A new total cost of ownership study from Robert Hale and Associates, a Chicago-based research firm, offers some critically important insight into Web filtering and the hidden costs that constitute an accurate TCO assessment. Total cost of ownership is a difficult measurement to make, however many IT professionals consider that their time, initial costs, ongoing maintenance and other resources are the components that make up the TCO calculation. Ultimately, the investment of time and resources upfront and on going constitute the greatest cost components.
This independent study compared three top Web filters, Websense, SurfControl and St. Bernard’s iPrism; measuring the time IT professionals spend on tasks associated with these solutions. The parameters studied included setup and installation, management and administration, maintenance and reporting. The findings were significant in that, iPrism required half the time of the other two solutions. This translates into many IT hours, which compute into thousands of dollars – hence the TCO savings from the study. Three hundred people participated in the study, 100 users represented each filtering vendor. It took the IT professionals polled a total of 480 hours to carry out the tasks required for their iPrism solution while Websense users spent 1,040 and SurfControl took 980 hours. A simple computation of $100 an hour for IT time results in savings of at least $55,000 per year for those using the iPrism Web Filter.
Web Filter IT Hours Results Across All Industries
W) statistically significant from Websense at 95% confidence level; S) statistically significant from SurfControl at 95% confidence level and B) statistically significant from St. Bernard at 95% confidence level
- St. Bernard (Setup S.E.=2.2, Mgmt S.E.=2.5, Hardware S.E.=1.8, Reporting S.E.=1.3)
- Websense (Setup S.E.=3.9, Mgmt S.E.=4.4, Hardware S.E.=4.9, Reporting S.E.=5.2)
- SurfControl (Setup S.E.=5.0, Mgmt S.E.=3.4, Hardware S.E.=2.5, Reporting S.E.=3.2)
Note: S.E. = standard error of the sample mean for respective hour estimates. Total Hours First Year = (12 x monthly hours) + (1 x setup & install hours)
Robert Hale and Associates took measures to stratify the randomly chosen participants so they were equal – 100 IT pros for each filter, from companies of comparable size and industry, etc., for a total of 300 participants. This equity in representation makes the results even more dramatic, but looking through the study carefully, I was actually more struck by the similarities. I’m referring to the answers provided on key questions related to the Web filtering process itself — they are surprising in their consistency. For instance, when asked “Does your company have a single policy for all employees or do you provide filtering based on job function?” the answers were virtually identical. This was also true for questions “How does your company organize Web filtering?” Choices of “By Functional Group, By Location, By Management Level, By IP Address/Computer” – all were within a few percentage points of each other.
On the question “What reporting does your company perform for ongoing Web filter management on a monthly basis?” - the choices of Compliance, Exception, Bandwidth, Case Management and Special Request were answered almost identically by all participants regardless of the Web filter they are using. My point is – all the companies polled do Web filtering the same way – solving the same problems using the same best practices. That’s what makes this study so remarkable – we all manage Web filtering the same, yet the time it takes with iPrism is cut in half!
Look. I have been in product management for over 12 years managing ten products in that time. Marketing the cost savings of a product designed specifically to make the IT world simpler, easier to manage and robust are not foreign concepts to me. But the difference between St. Bernard and the other two vendors is so extraordinary that I just had to say something about it. This study provides incontrovertible proof that iPrism offers dramatically lower TCO than Websense or SurfControl. It should be required reading for anyone involved in planning and budgeting their organization’s network security.
>Read the complete TCO Web Filter Report
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