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From: jseymour@medar.com (James Seymour)
Subject: Re: The PC Mac Holy war
Message-ID: <DrEMG1.BC3@medar.com>
Organization: Medar Inc.
References: <---0405961742330001@dyna-37.net7b.io.org> <4mo939$h3@dfw-ixnews1.ix.netcom.com> <4mr8um$qnb@azure.acsu.buffalo.edu> <olYLpsm00iVEQJDsU5@andrew.cmu.edu>
Distribution: inet
Date: Tue, 14 May 1996 16:43:13 GMT
Lines: 93
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[Newsgroups trimmed--may need more trimming, but given that he
published "stats"...]
In article <olYLpsm00iVEQJDsU5@andrew.cmu.edu> "A. Forest Godfrey" <ag5c+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:
[snip]
[Summary: Forest is a "student cluster mgr." and has compiled numbers
for maintenance requests for the various & sundry networked stuff.]
> ... Guess what I
>found? Exactly what I thought I'd find. ...
And so far as these numbers go, not surprising to me, either.
[snip]
>
> -- Forest
>These are all hardware maintainance requests. I must admit that Macs
>comprise the vast majority of all software maints.
>
>399 maint requests (this semester)
>Breakdown by Machine:
>192 Mac
> 42 PC
> 37 Printers
> 68 Unix
> 60 Unknown
>
>Total #'s of machines of each type - we have mostly Macs
>222 Mac (About evenly split between PowerMacs and Mac IIci's)
> 33 PC (Dell Pentiums and a few DEC 486 PC's)
>126 Unix (Half DECstation 3100/5000's and the rest are either HP 712's
>or SPARC
> 5's)
> 12 Printers (Mostly HP 4si's or 5si's. A few Apple LaserWriters)
>
>% of maints by type:
>Unknown: 15%
>Unix: 17%
>Printer: 9%
>PC: 10%
>Mac: 48%
>
>% of total machines of each type:
>393 machines
>Mac: 56%
>Unix: 32%
>PC: 8%
>Printers: 3%
>
I'm not so sure how useful these numbers are. In order for them to
be truly useful, you would have to adjust them for usage. Extreme
example: if a certain machine sat totally idle, you'd get few
maintenance requests for it. Such a machine might show up as an
"out-rider" and would be discarded from the stats. Likewise, a lone
"lemon" would likely be tossed.
I know Forest didn't *claim* there was any particular statistical
validity in these numbers, I just want to make sure that others are
aware of exactly what they're looking at.
I would imagine the most useful numbers that can be derived from
what Forest provided would be "maint. reqs. per machine type". But
again, that doesn't take into account the usage pattern or out-
riders. Any way, for convenience and what they're worth, here they
are:
Maint. Reqs. per Machine "Type", by Machine:
0.85 per Mac
1.27 " PC
3.00 " Printer
0.54 " Unix
Forest, if you're still with us: is there anything you can say,
even if it's just a "gut feel", about usage patterns amongst these
machines?
In closing, I couldn't help myself wrt this...
>| Vote Democrat! Your share of the national debt>$17,000 |
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
What? You think it oughtta be even *greater*? :-)
Regards,
Jim "lies, damn lies, and stats" Seymour
--
Jim Seymour | "Try moving off NT easily. You can move from
jseymour@medar.com | Solaris to HP/UX to AIX or DEC easily--
Systems & Network Administrator | relative to moving off of NT, which is like
Medar, Inc., 38700 Grand River | a Roach Motel. Once you check in, you never
Ave., Farmington Hills, MI. | check out." Scott McNealy, Sun Microsystems