Add to this the arrays of consultants, analysts and dotcoms offering all kinds of advice on hardware and applications, and the IT purchasing process becomes very complex and time consuming. And that's before you start negotiating the service level agreement. Join us on a brief tour of the industry's latest buzzwords. The computer industry is unique in many respects - but one of the most bizarre is that it continuously seems to be arguing that owning its products really costs its customers a lot more than the list price. For many years analyst Gartner has argued that PCs are hugely expensive to manage, especially in large organisations.
Most people look at some form of managed serviced option as an alternative to outright purchase.
The ASP model is the most hyped and so the best known. ASPs run applications for a number of clients who typically access them over the internet from stripped-down PCs with web browsers. But the ASP approach has disadvantages too. Yes Minister - he jumped like a startled rabbit. In a short time, ASPs have risen to cover a wide range of applications.