Over the last several years, the initial sale price of computer systems has decreased substantially. SMBs have benefited from this because now they can afford to equip all of their employees with computers. This allows employees to be more productive, which in turn impacts the ability of SMBs to be competitive and profitable. Everyone wins – right?

This picture is often the selling point of computer manufacturers who want the very large SMB market to buy millions of systems. What many SMBs soon discover, however, is that the initial sale price is not a reflection of what computers really costs the business over time. Smart SMBs have begun to look not only at initial sale price, but also the total cost of ownership (TCO).

At SyAM Software, we believe that TCO is a reflection of four factors:

• Initial sale price
• Ongoing maintenance
• Power consumption,
• IT staff salaries

While SyAM Software cannot help bring down the initial cost of systems, there is a great deal we can do to addresses maintenance, power, and administrator costs.

Maintenance costs are realized in the price of replaceable components. SyAM Software’s products help reduce maintenance costs with our proactive monitoring and alerting capabilities that go beyond red-light green-light status. Our software allows administrators to understand what is about to be a problem and fix it before it leads to multiple component failures, saving an organization money. For instance, if a fan is not cooling at appropriate levels, this can lead to burnout of multiple components. Our software alerts administrators to these “amber-state” issues so they can be addressed before failures occur. This can save hundreds or thousands of dollars per machine per year.

Power consumption is a major financial drain on many organizations. SyAM Software’s products can save thousands of dollars annually on power costs. To learn more about how SyAM Software’s products can reduce power consumption by as much as 40% or more, please see Power Management.

The productivity of administrators is a significant factor in the TCO picture. A machine that only cost $400 initially can suddenly cost $800 or more if an administrator has to spend several days working on it. SyAM Software helps administrators be much more productive in several key ways:

• We empower their vision so they can drill down and identify root causes of issues quickly, shortening time to solution and decreasing costs.
• We empower them to resolve many issues remotely, eliminating or reducing time-consuming desk-side visits.
• We empower them to monitor and manage the entire IT infrastructure – servers, storage, desktops, and notebooks – all without leaving their desk.
• We virtually eliminate expensive and time-consuming training by delivering a product that is intuitive and easy to use.

If an administrator who formerly managed only 50 systems can now manage 100 systems using our products, the cost burden associated with the administrator’s salary can now be distributed across twice as many systems, making them half as expensive from a TCO perspective.

But how much money can this really save? Let’s take an example and analyze standard operating costs with and without SyAM Software’s products.

3 Year Costs Without SyAM Software:
Initial Sale Price - $100,000, (200 Desktops @ $500 per desktop)
Maintenance - $25,000 (assumes 50 systems a year require $170 repairs for 3 years)
Power - $147,168 (assume 200 systems using 200 watts running 24x7x365 @ $0.14 per kWh)
Staff Salaries - $180,000 (assumes 3 administrators @ $60k/year)
TCO = $452,168 over 3 years

3 Year Costs With SyAM Software:
Initial Sale Price - $100,000, (200 Desktops @ $500 per desktop)
Maintenance - $7,500 (assumes 25 systems a year require $100 repairs for 3 years)
Power - $61,782 (daily hours on = 14, weekend hours on = 0, $0.14 per kWh)
Staff Salaries - $120,000 (assumes 2 administrators @ $60k/year)
TCO = $181,782 over 3 years

Total Savings = $270,386