* Electronic copy only (pdf)

NCC Members have free access to this Guideline on the Principia website.

Recent Guidelines have looked at issues connected with in-house desktop management at some length (see, for example, Guidelines 225, 231 and 242 on Configuration Management, Asset Management and Thin Clients, respectively). These Guidelines have covered total cost of ownership (TCO), desktop management technologies and standards, and administrative procedures, but they fell short of discussing the outsourcing option.

In fact, outsourcing desktop management (so-called 'seat management') is becoming an increasingly attractive option as the costs and complexity of supporting, maintaining and upgrading end-user PCs and workstations have rocketed. The leading lights of this development are the US Federal authorities whose desktop management requirements are immense.

This Guideline addresses the whole area of TCO - its justification and usefulness - and introduces the idea of seat management and something of its history, meaning, practice and probable future in both public and private sectors. It aims, among other things, to provide a set of principles for the implementation of seat management within a general strategy for IS outsourcing.

*This Guideline is only available as a pdf, which will be sent as an email attachment.