For many companies IT equipment is an expense that tends to be a nuisance. Equipment is rarely replaced until it can no longer operate. While I can understand this method, I find companies are wasting valuable time with old equipment. How so? As users use their workstations throughout the day applications are opened and closed, data is added, changed, deleted, reports are created and printed, etc. On older systems time spent waiting for each of these process adds up. On a daily basis it can be from 30 minutes to an hour or more. If a new system can cut this time in half (many times it is much more than that), the user will save from 15 to 30 minutes or more per day times 5 days per week times probably 48 working weeks per year. That's 60 to 120 hours per year per employee. How much is that worth to you?
Support costs reflect the same situation. Installing Windows XP SP2 on older machines can take 30 to 45 minutes, while on a newer machine it may take 10 to 15 minutes. (actually a new machine would already have SP2 installed requiring 0 minutes to upgrade). Then there's the security updates, application updates, normal maintenance, etc. Each of these necessary functions takes much longer on older devices and translates to wasted time and money.
IT costs need to be treated as a productivity booster and not an expense. The bottom line is that is what they are at this point. Many users spend a good portion of their day in front of their workstation. Making them more productive is always a goal. Our general rule of thumb is to replace 20% of your workstations per year and servers about every 4 to 5 years. You make the calculations and see what you think.
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