Cape to save R17m on vPro?

By Leon Engelbrecht for Intel

Johannesburg, 06 Jun 2008

The City of Cape Town is on track to refresh about 12 000 computers at over 700 sites with Intel vPro technology in order to cut costs.

A BMI-TechKnowledge study last year suggested that although vPro machines cost R500 to R1 000 more per machine, it could save the city R17 million a year in site visits and pay for itself within eight months of the full implementation.

Danie Kotze, the city`s distributed computing head of front-end services, says the city covers 230km². The metropole adopted Microsoft`s Systems Management Server about four years ago, to cut site visits related to software issues.

The BMI-T report found that the city`s IT team was still getting an average of 12 calls per PC per year, which negated the savings made on the software side. The study found that adopting vPro, which allows for the remote management of hardware, would save the city R1631.79 per machine in an average year.

Kotze says the city refreshes about 25% of its machines a year. At present, about a quarter of the city`s desktops use vPro chips and the remainder will be replaced over the next three years.

"We are very excited about this technology," says Kotze, "and have been for the last 18 months. We now have critical mass and are already getting some savings. We`ve also noted power consumption is down - the PCs are more powerful, but consume less electricity."

The study found the saving would be made despite the direct cost in technical staff, call centre personnel, software, data and device management, as well as indirect costs remaining the same.