Your advertising company has about 65 employees and you would like to set up a Web site initially devoted to attracting new clients by advertising and showcasing your work. Most of your work consists of printed magazine advertisements and television commercials. You have not yet established a presence on the Web. You have been asked to prepare an estimate of how much it would cost to establish and operate your own Web site for two years.
At first your company will not be selling anything. Instead it will be displaying about 400 Web pages showing samples of your ads, with photographs, line art, text and short video clips. It will also include links to customer Web sites (for those customers who agree). The site should have the capability of accepting online requests for additional information about how to contact the company by telephone, e-mail, or conventional mail. You anticipate your Web site will require two gigabytes of storage to start with. You also anticipate a maximum of 50 concurrent visitors at first.
You have been instructed that your company will almost certainly want to expand usage of the site in the future, perhaps actually selling ads through the Internet, perhaps using the site for working together with existing clients. You have been asked to provide a solution that can handle other possible future uses as well.
To carry out this task, use the Web to find the information you need to complete your assignment. Use several search engines to locate a quality overview describing the process of building a Web site. Next you will need information the most fundamental item, the Web server. After selecting and pricing Web server software, you will need to price the cost of hardware, personnel, and other software required to run your Web site. Your employees are already equipped with desktop computers running Windows XP Professional, which they use for their work.
Your Web site will need its own dedicated server along with appropriate software, networking, and human resources and you would like to use hardware and software that works with your existing computing environment. Your management does not want to install content management or personalization tools at this time.
To calculate the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of creating and operating your Web site, you should consider the following cost components (and any others you determine will be necessary):
Web server software
Computer hardware to house your Web site
Operating system software
Web site development software for creating your Web site
Software to analyze the performance of your Web site, including analysis of Web site traffic and analysis of links between Web pages
Firewall and antivirus software
Web site design and creation costs, including the following:
Cost to design and set up the original Web site. (A web site development firm has agreed to do this work for $15,000.)
Initial Web page layouts, including custom graphics, photographs, line art, audio, and video elements. (Your firm can use its own staff to create these pages at a cost of $200 per page.)
Domain name registration fee
Development of search engine keywords to direct visitors to your site and registration with search engines
Ongoing maintenance costs: costs to update the Web site, to change existing pages, and to create new pages. Your company estimates making changes to eight pages per month. You company does not anticipate additional hardware or software upgrades for the next two years.
Additional personnel costs:
A marketing specialist in charge of Web site content.
An information systems specialist to maintain the Web site.
Training of current and new staff, estimated at 15 people requiring 10 hours each annually.
Additional monthly telephone expenses for the cost of a leased T-1 line.