The migration cost of moving to Microsoft Windows 2000 will cost an astronomical $3,100 per PC, according to a report out yesterday by IT consultancy, the Gartner Group. This will make it impossible to achieve any return on investment for at least three years, the report claims. Gartner compiled its estimates using a model based on a typical 2,500 user network-connected company. The model represents only desktop migration costs, not back-end server or Active Directory implementation costs, likely to be much more.
Gartner attributes the cost to bringing hardware and software up to speed, which will include additional memory requirements and the cost of testing and buying the software. The desktop migration price for a company moving to Windows 2000 from Window NT workstation will cost up to $2,050 per PC, Gartner estimates. Moving over from older versions of the OS could hit has much as $3,100 per PC. Microsoft denied that businesses will have to hand over this much, but when asked to provide an estimated range of costs, a spokesperson for the company said that it was very difficult to gauge and that it would depend on the customer scenario.
