- At the 2019 Jamf Nation User Conference, IBM revealed the results of research conducted with employees using Apple Macs compared to PCs
At the 2019 Jamf Nation User Conference (JNUC), IBM announced the results of the research it conducted with its employees using Apple Macs compared to PCs. The research showed that employees who used an Apple Mac were more likely to stay with IBM and they also exceeded performance expectations compared to PC users. Ever since IBM announced the Mac@IBM program in 2015, the company now has over 290,000 Apple devices being used within its organization.
Jamf is the standard for Apple in the enterprise and it extends the Apple experience to businesses, schools and government organizations through its software and the 100,000 members of Jamf Nation — which is the largest community of Apple IT admins in the world. There are more than 35,000 global customers that entrust Jamf with over 15 million devices.
When IBM announced the Mac@IBM program on stage at JNUC in 2015, the company was deploying 1,900 Macs per week — which were all supported by 24 help desk staff members. This equated to about one staff member supporting 5,400 Mac users compared to one support staff member supporting 242 PC users. Plus IBM also found only 5% of Mac users called the help desk for assistance compared to 40% of PC users.
IBM chief information officer Fletcher Previn came back on the JNUC stage in 2016 to give an update on the Mac deployments. At that time, over 90,000 Macs were deployed and Previn pointed out that IBM saved between $273-$543 per Mac compared to a PC over a four-year span. And last year, Previn said IBM was managing over 277,000 Apple devices, all supported by 78 staff members. Plus Previn also revealed that IBM open-sourced its provisioning process to assist the Mac community in delivering the same new-hire experience as it does with its Mac@IBM program.
For 2019, Previn unveiled the first-of-its-kind research that shows how Mac enables IBM employees to be more productive and improve on employee satisfaction and retention. In terms of improved employee performance, there are 22% more macOS users who exceeded expectations in performance reviews compared to Windows users. And high-value sales deals tend to be 16% larger for macOS users compared to Windows users.
IBM’s research also showed that employees using Mac have a higher net promoter score than Windows users at 47.5 compared to 15 respectively. And they are also 17% less likely to leave IBM compared to those who are using Windows. Mac users have been happier with the third-party software availability within IBM. And only 5% of macOS users ask for additional software compared to 11% of Windows users.
Macs also require much less support. There are 7 engineers who support 200,000 macOS devices versus 20 engineers required to support 200,000 Windows devices. This is a 186% increase in support engineering needed for Windows devices. Migration is also easier for IBM workers using Mac as nearly 98% of macOS users report that the migration was simple compared to 86% migrating from Windows 7 to Windows 10. And Windows users are also 5 times more likely to need on-site help desk support compared to macOS users.
“The state of IT is a daily reflection of what IBM thinks and feels about its employees,” said Previn. “I’ve said it before – when did it become OK to live like the Jetsons at home but the Flintstones at work? We aim to create a productive environment for IBMers and continuously improve their work experience, and that’s why we introduced our employee-choice program to IBM employees in 2015.”
