Facts, Data and Industry News on Computer Cleaning

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What our service will do and why

What is at stake

Money is at stake, and lots of it. Every time a computer goes down it costs companies money. Slow computers also costs companies money. On average 30 min's of lost time due to computer slowness happens every day. That's and average of $1,300 a year based on $10 an hour employee. An average office has up to 10 computers in it, that's $13,000 a year in loss money due to slow computers. Dust and Dirt causes computers to run slow and so does unnecessary files, spyware, viruses and fragmented drives. All of which we fix during our cleaning process.

  • The average company spends between $100,000 and $1,000,000 in total ramifications per year for desktop-oriented disasters (both hard and soft costs.) (Source: 7th Annual ICSA Lab's Virus Prevalence Survey, March 2002.)
  • In addition to being more prevalent, computer viruses were more costly, more destructive, and caused more real damage to data and systems than in the past. (Source: 7th Annual ICSA Lab's Virus Prevalence Survey, March 2002.)
  • Of those companies participating in the 2001 Cost of Downtime Survey: 46% said each hour of downtime would cost their companies up to $50k, 28% said each hour would cost between $51K and $250K, 18% said each hour would cost between $251K and $1 million, 8% said it would cost their companies more than $1million per hour. (Source: 2001 Cost of Downtime Survey Results, 2001.)
  • Companies that aren't able to resume operations within ten days (of a disaster hit) are not likely to survive (Source: Strategic Research Institute, Jan. 2002.)

Industry News

In a new study by Dr. Gerba of the University of Arizona explains the risks of germs in the work place, especially on the phone, keyboard and mouse. In fact the keyboard has some 10 million germs swarming around it at any given time. Dr. Gerba also stated that the keyboard has about 400 times more germs than the average toilet seat. Yuck!

Dr. Gerba's study -- funded by The Clorox Company -- took a look at typical office sites across the country. Each included a mix of cubicles and private offices. The cleaning routines in these offices were pretty much nonexistent. "We don't think twice about eating at our desks, even though the average desk has 100 times more bacteria than a kitchen table and 400 times more bacteria than the average toilet," says Gerba. "Without cleaning, a small area on your desk or phone can sustain millions of bacteria that could potentially cause illness."

Source: webmd.com - Messy Desks Breed More Than Dust Bunnies - Jeanie Lerche Davis

Bacteria and germs from greasy food bits, skin flakes, and other nasty unmentionables were found to be living on a keyboard. TechTV sent out a keyboard for testing at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. Their results...cultures came back with a "large proliferation of gram-positive bacteria, which can include staphylococcus. This is the organism behind "staph" infections and an important contributor to skin wound infections. It's also the bug behind strep throat." They went on to say, "The keyboard is not clean, so you are working and then you touch your nose and maybe inoculate yourself with the bacteria that causes respiratory infection."

Source: techtv.com - Keyboard Cooties - Becky Worley

Germs and dirt abound keyboards everywhere. Research by AOL-UK, "The average keyboard, it said last week, accumulates up to two grams of dirt per month." Earlier this year, a team of infectious disease specialists took cultures from computer keyboards in the Tripler Army Medical Centre intensive-care unit in Honolulu. They found that 25 percent had a strain of the multi-drug-resistant staphylococcus aureus bacterium.

Source: cnet.com - What evil lurks...beneath your keyboard - Susan Tsang

Spreading Germs and Illness in the Workplace. ABC News January 19, 1998. A study done by New York University Microbiologist Dr. Phillip Tierno revealed that the following germs were found on office equipment: Human contamination from the mouth and skin. Surprisingly feces on phones, desktops and on the buttons of office machines. Electronic equipment attracts bacteria. “The existence of these microorganisms can therefore not exclude person to person transfer and may pose a potential cross infection health risk”.

Source: Clinpath Laboratory results

Dr. Carl Batt, microbiologist from Cornell University found on equipment throughout the United States: Bacillus cereus on telephones. Staphylococcus aureus on computer keyboards. Escherichia coli on ATM machines. This particular bacteria on an ATM machine would represent a public health threat.

Source: The Importance of working on clean equipment CBS Evening News reported May 13, 1997

CBS news reporter, John Roberts, did a report throughout the United States on the presence of germs on all kinds of public surfaces. He reported that, in ALL of the surfaces tested, it was found there was at least one form bacteria and/or virus on each surface, such as E. coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus and even fecal matter, just to name a few.

What we found on some ATM's was a toxic form of E. coli bacteria similar to one that caused a deadly outbreak of food poisoning in the Northwest four years ago... and it wasn't just the ATM's that were carrying the disease. Fifty percent (50%) of the surfaces tested had at least one form of toxic bacteria on them.

Source: Dan Rather CBS News Report On May 12th, 1997

Architecture Professor Tang Lee with the University of Calgary's faculty of environmental design. He mentions: "Our fascination with high tech equipment gives germs more opportunity to travel on all those buttons on computer keyboards, fax machines, telephones and printers etc. Common causes of indoor workers taking sick leave are colds, flu, pneumonia, strip throat and sniffed. Most likely source for these germs, the COMPUTER EQUIPMENT."

Source: The Herald