Recalculating Total Cost Of Ownership

By Brian Albright, Field Technologies

TCO evaluations should go beyond the cost and performance of the mobile hardware.

Total cost of ownership has always been an important factor in the design of enterprise mobility solutions, but traditionally the TCO conversation has been heavily hardware-focused. Companies focus on trying to balance the initial cost of the device with potential costs of replacement and downtime.

There’s more to mobility than just the handheld computer or smartphone, though; for some applications, end users might even be providing their own hardware. Today’s TCO analysis should be expanded to encompass the entire solution, including hardware, applications, communication, device management, and support, in order to give companies a more accurate view of what the mobility initiative will cost and how much ROI it will generate.