06-13-2002, 04:46 AM
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Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Sep 2006
Posts: 3,060
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PDAs May Cost More Than You Think
http://www.wirelessnewsfactor.com/perl/story/18164.html
Whenever an enterprise thinks about deploying PDAs or wireless devices, the decision often hinges directly on what it costs to use and support the devices. All related costs have to be included, such as wireless fees and support staff time, if an informed decision is to be made.
Here's an interesting article on the WirelessNewFactor site that outlines what the true TCO (total cost of ownership) of a PDA is. The estimates may surprise you.
What do you think? Could you justify these TCO figures at your place of business?
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06-13-2002, 04:59 AM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Apr 2002
Posts: 151
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WOW! Think about it. If you give a hundred employees a wireless pocket pc, you're looking at close to a half a million per year. That's a dent.
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06-13-2002, 05:16 AM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 99
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IMO, you could do this kind of analysis into everything we buy:
Buying Groceries:
- Wear and tear on your vehicle
- Gasoline prices
- Tax at the checkout line
- Electricity for refrigerator
- The cost for having the pantry built into your house
- The lost hours of work (could be earning $$$s)
Shopping Clothing
- Wear and tear on your vehicle
- Gasoline prices
- Tax at the checkout line
- Washer & Dryer costs
- The lost hours of work (could be earning $$$s)
...there is typically a maintenance cost in the form of time or money for everything.
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06-13-2002, 05:22 AM
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Philosopher
Join Date: Jun 2003
Posts: 544
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From the article:
Quote:
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Gartner (NYSE: IT) analysts have estimated...
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...and all of us who went to Pocket PC Summit know how informed the Gartner analysts are when it comes to the PDA market
__________________
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
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06-13-2002, 06:08 AM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 194
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This is well known
It is a well known fact in the IT industry that everything you buy (software and hardware) has hidden costs behind it. For example, when they buy a corporate software, the cost of the software technician (that already exists in their team) that will have to install the software to all users (instead of doing something else) is many times higher than the cost of the software itself.
IT Managers do all these calculations when they decide to buy or not a product, and believe me they are not afraid of these numbers. TCO goes agains ROI (Return on Investment), and if they have enough to earn by using the product, and the ROI will be fast, they will swallow the hidden costs with no problem.
Sure, in the consumer market, where people like us are not aware of all this, those are very frightening numbers.
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06-13-2002, 07:09 AM
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Thinker
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 384
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iPaq Cost of ownership.
PC's are a disaster in terms of cost of ownership. They break easily and are difficult to set up, operate, and train user's for.
The entire point of the PDA is to get away from all of that. It's truly a personal device that a user can take with them (as opposed to a laptop).
Enter Compaq and their ever popular iPaq. iPaq far and away accounts for most of the bugs, glitches, software patches, dust storms, recalls, etc.. among the PocketPC vendors. Add expansion jackets and their individualized cases (for screen protection) and you've produced a deployment and maintenance nightmare.
This is not a new topic for me. I've been railing about this ever since the merger. I cannot conceive of an IT department that would choose iPaq over the slim, svelt, low-maintenance Jornada.
HP is touting 70% of total market share between the iPaq and Jornada lines. If they continue with the Compaq part alone (the iPaq) they will loose most that to emerging competitors like Toshiba, Asus, and most notably Symbol (for vertical markets and industrial applications).
The iPaq as it currently is packaged is not a business appliance. It's a high-maintenance gadget that owe's it's commanding market share to it's early market prescense and high-profile styling. Ultimately, the styling is now outdated and impractical.
Should HP wish to stay a player in the business sphere, they will release the Jornada 570 under the iPaq brand name. Businesses simply will not bite on the high-maintenance, low-quailty iPaq track record with stellar alternatives from the afore-mentioned vendors.
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06-13-2002, 10:40 AM
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Pupil
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 47
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Re: iPaq Cost of ownership.
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Originally Posted by Will T Smith
Enter Compaq and their ever popular iPaq. iPaq far and away accounts for most of the bugs, glitches, software patches, dust storms, recalls, etc.. among the PocketPC vendors. Add expansion jackets and their individualized cases (for screen protection) and you've produced a deployment and maintenance nightmare.
...
HP is touting 70% of total market share between the iPaq and Jornada lines. If they continue with the Compaq part alone (the iPaq) they will loose most that to emerging competitors like Toshiba, Asus, and most notably Symbol (for vertical markets and industrial applications).
...
The iPaq as it currently is packaged is not a business appliance. It's a high-maintenance gadget that owe's it's commanding market share to it's early market prescense and high-profile styling. Ultimately, the styling is now outdated and impractical.
...
Should HP wish to stay a player in the business sphere, they will release the Jornada 570 under the iPaq brand name. Businesses simply will not bite on the high-maintenance, low-quailty iPaq track record with stellar alternatives from the afore-mentioned vendors.
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You should at least put in a "I thinks" or "In my opinion" You are telling this as fact, yet I know from the sales I do, that a lot of Companies are going for the iPAQ because of the sleeve concept... I'm not saying it is my favorite design or that I think it is the best decission HP could have made, but I've seen that their customers seem to like it...
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06-13-2002, 01:11 PM
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Thinker
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 414
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I sure hope my wife doesn't read this. 
She thinks that because the PDA was bought for me I am not taking money out of the family budget. :twisted:
SSSSSHHHHHHH!!!!!
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06-13-2002, 01:39 PM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Jan 2004
Posts: 63
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I have to agree completely with csc on this one. I could step into this forum and say, "see, this is why you need to buy one of our cases - you really need to protect that expensive asset." But, I was at Pocket PC Summit, and it really was hilarious how little the Gartner "expert" knew about the PDA market. It appeared to me that most of his fact finding actually came from "opinion gathering" which is to say that he just asked a bunch of people what they thought about the market - those who told him the loudest or in the most persuasive way influenced him the most. I also am a BIG believer in the saying, "93% of all statistics are made up on the spot," - of course in saying that I admit that I just made up that statistic on the spot. I also ascribe to the concept taught in Scott Adam's The Dilbert Principle wherein most of us make up our minds first and then look for supporting data (which we always either find or make up) to back up our opionion; moreover we either ignore or justify anything to the contrary. I would guess that this Gartner Group guy was tasked with finding, "just how expensive it can cost to own a PDA," rather than, "establish the true cost of ownership - including efficiency improvement BENEFITS of owning a PDA." In short I would recommend taking "expert opinions" with a grain of salt.
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06-13-2002, 01:54 PM
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Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Sep 2006
Posts: 3,060
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by HandheldPlanet
I have to agree completely with csc on this one.
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So, are you saying that the TCO for these devices is much less than the estimates in the report? There is some definite wiggle room in the estimates, such as how much is spent for a wireless provider each month, but do you feel that the support costs are too high?
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