What Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) studies reveal

TCO studies of PCs, PDAs, and other end-user-oriented computing platforms have identified several key, hidden, and oftentimes unbudgeted costs due to the following phenomena:

Fiddle factor

Users often spend excessive time changing minor look-and-feel items on their systems—time that could instead be spent performing productive work. Examples are: changing how the Windows desktop looks (e.g., color, size, icons, screen savers); installing applets or utilities (e.g., pop-up messages, animated cursors, desktop accessories); and trying out different fonts or lettering styles in documents. These activities distract users from the more important task of ensuring quality content in their work.

Peer support and self-help phenomenon

When end users encounter problems, they rarely seek IT help. They either try to solve the problem on their own, or ask colleagues to assist, taking them and their coworkers away from their primary job responsibilities. Not only that, but as users try to gain as much computer expertise as possible, they often neglect the skills they need in their line of work. Most of their computer skills are learned informally, by time-consuming experimentation that often causes even more complex problems.

User-introduced problems

Often, users themselves cause unnecessary downtime and lost productivity through their own activities, such as:
• Deleting critical system files by accident or experimentation.
• Changing parameters in the Windows system registry, control panel, and other configuration files.
• Installing new software that causes system instabilities, security exposures, or counterproductive activities (e.g., utilities, games).

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