especially around data connectors and analytic add-ins.  These are not all that esoteric in a professional environment.
    One of the last key systems I developed was a seamless, automated integration of a mainframe level financial application, Microsoft Access and Microsoft Excel -- tied together with macros and Windows commands.   I doubt all that would have been feasible on a Mac due to its walled garden approach.

    Pros often have a need for open architectures and power user features.
    That's not to trash the Walled Garden.  It has its advantages.   It also creates restrictions.
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