While TCO and ROI have been lurking in textbooks for a long time, these financial disciplines have only recently found their way into the hip pocket of every enterprise CFO (Chief Financial Office), COO (Chief Operating Officer) and CIO (Chief Information Officer). Proven TCO and/or ROI have become the procurement gates for most enterprises -- particularly for technology investment. Prove it or lose it (meaning, the sale) is the new enterprise hard line being taken with vendors.

Buying on the basis of accurately forecasted value return isn't such a bad thing. Implemented correctly, continual measurement of TCO and ROI facilitates the ongoing evaluation of an enterprise's corporate infrastructure, guiding follow-on investment in deployed solutions. Questions are being asked:

• Should we renew our subscription?
• Should we ramp the solution roll-out to other parts of the organization?
• Should we invest further in our selected vendor for other solutions?
• Should we switch and cut bait on our currently deployed solution?
• How do solution vendors compare in terms of payback?

Answers to these seemingly tough questions become clear when supported by experiential economic data.

Qualifying and quantifying technology value delivery is the mission and passion of our company, the Gantry Group. Our new Computing Unplugged Magazine monthly column, Keeping Score on TCO and ROI, will focus on the definition and implementation of TCO and ROI best practices, specifically for mobile enterprise solutions. This column is a "how-to" guide for value analysis techniques, the benefits of use, and pitfalls to avoid. We promise to keep our topics practical, pertinent and pithy.

This first column fully considers TCO assessments for enterprise mobile solutions that use handheld devices. Handheld TCO is an important calculation for understanding just what the solution is really going to cost the enterprise -- always a good-to-know prior to committing to the deployment.