Executive Summary

• There is a common thinking on overall TCO which leaves out all of the costs.
• The fake TCO studies that show the producer or funder of the study having the lowest TCO, highlights the need for independence in TCO estimates.
• We introduce the only comprehensive adjustable independent TCO calculators anywhere.

Introduction

TCO or total cost of ownership is the estimation of the total cost of enterprise software. TCO analysis is often discussed but very rarely performed. TCO is often proposed by software vendors, but every software vendor “TCO analysis” invariably shows the software company that performed the study or paid for the study to have the lowest TCO.

The Necessity for Independence in TCO

Clearly, no software vendor’s TCO study should be accepted and TCO should be performed only by independent entities.

• Brightwork Research and Analysis has the most intellectual property and experience calculating TCO.
• Our calculators below demonstrate this, and they are the only calculators on TCO available directly on the web that we know to exist.
• In our research into TCO methods employed by other entities, we invariably found costs that were left out. We call these TCO studies “PCO” or partial cost of ownership studies. We could not find a single entity that followed a logical TCO method. Seeing such a vacuum in the marketplace is why we put so much effort into our own TCO analysis.

Other TCO Calculators

See our other TCO calculators.