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What a Vista Upgrade Will Really Cost You
narramissic writes, "James Gaskin wrote an interesting article this week about what he recons it will really cost organizations to upgrade to Vista. Gaskin estimates that each Vista user will 'cost your company between $3,250 and $5,000. That's each and every Vista user. Money will go to Microsoft for Vista and Office 2007, to hardware vendors for new PCs and components, and possibly a few bucks to Apple for those users jumping to a Mac.'" Any sense of how realistic those figures are?
Strange times indeed when the stock market analysts hope a new Microsoft operating system will counteract the declining housing market, but that's the hope of some for next fall. If your company plans to play the Vista game, start cooking your books now.
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I estimate each Vista user will cost your company between $3,250 and $5,000. That's each and every Vista user. Money will go to Microsoft for Vista and Office 2007, to hardware vendors for new PCs and components, and possibly a few bucks to Apple for those users jumping to a Mac. After all, if Apple's higher cost has been the factor keeping your company from trying a Mac, that factor just washed away.
Why $3,250-$5,000? Here's my calculation. Feel free to tell me what your company has budgeted, and whether you believe your own numbers.
New PCs will cost $1,500-$2,000. Darn few existing corporate PCs will have the video horsepower needed to run Aero, Vista's primary upgrade inducement. You need 256MB of video RAM to run Aero properly, no matter what Microsoft's marketing says. I don't know of any motherboard-based video chip sets that include 256MB of RAM. Upgrade? While in the PC, add memory: Vista needs a minimum of 1GB of RAM. The hardware cost of the RAM may be less than your labor costs getting that installed in every PC. If your exiting PCs can take full advantage of Vista, I'm happy for you. I don't believe you, but I hope your upgrade goes well.
Depending on your volume purchasing agreements, new copies of Vista and Office will total between $750 and $1,000. After all, your company always buys the "professional" packages, right? And they have to be installed, right? If you're getting a much cheaper quote on both packages installed and tested, let me know.
The real value of Vista and Office 2007 includes new collaboration services. This means new back end servers. Most estimates place the back end support cost at $2,000 per user, but I used a range of $1,000-$2,000 for my calculations. Why get Office 2007 if not new SharePoint and Exchange servers? Can you run both on one box? Didn't think so.
Document your objections now, because next year the vice presidents will blame IT for their busted budget. But the housing market appreciates you taking up the slack. James E. Gaskin writes books (16 so far), articles and jokes about technology and real life from his home office in the Dallas area. Gaskin has been helping small and medium sized businesses use technology intelligently since 1986. Write him at mailto: james.gaskin@itworld
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I doubt all the computers have been there as long as XP has. There's got to be quite a few that are only a year or two old. Those ones should be able to handle Vista. Ones that are even 3 years old should be okay as long as Aero/Glass is turned off. And hey, it's cheaper to just upgrade the RAM in the computers they have (which is probably the main thing that'd need to be upgraded) than to go buy a bunch of brand-spankin'-new computers.
look! it's a bird, it's a plane, it's....a girl? yes, a girl browsing Slashdot on Linux
You don't necessarily need new Hardware, unless you want to take Full Adantage of Vista. If you don't want to use Superfetch / ReadyBoost, you don't need 2.0 USB. If you don't want Media Center capabilities, don't buy a TV Capture card. If you don't want Aero, don't buy a Video Card. Vista works in my Virtual image, and it sure as hell doesn't have a 256 Mb Video Card emulation in it.
Come on, people. Sheesh.. If it works in my VM Ware image, it will work with old hardware..
Of my company (~80K employees) about 2/3 have IBM/Lenovo notebooks. The other 1/3 are dell notebooks or desktops. A rolling three year window is used to determine upgrades, and yes it's required. When the dot bomb happened and we pushed to a 4 year cycle support costs in that last year were dramatically higher than the other years. The knee in the curve appeared to happen at 3 years 3 months (quaterly mapping).
If your department/company is on desktops then the upgrade costs for a rollout will be minimal anyway as a vista PC will likely only be a couple hundred more than a bottom end XP box from dell, and I'm sure the entire optiplex line will be Vista compatible.
-nB
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That is until you put Vista on it.
I tried RC1 over the weekend. With a 2 ghz processor and 1 gb RAM, at Idle I was pushing 70% physical RAM usage and a constant 10% load on the processor. I wrestled with Neverwinter Nights till it ran and the graphics lag was unbearable, not unplayable, but when it runs qwuite smoothly on the same system with XP or 2K3 server, there is an issue.
You say you want a revolution....
Aero is not required on corporate PCs so scratch the video upgrade. We deployed Windows XP with the dummied-down Windows 2000 interface and expect to do the same with Vista. We do allow users to change to the Fisher-Price UI if they like, though.
Corporate customers don't pay between $750 and $1k for Office - our enterprise licensing for Microsoft products (which includes the OS, Office Professional and Server and Exchange CALs) runs about $200 per PC per year.
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
If your department/company is on desktops then the upgrade costs for a rollout will be minimal anyway as a vista PC will likely only be a couple hundred more than a bottom end XP box from dell, and I'm sure the entire optiplex line will be Vista compatible.
Not to pick on you in particular, but there is a pretty big misconception out there that Vista requires everybody to upgrade hardware. I was at a TechNet event (mandatory for work) last week regarding Vista deployment and the MS rep stood in front of 1000+ people and told us that officially, Vista absolutely WILL run on *any* box that comes with a Microsoft "Designed for XP" sticker on it, which most people are already using in a corporate environment (and if you're not, then you're clearly not the early-adopter type anyhow). Part of the install checks your hardware capabilities and turns off eye-candy and such to (hopefully) make a reasonable-performing system.
There is reason to be skeptical that it will perform just as good as XP, on exactly the same hardware, but he said that this was one of Microsoft's priorities.
Anyhow, my point is that most people won't *need* to upgrade just to run Vista. XP Ready == Vista Ready (although not necessarily "Vista Optimal").
teeker
I think he forgot an "f", making it 25-30% off that, which is completely reasonable for a desktop machine. 2000$ - 600$ = 1400$ which is what you cite.
Hardware warranty on parts, one hour labor on parts replacement. Most business clients agree with my recomendations to purchase additional necessaries (i.e. on hand replacement of HD and DVD). In the event of HD failure, a replacement is on hand and the failed unit is then sent back for warranty replacement.
As I'm in a relatively small town, with a shop on Main St (literally), most of my business clients are within a 5 minute walk. And as such, if a business client needs me now. I place an "out of the shop for an hour" sign on the door and am at their disposal.
To answer the question above parent about undercutting Dell not being worth it:
It's funny. Everyone talks about how business need to evolve to make the required changes to compete. In my situation, it's actually very easy.
I don't sell computers. I sell a service. When a client comes in for a consultation with me, we sit down and map out their needs. I provide the client with a selection of hardware choices and include my recomendation. Once components have been selected, I provide the client with either Newegg or Tigerdirect ordering numbers (in the case of Newegg, I offer to setup a preliminary client account w/o financials, and fill their cart). The client actually orders their own parts and I assemble and provide a one year (hardware) service warranty on each assembled system.
My billing is very simple that way -- I don't handle inventory, so there's no taxable sales. I provide service only and charge flat rate service fees that are set as to complexity and provide scalable discount for quantity. i.e. Workstation builds are $150 a pop. More than three builds gives a 10% discount, five builds - 15%.
I sketched the initial idea and handed it to my accountant for refinement. I now have a very simple business model that is beginning (after two years) to show some real stability.
The majority of my PC business is walk in cleaning jobs and reinstalls for Mom and Dad. Occasionally I get to build cool stuff (high end gaming rigs and HTPC's), I've got 8 systems on the floor for closed LAN party gaming, a 12'x 10' chromakey green screen for novelty digital photo's, and now we're branching out to cover novelty karaoke recording and mobile garage band and gig recording on the weekends.
So, again, when asked how it's worth competing with Dell... because I don't try and rape each client for every last dollar they have. I offer advice and reasonable service charges.
Fortunately, my wife and I own our home. We have no children (or plans for them) and, generally value our friends, and peace of mind more than keeping up with the Jones family.
Also -- we try and incorporate our own personal interests into our business (I'm a musician, therefore: recording, she's an artist and photographer: so, greenscreen photography. We both like gaming - so, closed LAN parties on Saturday nights).
The last part sounds a bit preachy, sorry. But after the article yesterday on dwindling IT jobs in the country (and a few very solid reader comments about hardware support and instllation), I just felt verbiage heavy.
It's easy to compete, when you don't. Use the current market as an advantage and wipe away your inventory. If you don't have the pockets to compete with Walmart, Circuit City or CompUSA... don't. Use online sellers to your advantage and build off their lower prices.
Works for me.
#SickNotWeak