Backend Costs Represent Only a Small Part of Total Messaging Costs Because the costs of the backend of a messaging system such as servers and gateways are typically not leveraged over a large number of users, backend costs do not represent a large part of the total cost of ownership for a messaging system. Server hardware and software, for example, represents only about five percent of the total annual cost of a messaging system. However, investing in high performance, high reliability hardware, backup and failsafe systems provide high return on your investment quickly. The payback period for the more expensive server will be just a little more than two months. Adding administrative staff to improve downtime or to reduce end-user support requirements will provide significant savings and have insignificant impact on the total cost of ownership for the messaging system.
Conclusions When evaluating or deploying a messaging system, focus on end-users.
Do whatever you can to make them more productive by implementing a messaging system that is fast, scalable and easy to use. Spend whatever it takes to make systems reliable.