52 x £400 = £20,800
You don't need more than a £400 laptop to do office or business work.

What would be the IT support costs for imaging those laptops, securing them and maintaining them though?

Plus software. Those will increase the costs of supporting considerably. Though it could also make dissemination of council papers much easier and cheaper as they can simply be synced via some cloud service like dropbox without the need to print.

You'd have to assume they had the relevant windows software already so that's a sunk cost at this point. However iOS (or android) devices are easier to support and maintain than full windows PCs. It's more a question of what their use cases are and what their current back end infrastructure is.

If I was them, I'd be seriously considering Surface devices. If not at launch, then at least in early 2013.

There were some launched today IIRC. It would actually make sense to delay for two reasons. First the launch of Surface devices today and next week the supposed iPad mini, either of which could be better options than current iPad deals.

This is more about councillors (only) wanting to have something they believe to be cool dressed up to look they are saving money

If the councillors are the ones instigating this then I would agree. Though if this is from the IT department then who knows the reasons.

They couldn't be doing too much typing if they want an iPad, surely? In which case there are definitely cheaper, similar Korean alternatives

Certainly, but you'd have to teach them English before they could be councillors.

I presume they will run all their current apps? there was a story going round the web a couple of months ago referring to an unnamed large company that had bought 1000s fo ipads but they wouldn't run the apps they needed...

That could happen anywhere. It does take a bit of foresight to actually buy one and then find out that all the apps that they need can be installed and what will be wanted. Hardly rocket science.

not rocket science, but this is a council we're taking about...

What are the associated costs of keyboards and docking stations for the iPads, so they can do "work"?

Are all the applications they need available for the iPad?

About 50 quid per unit, if they're buying a decent number. Which probably runs to say 1500 quid total (30 councillors seems a reasonable number). Which they can write off over 3 years. Not much compared to even a basic techy's wages frankly.

The second question you pose is a valid one but pretty much every study has shown the TCO of tablets is significantly less than desktop PCs.


This is, IMO the 'deal breaker'. The cost is not in support per se, the cost is in writing off their existing software catalogue and implementing/buying another one and the changes in workflow / training requirements that may impose, even given it's possible. If they can show they'd spend less re-equipping with & supporting tablets than they would on maintaining an existing desktop/laptop based infrastructure and that it wouldn't significantly impact efficiency, then obviously it's the smart thing to do. We don't really have the numbers available to us to make that decision in their case, frankly.