I need studies that compare support costs and Total Cost of Ownership
between Macintosh OS X Computers, and Windows XP Pro computers in a
business environment.

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Clarification of Question by oregonfisher-ga on 03 May 2004 15:19 PDT

As I said in my question, I need bonafide studies that show how the
platforms compare. Conjecture and opinion are of no help to me. We
have all heard opinions, what I need is hard data.

Macintosh OS X Computers:  Cost way more up front.
Macintosh OS X Computers:  Getting windows people to convert --  $$$
Macintosh OS X Computers:  Less problems with virus, etc.

Windows:  Much cheaper up front in cost of hardware - compatiblity
Windows:  Viruses problems --creased tech support.

Windows vs Mac OSX .... oh no .... you will almost always get biased
personal opinions  !

There's a lot of info out there if you have time to go through it.

This google search might help you:
://www.google.com/search?num=20&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&q=%22mac+os+x%22+vs+%22windows+xp%22+cost&btnG=Search

Gartner (http://www.gartner.com) almost certainly has what you're
looking for, though you'll likely have to pay more than $50 for it. 
They specialize in providing analysis and hard data for this type of
question.

That said, you may have to narrow your query a bit to find useful
information.  Are you talking about desktop or server usage?  Is this
strictly for typical office applications (word processing,
spreadsheets) or are your users going to be running other, more
demanding applications (Photoshop, Mathematica, etc)?  The TCO  data
I've seen usually applies to specific types of intended use.

I would be surprised if you can find unbiased hard data like this
available online for free.  It costs a lot to put together, and the
sectors that usually pull together and offer hard data online
(academia, non-profits) don't have much motivation to address this
problem.  If you do find hard data, look closely at who paid for the
report;  I don't know about Apple, but Microsoft has commissioned a
number of studies that have been amazingly...um...optimistic in
examining the TCO for MS Windows.

(Disclaimer:  I have no relationship with Gartner or any other
for-profit research group, other than having purchased several of
their reports in the past.)

Here are a couple of links to summaries done by some educational groups:

http://www.usfca.edu/~trembath/smon/tco.html
http://corourke.customer.netspace.net.au/Mac/cost.html

Significant highlights:
"A  June 2002 study by Gartner found the cost savings of Macs over
PC's to be close to 36%." [note: Gartner created the industry standard
for measuring TCO - total cost of ownership]

"OS X has not been vulnerable to any viruses. Zero. Windows machines
have been attacked by more than 50,000.  Could this be the reason why
the FBI uses Mac OS X??  You make the call?
And it's not just OS's that are hijacked.  Microsoft IE is now
regularly hijacked by viruses, whereas there are no reports of Apple
Safari being thus abused."
"Macs last longer than PCs and are significantly simpler and less
expensive to operate in the meantime."

Unfortunately, the link on the pages to the Gartner study is dead, so
you can't check it out without paying Gartner for it. But the rest of
the first linked page has both factual and strong anecdotal support
for a lower total cost of ownership for Macs.

I hope this helps!

the internet archive at www.archive.org might have the gartner report.