[vox] [fwd] Re: [K12OSN] M$ Cost Comparisons]

[Bill Kendrick]

Wow.  Win2003 server for $80 bucks, Office for $40...

This must have been what was being talking about at the beginning of
the last LUGOD meeting.



----- Forwarded message from Chris Hobbs ------

Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 11:18:04 -0800
From: Chris Hobbs
Subject: Re: [K12OSN] M$ Cost Comparisons

Richard K. Ingalls wrote:

>Anyone who knows what MS server software costs AND what licenses we'd 
>need to do a comparison? Please chime in!

I'd caution anyone trying to "sell" K12LTSP on the function of price 
alone - the reality is, MS is pretty aggressive on pricing for K12 
institutions. For example, here in California, any school can purchase 
off the schedule available at: <http://www.calsave.org/companies/microsoft/>

For your example products:

Windows 2003 Server: $80.51
Client Access Licenses (one needed for each user/device): $5.81
Terminal Services CAL (ditto): $25.73
Office 2003 (per user/device): $41.50
SQL Server (would many schools use this instead of Access?): $245.68

Excluding SQL Server, the price for a 30 workstation lab would be: 
$2271.71. While not free, it would be easy for a district to justify 
this cost compared to the need to train teaching staff in new software 
and train support staff in new administration techniques.

My point is to not try to make this purely about the cost of software, 
because the true cost is certainly greater than the sticker price you 
pay up front - there is a validity to the concept of Total Cost of 
Owenership (TCO). The problem with TCO is that there are so many ways to 
compute it that it almost becomes meaningless. Figuring out a way to 
compute it in your environment is the key to selling your ideas.

Hope this helps!

-- 
Chris Hobbs       Silver Valley Unified School District
Head geek:              Technology Services Coordinator
webmaster:   http://www.silvervalley.k12.ca.us/~chobbs/

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