| Chronology | Current Month | Current Thread | Current Date |
| [Year List] [Month List (current year)] | [Date Index] [Thread Index] | [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] | [Date Prev] [Date Next] |
At 0:16 -0500 11/6/02, Michael Edmiston wrote:
Now I will toss in a bit of Mac vs. PC. How short staffed is he? Does
I can see why Hugh said my network administrator sounds like a
dictator.
However, nothing could be further from the truth. It is because he
has
been overly accomodating, coupled with being short staffed, that his
life is hell. He doesn't run from one fire to another. He is
surrounded by fires. No running is necessary. He just turns around
and
there is another fire to put out. Most of the fires he deals with are
"unique problems" caused because someone is doing something special or
different.
he have, say one third, of the staff he needs? If so, then the
problem is he is using the wrong computer. There are any number of
independent studies out there that indicate that the people needed to
support a housefull of Macs is no more than a third of what is needed
to support the same number of PCs. This is what people mean when they
assert that, even though the Mac may be a bit more expensive up front
(not actually true for equivalent systems, but I'll grant it for sake
of argument) the cost of ownership goes way down when you factor in
the much lower cost of support and the about twice as long useful
life of the Macs.
But now, they have all that investment in PCs and it would cost a
whole lot up front to switch, so they won't. Too bad they got it
wrong the first time around. Your job and your successor's job would
have been a whole lot easier.
But they could make the switch piecemeal. The studies also show that
a mixed network of Macs and PCs, is cheaper to run than an all PC
network, especially if you use Mac servers which support PC's
transparently. That way, for a lot less than they spend now they
could actually have the best of both worlds--a mixed network where
everyone gets to use the machine they want to use, rather than having
to conform to a standard that may not work for them. I suspect that
if that was the option, the network would come down to pretty close
to 50-50 Macs vs. PCs. If there was ever a win-win situation, that
seems to me to be it.
Hugh
--
Hugh Haskell
<mailto:haskell@ncssm.edu>
<mailto:hhaskell@mindspring.com>
(919) 467-7610
Never ask someone what computer they use. If they use a Mac, they
will tell you. If not, why embarrass them?
--Douglas Adams
******************************************************
This posting is the position of the writer, not that of SUNY-BSC, NAU
or the AAPT.