maintenance to keep the service available and to avert disaster. IT industry usage Whole-life cost is often referred to as "total cost of ownership (TCO)" when applied to IT hardware and software acquisitions. Use of the term "TCO" appears to have been popularised by Gartner Group in 1987 but its roots are considerably older, dating at least to the first quarter of the twentieth century. It has since been developed as a concept with a number of different methodologies and software tools. A TCO assessment ideally offers a final statement reflecting not only the cost of purchase but all aspects in the further use and maintenance of the equipment, device, or system considered. This includes the costs of training support personnel and the users of the system, costs associated with failure or outage (planned and unplanned), diminished performance incidents (i.e. if users are kept waiting), costs of security breaches (in loss of reputation and recovery costs), costs of disaster preparedness and recovery, floor space, electricity, development expenses, testing infrastructure and expenses, quality assurance, boot image control, marginal incremental growth, decommissioning, e-waste handling, and more. When incorporated in any financial benefit analysis (e.g., ROI, IRR, EVA, ROIT, RJE) TCO provides a cost basis for determining the economic value of that investment. Understanding and familiarity with the term TCO has been somewhat facilitated as a result of various comparisons between the TCO of open source and proprietary software. Because the software cost of open source software is often zero, TCO has been used as a means to justify the up-front licensing costs of proprietary software. Studies which attempt to establish the TCO and provide comparisons have as a result been the subject of many discussions regarding the accuracy or perceived bias in the comparison. Automobile industry, finances Total cost of ownership is also common in the automobile industry. In this context, the TCO denotes the cost of owning a vehicle from the purchase, through its maintenance, and finally its sale as a used car. Comparative TCO studies between various models help consumers choose a car to fit their needs and budget. TCO can and often does vary dramatically against TCA (total cost of acquisition), although TCO is far more relevant in determining the viability of any capital investment, especially with modern credit markets and financing. TCO also directly relates to a business's total costs across all projects and processes and, thus, its