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There could be other biases too. For instance, if the Mac users at IBM were in largely technical roles (e.g. working on their MacOS integration service) vs larg

There could be other biases too. For instance, if the Mac users at IBM were in largely technical roles (e.g. working on their MacOS integration service) vs large non-technical departments working on Windows machines (e.g. HR and accounting). It wouldn't be very surprising that technical departments had less help-desk complaints than non technical departments.

busterarm 10y ago
Not always. One of the software/hardware architects at D.E. Shaw Research (with a Ph.D. from MIT) was _legendary_ among our support team for filing and expecting followup on scores of internal support tickets for minor and often non-reproducible issues like the behavior of his laptop touchpad buttons or weird one-off website behavior. He filed tickets for everything and almost always for things we couldn't do anything about. I'll never forget his name for that reason alone. He was, and I imagine still is, a serious drain on the support staff. Totally brilliant though.
- dwidget 10y ago
  He probably just figures it's delegating minor roadblocks so he can get to the 'important stuff'. If I could get a whole team dedicated to smoothing the highway in front of me of every little thing I probably would stop differentiating what was a pebble vs a tack. If he's the source of enough funding to pay for more than all of the man hours then it's more or less justified even if frustrating/frivolous. He's a cog and tripping up the workflow costs money. Idk, I've seen a lot of dev guys try a lot of fruitless troubleshooting on systems when it would have been better to blow away the entire install and load up only necessary components...the troubleshooting cost a lot more because of the disparity in their paycheck and the revenue they brought in vs. the IT departments. The IT department should want calls since it reduces the disparity in earned department revenue, better showing the value of IT staff. Unless there isn't interdepartment accounting, in which case 'screw those time wasters, lol'.
  - busterarm 10y ago
    I see and considered the exact argument brought up, but he also wasn't unaware of the fact that we had an entire 1200-person staff to support on 4 continents. He filed at least three new support tickets like this _per day_. His group was also the company's moonshot offshoot project -- not bringing in the bread and butter of the business.
mamon 10y ago
It really depends. Developers may have better skills, but also have bigger needs, in terms of software we need to use on daily basis. And with things like proxy servers, ActiveDirectory, group policies, or antivirus softwarem which you cannot reconfigure or turn off, working on Windows can be real pain in the ass.
- raesene6 10y ago
  Realistically though those are organisational decisions not requirements of the Windows platform. there's nothing that mandates that a windows environment must have AD/Group Policies or Anti-Malware software, you can configure a stand-alone windows 10 PC quite happily without any of those. Personally I work in a Windows environment but don't sign into a domain. It's more that organisations demand that windows, which they understand, be configured in a specific manner. Some might say "ah well you've got to have A-V on windows or you get malware", but at actual technical level there's not a lot of reasons that MacOS is less susceptible to malware than Windows, and indeed its rise in popularity has seen more emerge
WayneBro 10y ago
There are definitely other biases. Macs simply can't do as much as Windows can in a business setting. That's why companies like Disney and Google have to build their own systems management tools. I could not imagine running a financial services house, an insurance company or a warehouse without Windows. Even simple software like remote desktop does not exist on the Mac. Yes the Mac has screen sharing but it is nowhere as good as remote desktop.
- rbritton 10y ago
  There's this[1] or are you looking for more functionality than it offers? [1]: http://www.apple.com/remotedesktop/ http://www.apple.com/remotedesktop/
  - slantyyz 10y ago
    ARD is functionally the same as RDP on Windows, but if you're used to the speed of RDP, it can be painful to use ARD even on a fast network. There aren't many things that Windows does better than Mac, but in my opinion, RDP is definitely one of them.
- greedo 10y ago
  You're speaking out of ignorance. There are applications like TeamViewer that are cross platform, if you don't want to use Apple's own Remote Desktop...
  - stirner 10y ago
    Windows' Remote Desktop feature is different from regular screen sharing. It's able to transmit data at a lower level than the actual pixels on screen, making it a lot faster.
    - greedo 10y ago
      And there's a Mac version distributed for OSX/macOS by Microsoft that's arguably superior to the Windows client. But I understand the RDP protocol. In a decent corp environment with a gigE LAN, the data compression benefits of RDP compared to TeamViewer or Apple's Remote Desktop aren't that necessary.
blinkingled 10y ago
It's also about how much 3rd party software is installed and how many complex features like Domain integration etc are used. I am fairly certain if you were to keep your usage limited mostly to browsing and email the support differences between Macs and PCs would be non existent. Trouble is your typical Windows PCs have a whole lot more 3rd party software (AV, Encryption, r likes of tanium , firewalls you name it.) And they do more too - whether or not the employees actually need that stuff. Most support calls are direct result of stuff like that - firewall blocked my program, AD password issues, antivirus causing CPU burn etc.

busterarm 10y ago

Not always. One of the software/hardware architects at D.E. Shaw Research (with a Ph.D. from MIT) was _legendary_ among our support team for filing and expecting followup on scores of internal support tickets for minor and often non-reproducible issues like the behavior of his laptop touchpad buttons or weird one-off website behavior. He filed tickets for everything and almost always for things we couldn't do anything about. I'll never forget his name for that reason alone. He was, and I imagine still is, a serious drain on the support staff. Totally brilliant though.

dwidget 10y ago
He probably just figures it's delegating minor roadblocks so he can get to the 'important stuff'. If I could get a whole team dedicated to smoothing the highway in front of me of every little thing I probably would stop differentiating what was a pebble vs a tack. If he's the source of enough funding to pay for more than all of the man hours then it's more or less justified even if frustrating/frivolous. He's a cog and tripping up the workflow costs money. Idk, I've seen a lot of dev guys try a lot of fruitless troubleshooting on systems when it would have been better to blow away the entire install and load up only necessary components...the troubleshooting cost a lot more because of the disparity in their paycheck and the revenue they brought in vs. the IT departments. The IT department should want calls since it reduces the disparity in earned department revenue, better showing the value of IT staff. Unless there isn't interdepartment accounting, in which case 'screw those time wasters, lol'.
- busterarm 10y ago
  I see and considered the exact argument brought up, but he also wasn't unaware of the fact that we had an entire 1200-person staff to support on 4 continents. He filed at least three new support tickets like this _per day_. His group was also the company's moonshot offshoot project -- not bringing in the bread and butter of the business.

mamon 10y ago

It really depends. Developers may have better skills, but also have bigger needs, in terms of software we need to use on daily basis. And with things like proxy servers, ActiveDirectory, group policies, or antivirus softwarem which you cannot reconfigure or turn off, working on Windows can be real pain in the ass.

raesene6 10y ago
Realistically though those are organisational decisions not requirements of the Windows platform. there's nothing that mandates that a windows environment must have AD/Group Policies or Anti-Malware software, you can configure a stand-alone windows 10 PC quite happily without any of those. Personally I work in a Windows environment but don't sign into a domain. It's more that organisations demand that windows, which they understand, be configured in a specific manner. Some might say "ah well you've got to have A-V on windows or you get malware", but at actual technical level there's not a lot of reasons that MacOS is less susceptible to malware than Windows, and indeed its rise in popularity has seen more emerge

WayneBro 10y ago

There are definitely other biases. Macs simply can't do as much as Windows can in a business setting. That's why companies like Disney and Google have to build their own systems management tools. I could not imagine running a financial services house, an insurance company or a warehouse without Windows. Even simple software like remote desktop does not exist on the Mac. Yes the Mac has screen sharing but it is nowhere as good as remote desktop.

rbritton 10y ago
There's this[1] or are you looking for more functionality than it offers? [1]: http://www.apple.com/remotedesktop/ http://www.apple.com/remotedesktop/
- slantyyz 10y ago
  ARD is functionally the same as RDP on Windows, but if you're used to the speed of RDP, it can be painful to use ARD even on a fast network. There aren't many things that Windows does better than Mac, but in my opinion, RDP is definitely one of them.
greedo 10y ago
You're speaking out of ignorance. There are applications like TeamViewer that are cross platform, if you don't want to use Apple's own Remote Desktop...
- stirner 10y ago
  Windows' Remote Desktop feature is different from regular screen sharing. It's able to transmit data at a lower level than the actual pixels on screen, making it a lot faster.
  - greedo 10y ago
    And there's a Mac version distributed for OSX/macOS by Microsoft that's arguably superior to the Windows client. But I understand the RDP protocol. In a decent corp environment with a gigE LAN, the data compression benefits of RDP compared to TeamViewer or Apple's Remote Desktop aren't that necessary.

blinkingled 10y ago

It's also about how much 3rd party software is installed and how many complex features like Domain integration etc are used. I am fairly certain if you were to keep your usage limited mostly to browsing and email the support differences between Macs and PCs would be non existent. Trouble is your typical Windows PCs have a whole lot more 3rd party software (AV, Encryption, r likes of tanium , firewalls you name it.) And they do more too - whether or not the employees actually need that stuff. Most support calls are direct result of stuff like that - firewall blocked my program, AD password issues, antivirus causing CPU burn etc.