Johannesburg, 03 May 2006
African Bank is implementing new HP desktops and notebooks with the assistance of IT services and solution provider, Datacentrix, infrastructure partner to the bank since 2001.
According to Ian Kaplan of African Bank, the objective of the project was to replace a number of machines from an earlier rental agreement. "With the price of equipment having dropped significantly over the past few years, it made better business sense for us to purchase new equipment rather than enter into another agreement of this type," he explains.
With the African Bank environment already largely comprised of HP equipment, Datacentrix felt the effect of this on the bank`s total cost of ownership deserved serious consideration, particularly when looking at reducing costs.
"The cost of acquisition of desktop and mobile products is less than 20% of the full lifecycle costs of these products," says Gavin Smith, account manager at Datacentrix. "According to Gartner and also in terms of the principles laid down by ITIL, one of the areas where tremendous cost savings over the lifecycle can be realised is through standardisation of the environment.
"This applies both to end-user productivity, where end-users are familiar with the look, feel and functionality of the product, and the support of the environment. The more standardised the environment, the lower the cost of providing support in terms of spares, images, drivers and interoperability. "Based on this, we believe that standardisation was critical for African Bank in order to add to the existing functioning environment with only incremental costs."
According to Smith, both Datacentrix and HP have a proven track record with African Bank in terms of quality of product and service delivery on a national basis.
Kaplan cites that the stability afforded by the continuation of African Bank`s relationship with the two companies was a key concern in this project. "Datacentrix`s quality of services and our relationships with the individuals involved in our account at the company were also significant factors in our decision."
For more information please visit www.datacentrix.co.za
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