Designing a Total Data Solution

Chapter 17: Software Management: The Practical Solution to the Cost-of-Ownership Crisis

Paul Davis

SINCE THEIR INTRODUCTION IN THE LATE 1970S, PERSONAL COMPUTERS HAVE RESHAPED THE WAY EMPLOYEES SPEND THEIR TIME and redefined the role of the corporate information technology (IT) department.

Each year, as the power of PCs has increased, their purchase price has gone down. Corporations have been willing to spend on desktop hardware and software with the increasingly common conviction that the returns in user efficiency more than justify the investment.

But recent studies of the cost of ownership of desktop personal computers have brought to light a sobering truth: that the real costs of owning PCs are much greater than previously suspected. The ...