Virtualisation, vendor discounts save Mallesons

By Beverley Head
Monday, 10 August 2009 09:01

Business IT - Technology

“The next thing we are very interested in is desktop virtualisation, but that is 18 months off being a reality,” he added.

Also keeping costs in check has been a relative dearth of PC vendor innovation which has allowed the firm to extend the lives of its personal computer fleet from its usual three years to five years. Mallesons has just completed a refresh of all 2,200 desktop and laptop computers “and the vendors were very keen to sell to us,” according to Neiditsch who says he struck a good bargain for the machines. Having stretched the usual refresh period to five years, Neiditsch said that, “The unit cost was less than half what we paid five years ago. There is significant saving when you amortise that.”

Mallesons has also slowed the refresh rate on lawyers’ favourite gizmos, BlackBerries. “We have exhausted the benefits from that. We are not increasing the number and there has not been much innovation so we will just maintain the fleet. Clients get the same service from a two year old BlackBerry as from a new one,” Neiditsch maintains.