And your annual per user costs are...?

NETWORK WORLD NEWSLETTER: DAVE KEARNS ON WINDOWS NETWORKING TIPS
06/27/05
Today's focus: And your annual per user costs are...?

Dear networking.world@gmail.com,

In this issue:

* Readers share their annual per user costs for Active Directory
* Links related to Windows Networking Tips
* Featured reader resource
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Today's focus: And your annual per user costs are...?

By Dave Kearns

A few weeks ago, I asked what your annual per user support costs
were for Active Directory (see link below). This was brought on
by the skimpy - and wide-ranging - results to a similar
questions asked of the attendees at NetPro's annual Directory
Experts Conference.

Not all the attendees turned in a survey but among the 101 who
did participate, fewer than 10% answered the support costs
question. The results ranged from $6 per user per year to
$1,500! About a third of those who ventured an answer (roughly
3% of all those who turned in the survey) claimed the per user,
per year cost was approximately $400.

In the interest of, well, satisfying my curiosity, I asked you,
dear readers, to let me know what your annual costs per user
were.

Not really surprisingly, the answers you sent in averaged a bit
over $350 per user. Whether that's based on a scientific look at
your support infrastructure, or fitting the facts to the
expected answer is something I can't judge. Nevertheless, it
feels like a good number. The hard part, of course, isn't
totaling up your support costs but deciding which are
attributable to Active Directory and which should be allocated
to various applications and services. I mean, I'm sure it would
be possible to figure out what your cost per user per year was
to support Notepad, but gathering and examining the data would
probably cost more than the whole Notepad support budget.

I'd expect, by the way, that in smaller enterprises the cost per
user would be higher ($500-plus) while the largest organizations
could introduce economies of scale pushing the per user cost
down to $100 or so.

Figuring out your annual per user support costs does make it
easier for you to get approval of some new automation projects,
so it isn't just an intellectual exercise. If you know, for
example, that it costs you $50/user to reset forgotten passwords
each year then licensing a self-service password reset utility
for $10/user could have a significant, positive impact on your
bottom line. Which do you suppose your CFO would like to hear -
"I want to spend $10,000 so users can reset their own
passwords," or "I can save us $40,000 a year on support costs by
letting users do for themselves something the helpdesk has had
to do."

Keep figuring out your support costs, and keep letting me know.
We'll revisit this from time to time to let you see how you
stand vis-`-vis other organizations.

RELATED EDITORIAL LINKS

What are your Active Directory support costs?
Network World, 06/01/05
http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/nt/2005/0530nt2.html?rl

What's next for Windows
Network World, 06/27/05
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2005/062705-windows.html?rl
_______________________________________________________________
To contact: Dave Kearns

Dave Kearns is a writer and consultant in Silicon Valley. He's
written a number of books including the (sadly) now out of print
"Peter Norton's Complete Guide to Networks." His musings can be
found at Virtual Quill <http://www.vquill.com/>.

Kearns is the author of three Network World Newsletters: Windows
Networking Tips, Novell NetWare Tips, and Identity Management.
Comments about these newsletters should be sent to him at these

respective addresses: <mailto:windows@vquill.com>,
<mailto:netware@vquill.com>, <mailto:identity@vquill.com>.

Kearns provides content services to network vendors: books,
manuals, white papers, lectures and seminars, marketing,
technical marketing and support documents. Virtual Quill
provides "words to sell by..." Find out more by e-mail at
<mailto:info@vquill.com>
_______________________________________________________________
This newsletter is sponsored by Hewlett Packard
The Business Case for Adopting Blade Systems in the Data Center

HP ProLiant Blade Systems: The Business Case for Adopting Blade
Systems in the Data Center. When making a purchase decision,
blades should be considered as an integrated, consolidated
infrastructure-or a complete system-that includes servers,
storage, networking and power. Learn how HP's blade system
represents a new approach to infrastructure that can accelerate
the integration and transformation of your data center.
http://www.fattail.com/redir/redirect.asp?CID=107286
_______________________________________________________________
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