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> The fact that one has to struggle to name companies with large Mac deployments is a sign of the reality of Apple's ecosystem Or that companies don't advertiz

by mhurron 11y ago

> The fact that one has to struggle to name companies with large Mac deployments is a sign of the reality of Apple's ecosystem Or that companies don't advertize what they run as end user devices, because it's just not that competitively important.

rebootthesystem 11y ago
No. Go run an average business and see how impossible it is to make decisions that increase CAPEX by a 8 to 10 times without a really, really good value proposition attached. In other words, you'd have to be able to show how your 10, 50, 100 or 1,000 employees are going to be 2x to 10x more productive by adopting a technology that costs up to 10x more than some other technology. This ain't rocket science. This is simple arithmetic. But you have to understand how a businesses make such decisions without injecting emotion or platform preference into the equation. The owner of a small 5 or 10 person company can make the decision to spend 10x more for computers for her employees just because she likes Macs and feels they are great. And that's OK. You start to grow a company in scale and numbers start to add-up. And, if you introduce shareholders into the equation you, as CEO, now have to provide pretty solid justification for spending 10x on computers without a significant and measurable benefit on the table. Again, I am speaking about average companies here. I am NOT talking about SV or other tech shops where there's culture, familiarity, tools and massive profit margins that might very well justify handing every employee not just one, but two Mac, desktop and laptop. That is NOT the world as seen by the vast majority of the millions of businesses around the world, far from it.
- robin_reala 11y ago
  An employee doesn’t need to be 5X more productive with a computer that costs 5X more to break even. If you’re paying your employee $100k and a Mac costs $1k more than the equivalent PC they need to be 1.01X more productive with a Mac to break even.
  - rebootthesystem 11y ago
    Sorry, that's just wrong. Answer this question: How much should an employee make a company in order to be able to justufy HIRING her and paying her $100K per year. Remember hiring cost money beyond the obvious, there's everything from opportunity cost to up to $25K headhunter fees. Same for wages, it doesn't stop at $100K. Feel free to take 90 day, 6 month, 12 month and 5 year views. If you can't answer this question with a simple mental calculation and need to do a bunch of research and calculations you really don't understand business. Oh, yes, you should immediately ask a few questions: Type of business? Number of employees? Business phase/stage? Average profit margin? Country, city, state/province? Average overhead? Capex? And more? Feel free to answer these and other questions to create a business profile and then answer the question about hiring a $100K employee.

by mhurron 11y ago

rebootthesystem 11y ago

No. Go run an average business and see how impossible it is to make decisions that increase CAPEX by a 8 to 10 times without a really, really good value proposition attached. In other words, you'd have to be able to show how your 10, 50, 100 or 1,000 employees are going to be 2x to 10x more productive by adopting a technology that costs up to 10x more than some other technology. This ain't rocket science. This is simple arithmetic. But you have to understand how a businesses make such decisions without injecting emotion or platform preference into the equation. The owner of a small 5 or 10 person company can make the decision to spend 10x more for computers for her employees just because she likes Macs and feels they are great. And that's OK. You start to grow a company in scale and numbers start to add-up. And, if you introduce shareholders into the equation you, as CEO, now have to provide pretty solid justification for spending 10x on computers without a significant and measurable benefit on the table. Again, I am speaking about average companies here. I am NOT talking about SV or other tech shops where there's culture, familiarity, tools and massive profit margins that might very well justify handing every employee not just one, but two Mac, desktop and laptop. That is NOT the world as seen by the vast majority of the millions of businesses around the world, far from it.

robin_reala 11y ago
An employee doesn’t need to be 5X more productive with a computer that costs 5X more to break even. If you’re paying your employee $100k and a Mac costs $1k more than the equivalent PC they need to be 1.01X more productive with a Mac to break even.
- rebootthesystem 11y ago
  Sorry, that's just wrong. Answer this question: How much should an employee make a company in order to be able to justufy HIRING her and paying her $100K per year. Remember hiring cost money beyond the obvious, there's everything from opportunity cost to up to $25K headhunter fees. Same for wages, it doesn't stop at $100K. Feel free to take 90 day, 6 month, 12 month and 5 year views. If you can't answer this question with a simple mental calculation and need to do a bunch of research and calculations you really don't understand business. Oh, yes, you should immediately ask a few questions: Type of business? Number of employees? Business phase/stage? Average profit margin? Country, city, state/province? Average overhead? Capex? And more? Feel free to answer these and other questions to create a business profile and then answer the question about hiring a $100K employee.