Apple set to revive the Mac product line and IBM expands MAC usage

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Apple is preparing to re-energize the Mac, and it has a surprising new ally in old arch-enemy IBM.

Expect Mr Cook to fry up some big Mac news this Thursday as Apple hold a press event with focus on the Mac product lines: Expect new Mac Book and Mac Book Pros with possible new iMacs and Mac Pros. Apple has been behind the curve in Mac development especially in deploying the latest Intel chips.

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For Apple’s fiscal Q3 2016 that ended in June, iPad sales fell below 10 million units for the first time in 20 quarters–Q3 2011. This was the lowest ebb in a three-year slide from a high of 26 million iPads sold in Q1 2014 (which ended December 2013).

Meanwhile, Mac unit sales hit an all-time high in Apple’s fiscal Q4 2015 (Aug-Sep 2015), but have lagged the last three-quarters as Apple delayed in updating its Macbook Pro and Mac Pro lines. Its new MacBook line, which has replaced the MacBook Air laptops, has also seen muted interest–despite its impressive design–mostly because it only has a single USB-C port. Plus the Mac Books seem expensive in comparison to the Air models. The base 12” Mac Book starts at £1049 while the base 13” Mac Book Air retails at £849.

The Apple announcement is set for Thursday Oct 17th live at 6PM UK time.

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In light of Microsoft’s price increase announced today, it is only a matter of time before Apple slap 15% on the price of the Macs.

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Big Mac user

On a related and somewhat amusing note that must annoy Lenovo, IBM recently reported that it’s rolling out Macs to its staff at a rate of 1,300 per week. It’s part of a program that IBM started in early 2015 when it began offering Macs as an option to its 400,000 workers. The initial goal was to deploy 50,000 Macs to willing participants. A year and a half later, over 90,000 Macs have been deployed and IBM’s Fletcher Previn says the company will cross 100,000 by the end of 2016–making it the world’s largest Mac deployment. A huge change from the company that pioneered the original IBM PC.

At the Jamf conference last week, Previn said 73% of IBM employees now want their next computer to be a Mac. IBM is happy to accommodate because the company has found that Macs cost the company less to maintain. Last year at the conference, IBM said Macs were saving the company $270 per user. This year, they upped that number to $273-$543 (depending on the model) per user over four years. Previn said PCs generate twice as many support calls and cost 3X in total. “And this reflects the best pricing we’ve ever gotten from Microsoft,” he said.

This relates to our first-hand experience in moving to Macs reduce the support costs and increases the users happiness. Macs remain our recommended platform for all users.

 

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