SMB IT Budgets Can Get 50% Thinner

Online, June 1, 2010 (Newswire.com) - Smaller businesses can cut their IT costs in half and more by replacing PCs with thin clients and cloud computing, according to an IT cost of ownership study by Lancaster University, commissioned by Thinspace.

By switching to thin clients business of between six and 100 employees can make IT savings upwards of 50%, including 71% reduction in IT maintenance and 61% reduction in capital expenditure.

While many studies have proven the cost benefits of changing from PCs to thin clients for large enterprises this is the first to measure the total cost of ownership for businesses with fewer than 100 employees.

Thin clients work just like PCs from a user's perspective but cost much less, use 10 percent of the energy and are more secure, because all applications, security rules and data are managed on a remote server or in the cloud, not on the desktop.

"Small business success is critical to the UK economy as they comprise well over half of the UK's private sector employment and turnover, said Lisa Layzell, CEO, Thinspace, an independent UK vendor of thin client. "Being able to cut IT costs by over half can potentially improve the health and prosperity of the SMB sector and generate a more positive economic outlook."

The study was conducted by a team of Lancaster MBA students during the first quarter of 2010. Comparing five typical IT scenarios based on a business with 25 employees, one server and using owned PCs with 3rd party support as the benchmark, thin client offered major cost benefits in every case:

MOST COST EFFECTIVE
Pure thin client at 45% of base TCO
Thin client with 'back-up server' at 58% of base TCO
Leased PCs with 3rd party support at 96% of base TCO
Owned PCs with 3rd party support at 100% of base TCO
Owned PCs with in house IT person at 195% of base TCO
LEAST COST EFFECTIVE

Thinspace has built a simple online calculator, based on the study, to help SMBs calculate their potential cost savings from a PC to thin client switch. This can be found at http://www.thinspace.co.uk/Learn/learn.php?cate=calculator

"For small business founders who are extremely timeâ€constrained, thin client is now a highly viable option with new breakthroughs in technology, for example, Cloud Computing, higher network bandwidth, more advanced security and choice of business application," said Layzell.

Smaller organisations are already investing in thin client. Loretto Housing, a Thinspace customer, realised IT cost savings from its PC to thin client switch in 2009. "We've found the Thinspace thin clients ideal for our IT operation, requiring little time to configure, easy to swap out when issues arise, and are perfect for hot desking...The adoption of Thinspace thin clients has reduced our costs and simplified our IT," said Ricky Donegan, IT Support Officer at Loretto Housing Association.

Thin clients have been gaining popularity recently because they reduce TCO by being cheaper to manufacture than PCs, saving power, sharing hardware and software, and lessening maintenance. They are also highly reliable, greener and more secure than PCs.

"The thin client industry is predicted to expand rapidly and we anticipate through this study that the market for thin client in smaller businesses will be a high growth area," said Layzell. IT analyst IDC stated recently that more than 1.2 million thin clients will ship in 2010, an increase of 20 percent over 2009.

A highly tried and tested technology, thin client's use was limited in the past by bandwidth constraints, lack of web adoption and compatibility with popular business applications. Thin clients have performed well in many large organisations such as in a call centres, retail stores and health centres. They also support remote offices and home working, where it can be difficult and time consuming to get PCs fixed on site.

The largest thin client deployment in the UK is at the Department of Work and Pensions, a 140,000 desktop, £300million programme, aimed at saving on IT maintenance and power costs.