I’ve written a few times about the amazing things people can accomplish with VMware Horizon FLEX
. Let me quickly recap, and then share something new we’ve just calculated.
Horizon FLEX is essentially a centralized management console for the VMware Fusion and Workstation hypervisors. It does way more than that, but if you are in the business of enabling bring your own (BYO) but everyone still needs offline access to your corporate desktops, FLEX does that. If you need to deliver a legacy XP app to a modern Windows 10 platform, FLEX does that. If your field personnel carry more than one laptop, FLEX will save their aching spines.
And now back to why I’m writing this. If you regularly provide seasonal works and contractors with a computer, FLEX can save you 400 bucks per person. Let me explain.
We’ve been selling Horizon FLEX for about 18 months now. We can report that, on average, giving a contractor a Workstation or Fusion-powered desktop costs about $2,600. Add in the hardware required to support FLEX, and you still save almost 60% over the alternative.
Don’t believe me? See the math in our new infographic, and let me know what numbers you’re tracking.
Giving contractors a laptop is expensive. The laptop itself costs about $220 per year, assuming the 5-year refresh cycle common in the industry. It’ll take IT about 2 hours to build that laptop, which works out to be roughly $30 a year. Add onto that admin and help desk costs, and you quickly arrive at the conclusion that while buying a laptop only costs $1,100, owning it for five years costs an additional $4,000-ish.
Obviously, not buying the laptop helps (hurrah for BYO-PC!), but that’s just a tiny part of the story. As it turns out, building a virtual machine that gets pushed to a laptop you don’t own is also cheaper than provisioning a new one. Additionally, the ongoing maintenance costs are lower, as are the support demands on your help desk.
What is your organization’s cost per laptop for contractors? Share your calculations in the comments below.
Want to see Horizon FLEX in action? Check it out our hands on lab: https://www.vmware.com/flex-hol-labs.html.
