How Ruggedness Reduces TCO For Mobile Computers

General-purpose PDAs and ruggedized enterprise mobile computers are made for separate markets, are designed for different tasks, and also vary by their size, weight and materials. But the biggest difference between these device types is their total cost of ownership (TCO). Organizations can’t afford to overlook this important difference in challenging times when all costs are under scrutiny and funds for new equipment are oftentimes limited. Despite their lower purchase price, smart phones and PDAs cost much more to own and operate than ruggedized mobile computers in service, delivery, retail, warehouse and manufacturing environments, according to independent research that studied mobile computer life cycles in these environments. In fact, the average annual TCO for consumer-oriented PDAs and smart phones used for business is 42.6 percent higher than that for enterprise-grade ruggedized handheld computers.

TCO is a major differentiator among mobile devices, and as the chart above shows, ruggedness is a major variable that determines TCO. Reliability and length of service are the main reasons why. At one extreme, consumer-grade devices often don’t last a year when deployed to support mobile enterprise operations. At the other end, ruggedized mobile computers routinely last four years or more even in challenging industrial environments. Calculating TCO isn’t as simple as plotting the expected life cycles and replacement costs for different devices. Replacement costs only tell a small part of the TCO story because the purchase price of a device accounts for less than 30 percent of its total cost of ownership. Lost productivity when devices fail costs businesses more than the price to repair or replace them.

Getting TCO as low as possible requires organizations to deploy the devices that will lead to maximum reliability and productivity in their work environment. This white paper will help you do that, by documenting the relationship between ruggedness and TCO, showing how ruggedized devices add value for specific work processes and environments, identifying the key differences between ruggedized and nonruggedized devices, and providing guidance to determine what degree of ruggedness is needed for different usage scenarios.