Meanwhile, Microsoft has increased support for the Apple platforms, including developing Office 98 first for the Mac as well as providing the Web browser for Apple. Comments from Randy Ebeling Recently, several IT executives from the University visited with Steve Jobs, interim CEO of Apple. One visitor was Randy Ebeling, director of Administrative Computing Services. Ebeling commented that while the initial cost of a Mac may be higher than a Windows machine, most of the total cost of ownership is in training, support, software, and maintenance. Systems management resources cost money.
Less complexity requires fewer resources.
Fewer resources require less money. For Leibrock, the clear choice is Wintel. All of the enterprise Internet servers at UT Austin are UNIX-based. Zona Research does note, however, that large enterprise deployments are still UNIX-centric. UNIX is thus less likely to crash and more able to support the tens of thousands of users in the UT community.