Don't Be Seduced by Consumer PC Bargains, Gartner Warns Business Users

Some organizations are incorrectly assuming that less-expensive, consumer-class PCs are suitable for business use. Gartner recently warned organizations that invest in consumer PCs and notebooks risk higher total cost of ownership (TCO) in terms of platform instability, less quality control and limited support.

Gartner acknowledged that given the current low cost of consumer hardware, IT managers might find themselves under pressure to justify the higher costs of enterprise PCs to senior management. Gartner urged them to fully explain the likely TCO implications of purchasing consumer PCs and notebooks for the workforce.

For corporate buyers standardization is essential because it affords less complexity and lower TCO. Even minor changes to a corporate system have the potential to create incompatibility and require additional testing and system support. For this reason, corporate buyers are less interested in the latest new features, focusing instead on the following attributes:

1. Platform stability (a base level of predictable functionality)
2. Longer product cycles (at least 18 months or longer)
3. System design and features
4. Quality assurance programs
5. Security and manageability
6. Consultative relationship with the sales channel
7. PC life cycle services

Since consumers usually purchase one system at a time, consumer-class PCs and notebooks have no investment in platform stability and no concern for standardized system image. Consumer systems also lack corporate features such as docking stations and often come with consumer versions of the Windows operating system and software applications. These systems have limited quality assurance programs, having undergone less rigorous testing than corporate hardware which can result in a 50 per cent higher failure rate incurring higher repair costs and user down time. Lastly, there is little support available from the retail channel when things do go wrong, with warranty support typically restricted to a much shorter time.

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