Retrofitting older buildings for technology installations is another cost that is often overlooked or under-budgeted. And the cost of connectivity, which is not necessarily included when businesses calculate their TCO, is important for schools. Schools purchase less-expensive PCs at larger discounts than businesses do. Educational software packages are priced lower than business software applications. Schools typically use their computers for at least five years, compared to only three years for businesses.
Schools use roughly half the number of people that businesses do to support the same number of PCs.
In the business world, for example, when a computer breaks down or a network crashes, employees might become totally unproductive until the problems are fixed. The Denver Public Schools, in late 1997, developed a TCO projection as part of a five-year tech plan and a comparison of the costs of leasing computers versus purchasing them. As a point of reference, the district had, at the time, achieved a ratio of one computer for every six students and one multimedia computer with an Ethernet-based Internet connection for every 18 students. Hidden costs These estimates can give you some idea of the total cost of technology implementation in a school district. But in thinking about TCO, you must also be cognizant of costs that don't appear on the books but are nevertheless real.