Cost of Ownership of a PC

Acknowledgements to Euan Wilson (Staffordshire University)

What is it?

• Its just the purchase price of the price and that’s it !– Well not quite

• This lecture assumes that this is for an organisation rather than an individual

What do you get with the PC

• Operating System– included in the price ?

• What happens if you don’t want it ?

• Manuals

• Warranty period– and what type

• on site

• back to base

How long will it last ?

• 3 years ?

• 4 years ?– Need to budget for the “life” of it– May make financing easier

• Spread the cost

• Lease for 3 years

• etc.

Installation

• Operating system– may come pre-loaded– may need to alter / add

• permissions

• user ids

• IP addresses

• removal of games / none standard software

– 3d pinball, IE5 etc.

Installation

• Application installation– A minimum set would probably

contain• Office or equivalent

• email package

• anti-virus software

• backup software

• etc.

Installation

• Configuration management– Printer drivers– Screen drivers– Network servers

Cost of Installation

• Employ a software technician– realistically this process could take

three to four hours• so at £5 per hour this could add £20 per

machine

• but who covers the job while the techie is away

Alternative

• Ghost an image– provide the hardware vendor with a

copy of all the software that is required• usually costs about £50 per machine• but still leaves configuration management

– good for a small company and they can reduce the amount of technical staff employed

• has problems when the hardware specification is altered

Hardware failure

• How long does it take to fix?– Depends on the type of contract

• 4 hours, next day, 2 day ?

• Type of fix ?– Repair on site– Return to base– Hot swap out

Dealing with failure?

• What does the employee do without a machine?

– Nothing– use someone else?– Filling– make the coffee

• The longer it takes to fix the greater the loss– 4 hours at £5 per hour = £20– 2 days at £5 per hour = £70– plus potential loss of earnings

Hot swap out

• Machine is replaced by identical machine– Same software– Same spec.– Same data ?

Hot swap out

• Therefore the organisation must provide a secure backup system

• each PC has its own internal tape system ?

• Each PC is linked to a file server ?– Costs

» Increase in initial purchase costs

» Consumables

» Software

– Education / Training

Training

• New system = new skills– but how does we train the staff

• everybody has training– time and cost ?

• learn as you go ? – Or as you hit a problem

• learn from piers ? – But does that work ?

• cascade training– Does that work ?