[LINK] End User PC TCO

[Bernard Robertson-Dunn]

For those who are unaware of the issues re TCO of an enterprise desktop 
or laptop computer, you might care to visit The Register at:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/17/pc_desktop_total_cost_of_ownership_whitepapers/

The paper by Microsoft is not bad, although I suspect they have 
underestimated some costs and omitted some others.

Microsoft would not want to put a bad spin on desktop TCO but have still 
come in at a TCO of about four to five times hardware cost over four years.

Re educational computers, a cheaper computer would probably just 
increase the HW/TCO ratio and there would be differences between an 
enterprise environment and an educational environment. However, I can't 
see a student user population being any easier or cheaper to support 
than an enterprise user base.

Nothing I have seen or read recently has changed my view that the TCO of 
end user computers in a large scale environment is between five and ten 
times purchase price.

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Regards
brd

Bernard Robertson-Dunn
Canberra Australia
brd at iimetro.com.au