You are all familiar with those studies from industry analysts that show you what the “true” cost of owning various IT equipment. I am visiting Adtran today and one of the things they talk about is how easy it is to figure out the total cost of ownership (TCO) without having to apply a lot of airy-fairy multiplers or other fudge factors to really get to the bottom line. Here are some quick ways that won’t require you to go ask your fourth-grader to do the calculations for you:

• Does your vendor offer extended warranties that really cover maintenance for five years at no cost, or do they require hidden maintenance contracts?
• Does your vendor offer free firmware upgrades for as long as you own their gear, or do you have to pay after a year or two to keep current with their upgrades?
• Does your vendor offer toll-free support both before and after you buy their product, and does the support team live somewhere in the US rather than overseas?
• How does your vendor pay its telephone support staff, by per call completes, by customer satisfcation, or by some other metric?

I think you can see where I am going here. The more stuff that is included in the price, the less funny business you have to deal with when you are four, five years out and have to keep things running. (Too bad the American automobile industry hasn’t yet figured this out.)