Macs make life easier at IBM

By

IBM
IBM and Apple, together at last.
Photo: Apple

You might not think of IBM as a Mac-friendly place to work, but Fletcher Previn, VP of Workplace-as-a-Service at IBM might beg to differ.

Previn used to think like you do: that Apple PCs are more expensive, they’re challenging to support, and require a ton of re-training for help desk staff (who serve a 50,000 employee global work force on Windows PCs)

Turns out, that’s all fairly inaccurate.

Previn realized after meeting with Apple that Macs could be supported more like mobile devices are supported in the enterprise: with self-sufficient users that could help themselves rather than only relying on help desk support.

Using Casper Suite management software and a specialized Apple Device Enrollment process, IBM is now able to deliver a brand-new Mac to employees that prefer the platform and then allow those same employees to set up their own Apple device and add IT-approved apps, software, and configurations without any intervention from the IT staff or help desk.

As a result of this easy process, IBM is now able to deploy 1,900 Macs each week, for a total of 130,000 Macs and iOS devices in the company’s workforce. Those devices are supported by a tiny help desk staff of 24. It certainly helps, Previn said, that only 5 percent of Mac users call the help desk, as compared with 40 percent of PC users.

Macs make IBM’s IT life much easier.

So, while Macs tend to cost more up front in hardware than PCs do, but they tend to last longer and need much less IT support, resulting in large cost savings.

“Every Mac that we buy is making and saving IBM money,” Previn said.

Source: JAMF Software

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