Perhaps no aspect of using Microsoft® software is more debated than
total cost of ownership (TCO). For most companies this is a major factor in purchasing decisions. It's less of an issue for average home users, but certainly the choice of operating system largely determines the overall cost of personal computers.
Elements of TCO
The total cost of ownership can be determined by adding the cost of:
- "Hard" costs - precise value can usually be determined
- Hardware (see [Average Hardware Requirements])
- Software licenses (see [Sales & Pricing])
- Legal fees from monitoring and disputing licenses and contracts
- Training
- System administration & support
- Custom [software development]
- "Soft" costs - difficult, if not impossible, so determine a precise value
- Productivity
- Ease of finding knowledgeable staff
- Employee motivation (relates to productivity)
- Ease of integration with other systems
System Administration
Consider the following situation about the SoBig e-mail worm:
"I work on campus tech support. It's move in week, and the 30 of us on staff are working 60+ hours this week. 8,000 or so computers are coming back, of those, we expect about 5,600 to be unpatched, and we expect that of those 5,600, that only 1,400 or so will be able to follow our documentation. That leaves us with 4,200 machines to patch, and clean before Monday." - Jacer, Slashdot.org, August 21, 2003