6 Apr
2000
6 Apr
'00
9:23 p.m.
I read that the actual cost of a wintel machine in an
enterprise setting
is close to $22K annually, because most people spend a sizable
proportion of their time ( >15%) "futzing" (the article's terminology,
not
mine) around, that is, downloading and installing the newest version
of software X, changing settings, and, of course, rebooting.
Carlos.
One of the best stories I've heard along this is about someplace that was
moving from VMS to NT. They canned the two people doing VMS and had to
replace them with about 20 people supporting NT. Then about *two years*
later they had a problem with the VMS cluster that they had to get someone in
to fix. The point being the VMS cluster had run unattended for two years!
People look at Microsoft and say "this is cheap", BUT they don't look at
the
total cost of ownership! The support costs are deadly, and I've seen
reports that MS's licensing is starting cost businesses more thanks to
recent changes.
Zane