Six Myths About Macs in the Enterprise

Want a Mac for work? Sure you do. Macs are powerful, sleek and super easy to use. Even your company's top executives probably have them.

But chances are you don't have a Mac. "Our stats do not show Apple's major uptake in the enterprise market," says Gartner (IT) analyst Mikako Kitagawa. "Apple's share in the PC market has been less than 1 percent in the last several years and has not changed."

RELATED: Macs take on the enterprise

Companies and IT departments have made all sorts of claims why Macs shouldn't be allowed to enter the enterprise, especially not en masse. Some of their claims make valid points. Others are more myth than reality. The so-called barriers to Macs in the enterprise range from the cost of Macs to ill-prepared IT staff to the lack of user justification.

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Want a Mac for work? Sure you do. Macs are powerful, sleek and super easy to use. Even your company's top executives probably have them.

But chances are you don't have a Mac. "Our stats do not show Apple's major uptake in the enterprise market," says Gartner (IT) analyst Mikako Kitagawa. "Apple's share in the PC market has been less than 1 percent in the last several years and has not changed."

RELATED: Macs take on the enterprise

Companies and IT departments have made all sorts of claims why Macs shouldn't be allowed to enter the enterprise, especially not en masse. Some of their claims make valid points. Others are more myth than reality. The so-called barriers to Macs in the enterprise range from the cost of Macs to ill-prepared IT staff to the lack of user justification.

Here are six concerns that hinder Mac adoption:

Do Macs Cost Too Much?

A recent CIO story, Are Macs Really Cheaper to Manage Than PCs, sparked a heated debate among readers who promptly took sides. Indeed, a Mac's price tag is the highest hurdle Macs need to clear for enterprise adoption.

Many CIOs claim that lower support costs offset the premium price for Macs. In fact, Tom Kelly, who wears two hats--CFO and CIO--at Healthcare IP Partners, brought Macs into a Windows-only enterprise a couple of years ago because he saw the potential for Macs to relieve desktop-support management headaches and cut support costs.

Not only do Mac users experience fewer problems, Kelly says, they also take ownership by either troubleshooting technical hiccups themselves or taking their Mac to an Apple Store.

An Enterprise Desktop Alliance survey found that Macs were cheaper in six of seven computer management categories: troubleshooting, help desk calls, system configuration, user training and supporting infrastructure (servers, networks and printer).

Mac naysayers, on the other hand, cite the high cost of Macs coupled with the overhead of having to support two operating systems. One reader writes: "User support cost-savings are eaten up by transition costs: backup, systems management, antivirus, office software, rights management, Excel/Word/PPT macros. All that stuff needs to be changed or implemented redundantly."

The truth lies somewhere in the middle.

Robert Pickering, vice president of information technology at AAA Allied Group, says the upfront cost of a Mac is significant. His standard-issue Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) laptop is around $1,000, whereas a Macbook Pro starts at $2,500 plus additional costly peripherals such as a docking station.

This cost difference means employees must make a compelling case to managers for a Mac--which isn't easy. "People often only look at what's coming out of their initial capital expenditure budget," says Pickering, a self-proclaimed Mac fan since 1984. "They're not looking at depreciation or residual value because those are three or four years away."

Yet Macs make up the cost difference during those years, Pickering says. AAA Allied Group has a PC refresh cycle every three years, and a three-year-old Hewlett-Packard laptop is basically worthless. Dim LCD. Crashed drives. Cracked casings.