Databus Issue: 2003 3 07/15/2003
TCO: Viewing Monitors Differently
Matt Woods Network Administrator
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The case for LCD vs. CRT monitors continues to improve. The latest information and studies released by vendors and non-manufacturing sources point to growing evidence that LCD monitors are quickly becoming more cost effective to own than traditional CRT monitors.
Driving this trend is an increased emphasis on Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). The latest in technology acronyms and buzzwords, TCO considers hard costs that have, up to now, often been overlooked in technology acquisition.
Gone are the days when technology was purchased to “stay current” and be ”leading edge.” Today’s budget crisis forces us all to become better business managers. To sell any project to your CFO, it has always been necessary to justify the cost. However, today we need to change our mindset. Traditionally, I.T. has tried to sell management on technology and then justify the cost. Instead, we should present management with a way to save money and demonstrate the technology it takes to accomplish that goal. Saving money is the goal – not technology.
Comparing Monitors
The 17-inch monitors that we buy today, generally, have a 15.9-inch viewable size. A 15-inch LCD, on the other hand, is actually 15 inches. Therefore, in reality, a 17-inch CRT is only six percent larger than a 15 inch LCD. This is equivalent to the difference between a 17-point and 18-point font. Can you tell the difference?
In looking at our TCO comparison, we will assume a building (office or school) with 200 computers and, therefore, 200 monitors. What is the Total Cost of Ownership for LCD vs. CRT monitors in this environment? To get the TCO, we have to look beyond just the purchase price and consider other operational expenses such as electricity, cooling and repairs. I will be using real data from my district in this exercise to demonstrate how we calculated our TCO. We assumed the equipment was used 10 hours per day and 50 weeks out of the year.
Equipment Costs
Even with low educational pricing it is still possible to make a case for TCO. We currently purchase new, 17-inch CRTs with a three-year warranty for $169. A new, 15-inch LCD, with the same three-year warranty from the same manufacturer (in our case Gateway), is $269. That is a $100 (or 59 percent) difference. So far, the TCO is not looking good.
Power Considerations
A 17-inch CRT consumes about 85 watts of power while an LCD consumes 30 watts. At 19 cents per Kwh, this works out to $26.13 savings per year per monitor. Not much, but remember that these savings are cumulative.
TCO Heats Up
A person creates approximately 600 BTUs of heat while a 17-inch CRT generates approximately 280 BTUs and a 15-inch LCD about 90 BTUs. Stated another way, 200 CRTs is equivalent to 100 additional persons of air conditioning load. LCDs would reduce this number to 30 persons creating a savings of 3.17 tons of air conditioning (1 ton = 12,000 BTU) or $7,925 per year in HVAC operating/maintenance costs. (Source: nec-mitsubishi.com)
Non-Issues
Many TCO calculators you will find on the Internet tout the “cost savings” realized with LCD monitors by factoring in reduced desk space and lower depreciation (higher resale value). But, we are in education and we all know that smaller monitors will not result in desks becoming smaller. Therefore, no cost savings can be achieved here. Likewise, school districts tend to keep equipment well beyond the normal “life expectancy” seen in business. In the end, we can assume that a monitor (LCD or CRT) will be depreciated to $0.
Repairs
LCDs are still too new in the marketplace to accurately gauge repair histories and costs. However, we can use the U. S. Government MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) criteria (developed as a MIL standard by the Department of Defense) to predict monitor repair incidents. A typical CRT monitor has an MTBF of 30,000 hours. LCD monitors can have MTBF ratings as high as 80,000 hours. So, in our example we could expect 16.6 monitor failures per year if CRTs were deployed versus 6.25 LCD failures. Even if you assume LCDs will be twice as costly to repair, the total repair costs are actually lower. Remember too, that there are no repair costs in the first three years due to the warranty.
Conclusion
As you can see from the table below, the TCO for LCD monitors is lower than it is for CRT monitors. Actually, in year one, CRTs clearly have a lower TCO, which is due solely to the lower initial investment. However, by year two, LCDs have already made up that difference. By the end of the fifth year, using our example of 200 monitors, LCDs will have saved your district $46,391.
