Re: Cost of RDP

On 7/4/2011 2:39 PM, David Gibbs wrote:

On 7/3/2011 11:45 PM, Joe Pluta wrote:

Let's say just for a giggle that RDP saves you an hour a week (and I
guarantee it saves me a lot more than that) over WDSC. That's 50 hours
a year, give or take. So a quick divide tells me you consider your time
to be worth about four bucks an hour. Yeah, I know that might be a bit
over-simplified, but hopefully you get my drift. $800 just ain't that
much as a one-time cost.

Joe ... while I don't disagree with your logic in the slightest ... it's been my observation that most management types (at least the kind that would deny the purchase of a RDP license) can't see that particular forest due to all the trees in the way.

A company I used to work for (a long time ago) refused to let the IT group purchase project management software until we got our current projects completed (oh yeah, they had a new requirement to add to the project in the same memo).

Oh, absolutely, David. I think I noted in a different thread that software development companies in particular are often the most parsimonious when it comes to getting tools for their developers. On the other hand, I'm happy to say that in the real world management seems to be a bit less stingy particularly when you can back it up with the kind of numbers I pointed out.

Now, part of it the problem may be that development shops have larger programmer to income factors than other businesses and so the programming staff is seen much more as an expense. In a production shop, IT is still an expense but as long as it is doing its job (that is, making the jobs of the rest of the company easier) then it's seen as a worthwhile expense. In software shops, any reduction in per-programmer cost can hit the bottom line significantly, so yes, I agree that it's sometimes hard to get the best tools into the shops that would most benefit from them.

But if I'm not mistaken this particular thread is about people shelling out their own cash for a tool. At that point, it really is all about you. The answer is different if I use the tool every day in my consulting business or if I only use it a couple of times a month. My guess is that IBM isn't going to price their tools for the casual user, so the $800 initial investment is either worth it or it isn't. Since a development laptop is more than that, I think it may be a reasonable (if not entirely painless) price to pay. And once you've gotten past that price, is $20 a month worth it to keep the tool supported and up to date? Only you can answer that.

Joe