What is Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)?

Total cost of ownership (TCO) is the total cost of a computer asset throughout its lifecycle, from acquisition to disposal. The aim of TCO analysis is to identify, quantify, and ultimately, reduce the overall costs associated with ownership of networked assets.

Total Cost of Ownership is the combined hard and soft costs of owning networked information assets. 'Hard' costs include items such as the purchase price of the asset, implementation fees, upgrades, maintenance contracts, support contracts, and disposal costs. These costs are considered 'hard costs' because they are tangible and easily accounted for. Even more significant in most environments however, are the 'soft' costs related to management, support, training, hidden costs, and downtime. Because they don't occur at acquisition time, they are often overlooked in budgets, often leading to unexpected increases or worse, a transfer of management and support responsibility to end users.

Asset Life Cycle Costs

To learn more about total cost of ownership, visit Micromation.