I.T Budget

godtabh

My company has asked me to compile a an I.T budget.

I was thinking of doing a 5 year budget.

This is what I was thinking

4-5 pc a year to run AutoCad, Office suits and other enigeering programes such as Windes.

As long as the can run AutoCAD they should be able to run any other programes we may need.

I would say that about a grand per P.C should be good.

We have 4 man printers. Oce 9400, HP 800, HP4500, HP 4250. These to be replaced once ever 4 years.

Our server would be replaced once every 3 years.

I would aslo set aside approx E3000-E4000 for software and software maintance.

We also have a servie agreement in place.

Is there any thing else I should be covering or think of?

Thomas_S_Hunterson

If the CAD users don't use it full time, maybe a couple of shared licences would save you quite a bit of cash?

aFlabbyPanda

Antivirus renewals depending on vendor. Also some of our customers do ram upgrades every 12-18 months depending on requirements.

junii

You seem to be making alot of assumptions there. Maybe you have a good idea of everything in your company but from reading you post it seems like you haven't really thought things out.

Why would you replace the printers every 4 years?
Why do you need 4-5 new pcs a year?

Perhaps you should look into leasing if your planning on turning over machines quickly et cetera.....

Capt'n Midnight

kearnsr wrote:

My company has asked me to compile a an I.T budget.

I was thinking of doing a 5 year budget.

This is what I was thinking

4-5 pc a year to run AutoCad, Office suits and other enigeering programes such as Windes.

As long as the can run AutoCAD they should be able to run any other programes we may need.

I would say that about a grand per P.C should be good.

AutoCad is about three grand + you'll pay about 10% a year upgrading it
Windows + Microsoft Office + CAL's would cost about a grand over 5 years if you upgrade during that time

We have 4 man printers. Oce 9400, HP 800, HP4500, HP 4250. These to be replaced once ever 4 years.

the Océ 9400 is WAY overdue then.. ditto for the first HP if it's an 8000

Our server would be replaced once every 3 years.

if only used for file/print sharing and you've plenty of hard drive bays free you could get a full 5 years out of it - double the HDD's and possibly ram mid life

I would aslo set aside approx E3000-E4000 for software and software maintance.

We also have a servie agreement in place.

Is there any thing else I should be covering or think of?

Big one is windows licensing / upgrades.

will you be thinking of Vista/64 ?
will you be upgrading the server OS ?

what's your printing volume HP's can be expensive at high volume, but are good dependable printers at low volume, if you do get HP's then buy the three year cover with the printer it's way cheaper than later on

Capt'n Midnight

sean_keevey wrote:

If the CAD users don't use it full time, maybe a couple of shared licences would save you quite a bit of cash?

Yeah AutoCAD network licenses FTW
install it on every machine and you can have X concurrent copies at a time or export the license to a laptop, if you can't export it back from the laptop , no worries, after 30 days the exported license expires and you can re use it from the server again - handy for contractors etc.

godtabh

junii wrote:

You seem to be making alot of assumptions there. Maybe you have a good idea of everything in your company but from reading you post it seems like you haven't really thought things out.

Why would you replace the printers every 4 years?
Why do you need 4-5 new pcs a year?

Perhaps you should look into leasing if your planning on turning over machines quickly et cetera.....

We have about 25 pcs. Some are older than the others. We would replace the oldest 4-5 after 3 years or so. This would give give a life cyle of 3 years per pc and therefore I was looking for a budget cost over 5 years.

AutoCad is about three grand + you'll pay about 10% a year upgrading it
Windows + Microsoft Office + CAL's would cost about a grand over 5 years if you upgrade during that time

At the moment we have 4 full versions for people for the caddies (one or two junior caddies have LT). All engineers have LT.

We are planning to get one network licenses for engineers as they use WinDes & MX.

As fair as I know we have enough cds for each user so it would be a matter of upgrading.

I'm not sure were we stand with Office. Some are O.E.M versions some arent. Most users would only need basic. I assume its a grand per P.C?

the Océ 9400 is WAY overdue then.. ditto for the first HP if it's an 8000

The 9400 is going out the door in the next few weeks. We also have an HP 8850. That will be going soon. The HP 800 is only new (A0 plotter).

Big one is windows licensing / upgrades.

will you be thinking of Vista/64 ?
will you be upgrading the server OS ?

I brought up the point of bulck licensing but was told that to much time would be wasted setting up P.Cs and management didnt want that.

Vista will come into play in the next budget cycle i.e 2011. By then most products will be supported by each developer but the pervious version wont.

if only used for file/print sharing and you've plenty of hard drive bays free you could get a full 5 years out of it - double the HDD's and possibly ram mid life

We are upgrading the current server to add storage. It is used as a print server/file server. We have a stand alone email server. We are also getting a remote server so our sister office can access our files and vice versa.

what's your printing volume HP's can be expensive at high volume, but are good dependable printers at low volume, if you do get HP's then buy the three year cover with the printer it's way cheaper than later on

What alternatives are there. Kipstar? OCe? Rioch? I've used them all but would always go back to HP.

Would you have a comparison on running costs?

junii wrote:

You seem to be making alot of assumptions there. Maybe you have a good idea of everything in your company but from reading you post it seems like you haven't really thought things out.

I'm eningeer who is looking after the I.T I'm only getting into it now. I've thought it out but maybe havent posted in detail. Next time!

Cuddlesworth

kearnsr wrote:

What alternatives are there. Kipstar? OCe? Rioch? I've used them all but would always go back to HP.

Would you have a comparison on running costs?

You forgot Xerox.

godtabh

krazy_8s wrote:

You forgot Xerox.

Used them in America but never in Ireland

majiktripp

I wish all companies could "replace" their servers every 3 years....why only 3 years out of a server by the way?
Why not 5 Year Gold support from Dell (assuming you go that route) and make sure it lasts for the money worth?

godtabh

majiktripp wrote:

I wish all companies could "replace" their servers every 3 years....why only 3 years out of a server by the way?
Why not 5 Year Gold support from Dell (assuming you go that route) and make sure it lasts for the money worth?

Its a HP server. In the past we've got 3 years service and just as thats up it starts acting up.

But to be honest we are more than likely get 5 years out of it but we want to make sure that if it does go down money will be available for it

DublinWriter

kearnsr wrote:

Is there any thing else I should be covering or think of?

Yes - a business continuity plan.

Budget for back-ups, the offsite storage of back-up tapes, a spare server, etc etc.

godtabh

DublinWriter wrote:

Yes - a business continuity plan.

Budget for back-ups, the offsite storage of back-up tapes, a spare server, etc etc.

We have a back up. That goes with out sayin

Capt'n Midnight

kearnsr wrote:

What alternatives are there. Kipstar? OCe? Rioch? I've used them all but would always go back to HP.

Would you have a comparison on running costs?

I was thinking of the A3/A4's not the A0's
depending on who you believe the HP's can be around 4c a page ( buying maintenance kits at the serivce intervals rather than when you need them ) the multifunction 40ppm printer/copiers can be around 1c per page and you can lease / contract them. lower up front cost may please the beancounters too.

many moons ago we had a HP 750c and the ink was costing three times the price of the printer per year !

godtabh

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

I was thinking of the A3/A4's not the A0's
depending on who you believe the HP's can be around 4c a page ( buying maintenance kits at the serivce intervals rather than when you need them ) the multifunction 40ppm printer/copiers can be around 1c per page and you can lease / contract them. lower up front cost may please the beancounters too.

many moons ago we had a HP 750c and the ink was costing three times the price of the printer per year !

We have a service agreement with a company which is independent of the paper and ink. They service all out printers except the Oce (no one will touch that!).

When we replace the oce we will be getting a service agreement with the supplier which will be indepenednt of paper and ink