To address this concern, Palm, Inc. retained Gantry Group (at http://www.gantrygroup.com) to profile, probe, and quantify the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) associated with enterprise mobile solutions. The results of this fascinating study are spelled out in detail in a new White Paper available at http://www.palm.com/pdfs/TCO_wp.pdf.

According to the paper, "Typical medium-to-large enterprise mobile solutions now involve over 500 mobile devices, synchronized to a centralized server to enable multi-user data exchange and unattended, transparent updates." With mobile solutions running on a scale like this, it's no surprise that the commensurate costs have begun to register with those in charge of corporate finances.

The set-up
Gantry Group chose the two leading mobile solution platforms for the study: Palm OS and Pocket PC. Forty enterprise sites with deployed mobile solutions were researched, recruited, and interviewed for the study. The enterprise sites were chosen to evenly represent each platform (i.e., 20 Palm OS solutions; 20 Pocket PC-based solutions).

Gantry Group then had to develop a methodology that captured the many facets of mobile solution TCO, seeing as how there was no preexisting methodology framework for a mobile solution TCO study. The organization then designed and tested a TCO measurement tool that captured multiple cost components associated with buying, deploying, managing, and supporting handheld devices.

The findings
The study findings showed that there's about a $320 difference in annual handheld TCO between Palm OS and Pocket PC devices. What accounts for the difference? Gantry Group lists the primary cost components for the Pocket PC solution as:

• Higher unit base cost;
• Greater need for IT services;
• Higher software distribution and management costs;
• Increased need for training.

According to the study, the annual lifetime amortized TCO for a Palm OS mobile device was $456. This compares to $776 for a Pocket PC mobile device, as shown in Figure A.