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Confirmed: Significant Percentage of IT Spend, "No ROI"

What could you do if you had, say, 25% of your budget freed up to use for innovation instead of maintenance? I'm asking because in our recent research about end user devices, we learned that two thirds of a research population of 558 IT professionals spend anywhere from 11% to over 40% on end user device replacement. And, what's the ROI? Most don't measure it: "it's just overhead."

End user devices -- desktop and laptop PCs, to most of us -- make up a tremendous spend, but when it comes to creating value in the organization, they don't really deliver. We tell users not to use resources on their machines: "DO NOT SAVE TO YOUR C: DRIVE OR IT WILL NOT BE BACKED UP AND YOU WILL LOSE YOUR DATA." Same for CPU cycles: Network latency and server cycles, rather than desktop resources, drive response time on many enterprise applications. So, basically, what we have are expensive resources deployed all over the organization creating very little value.

The problem is, there aren't a lot of great alternatives. Thin client carved out its niche in highly controlled environments like healthcare. But the jury's still out on VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure), with a significant portion of our research "not at all likely" to deploy. VDI solves some of the problems of thin client, but problems remain with issues like working while disconnected from the network and the "double patch" burden (lack of patching on embedded OSes creates the same type of security risks that lack of patching of fat desktops create).

What's your organization doing to address the spend issue while still maintaining some degree of security and manageability in your organization? Increasing lifecycle? Purchasing netbooks? Terminals? Ignoring the problem? Deploying VDI like gangbusters? Send me a message on Twitter (@_jfeldman) or email me at jf@feldman.org to join the conversation.

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