Jason Powell - Church IT and Other Musings: 2 posts from April 2013

Continuing from Part 1 ...

One of the questions that arose from the Part 1 post was how we arrived at the $2100 figure. It actually ended up being $2300. This amount would cover the purchase of a 15" macbook pro with 4GB ram, 7200rpm 750GB drive, 3yr applecare, and extra power adapter (for home), which at the time totalled $2300. While we would actually recommend the 13" air to end users, we knew some would want/need a larger screen so we made sure to accomodate a need for a 15" mac laptop. Our 13" air config included 4GB ram, 256GB SSD, 3yr applecare, extra power adapter, external super drive (if needed) and rounded up to $1800...another reason we pushed the air over mbp :-) Again, anything beyond $2300 and another dept would have to pick up the overage. We had a few staff that went a little over due to job role needing the highest proc and additional ram (which we buy from OWC and install ourselves) or opting for the 17" macbookpro, but the majority of staff have went with the 13" air.

Today we still recommend and default to the 13" air for our staff. We've bumped the ram up to 8GB on the standard i5 model which is still under $1800 ($1720) with our config. AND today we'd also recommend the 13" retina macbook pro ... with our config it comes to $1904. I used a macbook air for about 2 years and even ran some Fusion win7 vm's on it. With 4GB ram it was tight running VM's on it, the 8GB air I tested handled VM's much better. I figured if an air worked great for me, it should work well for the majority of our staff :-)

I switched to a 13" retina macbookpro in Feburary for testing and have REALLY liked the increased screen real estate over the air. It's a tad heavier and gets warmer, but I'll take that for the extra pixels. I should also note that while at work I jack into a 27" apple display. So yes, the air and 13" macbookpro can drive a 27" display with no problems.

Another thing we've discovered over the past 2 years ... spinning hard drives and macbooks don't do well together...even 7200rpm drives give way more spinning beach balls than they should and don't even bother with the 5400rpm drives. We have had good success by upgrading 15" macbookpros with 750GB hybrid drives, but we strongly recommend going SSD on new mac purchases.

We usually buy our macs/apple gear from our local apple store where they match WCA's discounted Apple pricing which is roughly 10% on most items. Having their store 1 mile from GCC is a VERY nice plus! It took some work to create a good relationship with the local store business team, but today they really seem to go to bat for us. We've also had success getting even better pricing on large volume purchases from ITSavvy, mostly due to their ability to heavily discount applecare. Another option is buying refurb gear from Apple. We've gotten several refurb 13" airs for $900-1200 and had no problems with them. I know some churches get their Apple gear from CDW as well.

What do we do when a user wants a windows laptop? So far it's been rare, but it has happened. For instance one of our graphics arts designers is a windows power user and she had no interest in switching to a mac. No problem! Except we did have a problem ... what to recommend to her. The Dell Latitude lineup at that time was franky quite ugly. True, being ugly shouldn't dismiss a technology decision, but that goofy orange on the Latitudes was bleh! After much looking around and stalling our recommendation, Dell introduced their "air" competitor in the XPS13. It was sexy looking and had very similar specs to our 13" air config...except for a lamer rez screen. Probably the biggest disappointment was that this Dell was MORE than our air config coming out to $1967+shipping! Here's the invoice :-) But, as you can see, we did purchase it and she's been very happy with the XPS13 and that's a win.

We've still not landed on what I'd call the perfect PC version of the air. We thought the nicely priced $800 14" Vizio ultrabook would be a win, but the keyboard on it stinks. We had a couple staff test it and all of them turned it back in saying the keyboard was a deal breaker. Rats! We still have a couple more ultrabook options we'd like to try ... and we need hurry up as we have a couple users on the refresh list this year that have already requested to stay PC vs switch to mac. We've also had a couple staff test windows8...so far nobody liked it, and my personal experience with it was pretty frustrating as well. This stinks since many of the newest ultrabooks have no option for coming with win7 vs win8 installed.
[edit 4/16/13: Just ordered a refurb Dell 6430u. Hope it works well in testing]

I didn't mean this next blog post to be all about the hardware costs, but that's how it turned out. Hope it was helpful :-)

I'll get back to the transition process in Part 3 ...

Hard to believe it's been 2 years since the below email was written which put into motion perhaps the most significant IT transition at GCC to date. Up to this point, TechOps didn't officially support macs. Sure we'd help the few mac users on staff as best we could, but it was best effort only and you were not assigned a mac unless your job/software required it.

Fast forward two years later and we've watched the number of staff using the mac platform increase to almost 70% and our overall computer ratio shift to 52% macs (out of 150ish machines). And we've not started any computer refreshes yet in 2013, so the above stats will shift soon to reflect even higher ratios of fruit :-)

As people have heard about our transition, I often get asked what started the wheel rolling? Well, it's a culmination of many variables and discussions around how to address the consumerization of IT for our organization...which lead to the email you'll find below. This email is thus the actual catalyst that got us to where we are today.

Keep in mind this is now a hair over 2 years old and what works in our environment may not work in yours...

==========================================

Date: Friday, March 25, 2011 2:54 PM
To: Tim Stevens, Kem Meyer
Subject: GCC laptop proposal draft

Tim/Kem [For those that don't know. Tim Stevens is our Executive Pastor, Kem Meyer is my boss...both of them were long time windows power users with zero mac experience]

Here's my working draft for upcoming computer refreshes at GCC … it's a work in progress. Kem suggested I get what I've got so far in front of you both to help field any questions that may pop up as new test computers get rolled out.
Also note I'm leaving out whatever macs that have been bought buy Arts, GSM, etc since those were not TechOps purchases.

As you probably are aware, we have not purchased any new desktop computers in 5+ years nor any new laptops in 3+ years. This means everything is now outside of warranty support. If there's a hardware issue, we have limited options for repair, which usually includes buying parts of ebay and doing surgery to attempt extended life for the device. It works, but is not optimal :)

So taking the above into account, along with an emphasis on anywhere/anytime access from The New Normal project and our own CommWebTechOps 2011 vision and of course other variables, here's what I'm proposing over the next 2 years…

Transitioning to an all-mobile hardware platform for end users. No more desktops unless it makes sense for a specific job role/function.

PROS:

Laptops require far less power than desktops plus they'll be traveling home with users instead of being left on in the office overnight. This saves GCC not only electrical costs, but also cooling.
Staff office moves will be no biggie if TechOps doesn't have to move everyone's computers around! w00t!
Studies show increased worker productivity for mobile workers. You guys already get this since I bet you'd rather die than give up your laptops for a desktop ;-)
The lines between work and personal continue to blur. Staff keep buying personal laptops and bringing them to us asking to make them able to do basic office/email functions. Might as well provide them with something that can serve their needs for work and personal while allowing TechOps to keep things standardized which helps everyone in the long run.

CONS:

Laptops are more much more expensive to purchase than desktops
Laptops require battery replacements over time
Laptops are more prone to accidents
Laptops see significantly more wear-n-tear

In my mind there's no doubt moving to laptops makes sense for the staff culture at GCC and the Pros far outweigh the cons.

I've been thinking about moving this direction for more than a year. Just haven't had any $ to do so until this year. I've also talked with other churches that have made the transition toward all mobile…most notably my pals over at LifeChurch.tv so this isn't really a new idea for me. It's been simmering for a long while :)

Perhaps the more radical shift is giving users the option of mac or windows. We're finally in a place where we have necessary tools and know-how to adequately support mac users, helped in huge part by the latest mac Outlook2011 client. It's still not as good as Outlook2010 for windows, but it's finally a viable solution. We also now have software (CrashplanProE), which will allow enterprise class backups for macs – another huge stumbling block for us supporting macs in the past, as timemachine is NOT an enterprise solution.

PROS:

In talking with other churches supporting dual platform most indicate a far lower % of support needs from their mac users. For sure many variables are hidden in that data as to why, but data still shows that macs typically require less load on IT staff. Of course we don't see a lot of support needs from our windows users either.
Over 40 of our staff have iPhones and thus use iTunes and apps. iTunes works much better on the mac OS (I'm sure by design). Keeping all devices under one 'ecosystem' simplifies life for the end user as well as IT.
Apple is 'sexy' and I think our younger staff gravitates toward that. Plus I guess it could be seen as lending some credibility to our staff being in tune with the culture?
More freedom/flexibility with OSX operation system fueled further by the recent addition of the app store for macs.
So far mac OS isn't a big enough target for virus/malware writers.

CONS:

All the fanatic apple users making cracks about "oh, you finally seen the light?" and other such fanboi comments that make me wanna hurl then PUNCH them with my fist.
Macs are more expensive than similar equipped Dell…it's gotten closer over the past few years, but still there's a gap.
Apple has no "real" enterprise class support nor accidental damage coverage. I am looking at 3rd party options for accidental coverage.
Troubleshooting issues on mac is much harder.
When it becomes financially beneficial, virus writers will go after macs. When that happens we'll have to find ways to best protect macs.

Transition plan of attack
Current laptop users would be first in line to get replacements. Then their current hardware would be trickled down to staff currently w/o laptops with hopefully enough spares to take care of break-fix needs until next year when they'd get option of something new.

I have $X earmarked in my budget for laptops. Currently proposing each staff be "earmarked" up to $2100 for purchase of a new Dell Latitude E series or Macbook when their time for refresh comes due. Anything additional they'd like (higher rez screen, faster/bigger hard drive, accessories, etc) above $2100 would be charged to their dept. The plan is also that this will be their laptop for at least 3 years and more likely 5 depending on role.

Staff interested in switching to a mac would need their supervisor to sign off that their job role doesn't require windows specific software. We will not allow nor support the loading of bootcamp, parallels, or vmware on a mac so user can run a virtual windows session. If you need windows to do your job then you need a Dell. Again, thanks to my friends at other churches I have copies of the paperwork they have staff/supervisors sign that spells all this out :)

My guess is that, given the choice, most staff will opt for a mac and that in 2 years GCC will be mostly mac laptops. Windows servers and such will still be at the core of the server infrastructure, but clients will be predominately mac.

I've spent a lot of brain cycles over the past year trying to navigate this "consumerization of IT" trend that continues to grow and I strongly feel the above proposal will help our staff be more productive and happy in the long run. Because this is such a radical shift for us I'm planning to do a big blog post to point people to that have questions.

And Tim, although your laptop isn't super old, I'd be more than happy to put you in our coming mac Guinea Pig testing group if that would help you. I think you're very much like me in that I very much dislike being labeled as a "mac user" just because of all the baggage/crap it carries.

So there ya have draft proposal version 1.
Look forward to your feedback and questions.
Jason
=======================================