Laptop Wars

Laptop Wars: The TCO Strikes BackThe total cost of ownership (TCO) for laptops is generally higher than that of a comparable desktop PC. Most companies implement criteria for assigning laptops to ensure a return on investment that justifies the higher TCO. However, most organizations do not re-evaluate laptop assignment as technology and knowledge worker trends evolve and the business changes. This can result in the unnecessary assignment of laptops to some employees.Increasing pressure on IT to reduce costs and adopt more frugal spending practices has reignited the great laptop versus desktop debate in many companies. Rather than falling into a laptop versus desktop debate trap, Info-Tech recommends positioning the reassessment of laptop deployments as an exercise to match the appropriate technologies with knowledge worker trends, focusing on cost savings opportunities that may result.Laptops Are Not EvilIT must recognize that laptops can satisfy valid business needs and the increased TCO for a laptop may be justified by ROI calculations based on increased productivity and faster organizational response times. Common opportunities to benefit from deployment of laptops include:Ability to telecommute. Laptops allow for offsite productivity from employees' homes, remote locations, and business trip sites.Ability to extend the work day. Laptops allow employees to extend their workday beyond the physical workplace to include off-hours access from home.Increased mobility and geographic reach. Laptops allow companies to cut travel time and costs incurred by in-field employees who frequently have to come back to headquarters to update or retrieve data.Better collaboration capabilities. The portability of laptops not only makes collaboration between offsite and onsite employees much easier, but also among onsite coworkers during meetings, when each user requires their own computer. However, laptops are not without limitations, which contribute to a higher TCO than comparable desktops. These include:Security vulnerabilities. Laptops present companies with higher security risks than desktops since they store just as many confidential files, but are easier to steal or lose.Lower reliability and higher repair frequency. Laptops typically experience shorter lifespans compared to desktops due to increased wear and tear from their portability. This results in higher costs because of increases in repair frequency and new purchases. Additional costs also arise from having to replace the laptop batteries every two years or so.Difficulty of upgrading and repairing. Since laptop components are condensed and configured into one unit, upgrading and repairing is more difficult and thus more costly. Recalling laptops deployed outside the workplace also adds costs in terms of additional downtime while the laptop is being returned for repair and potentially shipping costs as well.Accessories. Laptops are often issued with cushioned carrying bags, a mouse and secure locking mechanisms.New Workplace Trends, Changing Laptop RolesThe opportunity to reassess laptop deployment is directly tied to several evolutions in collaboration, communication and mobility. Among these are:Access to e-mail. Laptops are commonly assigned to employees who demonstrate a need to send and receive company e-mails from home. Webmail (e. g. Outlook Web Access) has emerged as an efficient and low-cost method for enabling employees to access company e-mail from home.Access to applications. Many laptops are approved for employees to be able to occasionally work with office productivity software (e. g. MS Office) and front-office and back-office applications (e. g. ERP, CRM) from home. Virtual desktop technology is rapidly emerging as a lower cost, more secure alternative to laptop deployment for occasionally remote users. Mobile thin client devices are also emerging to specifically support virtual desktops for mobile users. For more information, refer to the ITA Premium research brief, “An Update on Mobile Thin Clients.”Improved smartphones. Employees who have access to company e-mail on smartphones usually prefer to use this platform rather than boot up a laptop. Access to collaboration systems, such as instant messaging, as well as ERP and CRM systems from smartphones is becoming more common and more functional.Carrots, Not SticksIT is likely to have much more success in recalling underutilized laptops by acknowledging what types of access to information employees need to perform their jobs and by supporting the minimum number of tools required, without redundancyand overlap of technologies. Reducing overlapping infrastructure, deployed to access information and applications, will result in an overall reduction in TCO for the entire IT infrastructure, not just for traditional personal computers.RecommendationsAdopt a zero-tolerance policy for having both a laptop and a desktop. Employees who qualify for a laptop should not be allowed to keep their desktop machine. The only exceptions are situations in which the desktop machine is a special workstation which performs functions the laptop may not perform, such as Unix workstations or high-end CAD workstations. Even in these situations, the specialized workstations may be able to be shared among multiple employees, instead of being exclusively assigned to one employee.Assess the e-mail access methods the organization supports. If the organization supports webmail clients, desktop e-mail clients and smartphone e-mail clients, there are bound to be redundancies. Look for opportunities to replace laptops used solely for e-mail access with webmail and mobile phones.Review laptop assignments to employees who need to access enterprise applications from home. Most knowledge workers have their own home computers and broadband Internet access. Virtual desktop implementations are more scalable and less expensive for this type of remote access scenario. The organization may be able to reduce the number of Virtual Private Network (VPN) licenses required as well, as a result of virtual desktop implementation.Continually re-evaluate employee roles. Even employees who were originally assigned laptops for valid reasons, such as members of a field sales force, do change roles and no longer need a laptop. Ensure such laptops are assigned to the role, not the employee.Bottom LineCost containment initiatives and budget cuts are forcing companies to re-evaluate criteria for assigning laptops to employees. Follow these recommendations to identify and recall unnecessary laptops.。