Riverbank It management

Did you know that you can now rent software licences from Microsoft instead of purchasing them? Renting often seems like a bad idea - cheap over the short term but expensive over the long term. But we're discovering that rental can make good sense for Riverbank clients.

Take a Microsoft server licence as an example. What we are finding is that over three years the software rental costs are tending to be slightly lower than the price of purchasing the licence. The crossover happens in year four. Given a server life expectancy of around four years it's a hard call to say which is better. But by renting you also avoid the cost of the initial cash investment - and in these post-credit-crunch days that's worth quite a lot.

So if you are thinking about replacement servers think about renting.

You don't like spending money on computers during an economic downturn. I can sympathise with that because we don't like doing that either. But beware of creating a problem for yourself further down the line.

One Riverbank client recently complained that their computers were running slowly. One of the reasons behind this was that many of the machines were over five years old. Because the company doesn't have a programme of regular replacement of ageing computers they have reached a point where they will soon be forced to spend a lot of cash replacing around half of their computers.

You need a policy for computer replacement. A reasonable policy could be a life span of four years for desktops and three years for laptops. If times are hard you can then stretch that by an extra year. But at least you know what you need to budget for every year and you avoid a pile-up of costs.

Since April this year the Information  Commissioner's Office (ICO) has had real teeth. It now has the power to fine companies up to £500,000 for serious breaches of the Data Protection Act.

Common breaches of the Data Protection Act include:

• Loss of laptops, disks and data sticks containing client data.
• Insecure transmission of personal information.

Simple steps that you can take:

There is plenty of hype around cloud computing, but are companies actually doing it? Many large firms are apparently holding back from making a drastic change to their IT systems, preferring to wait until others have gone before them and made their mistakes. Many smaller businesses are hesitant about making their entire business dependent on a single Internet connection. They are also worried about security – why would they place their intellectual property in an environment where they have little or no control?

  

What is cloud computing?

Cloud computing delivers an entire business’s IT via the Internet. Drivers pushing companies towards cloud computing include the need to reduce capital expenditure and the desire to cut out complex IT installations from their offices. There is an undeniable attraction in never having to buy another server, and instead just paying a single monthly fee for a guaranteed IT service.

Others companies might adopt cloud computing for the flexibility it offers. If they have a seasonal or variable business it makes a lot of sense to use a service that can be turned up and down as required.

Every cloud has a silver lining, so they say, and if there is to be a double-dip recession we’d all better start looking hard for that lining.

If your customers are feeling cautious they are likely to want to avoid large capital expenditure. Can you help them with this? In Riverbank we can provide hardware and software as a service so there is zero capital cost. This even applies to traditional high-cost items like servers. It’s proving to be an attractive option for clients.

Can you offer flexible payment options for your customers? If you provide a service, offering an option for monthly payments might make it easier for them, or conversely they might choose to pay for a year in advance to get the attractive discount you offer. Either way, you offer flexibility and you offer choice to your customer making it easier for them to say “yes”.

Kyle Allard, one of our recent recruits, has been featured in a Facebook profile by CompTIA. CompTIA is a non-profit organisation promoting standards and education for the IT industry.

 

Find out more about Kyle here.

We look forward to seeing you at Venturefest next Tuesday, 22 June, at the Kassam Stadium in Oxford.

If you have any IT issues you would like to discuss book a half-hour IT clinic with us at Venturefest. Are you thinking about cloud computing? Have you heard about SharePoint and wondering if it could help your business? Or maybe you just want all your IT to run smoothly and your current IT provider doesn't do that for you. Whatever your issue we would be happy to advise. Contact us now at help@riverbank.co.uk.

Microsoft Office 2010 is now available. Major changes include closer integration of traditional Office components like Word and Excel with SharePoint, making it easier for multiple people to work together on a single document and making it easier to work online/offline.

The infamous ribbon, introduced in Office 2007 to replace the traditional menus, is now fully customisable. This should be a great benefit because you can put all your favourite options on one bar, making life faster and easier.

If you would like to see Office 2010 in action call Riverbank to arrange a demonstration.

Netbooks were last year’s revolution. With seven to ten inch screens these low-powered computers were designed to give you access to all the world’s information – the Internet. But that didn’t really happen.

What did happen is they grew larger and more powerful because people want to use them as small laptop computers. And this makes a great deal of sense. In a knowledge economy it’s the information you create that creates value, so you spend a lot of time putting information in. This requires processing power and a useable keyboard and screen, so customer demand forces up the size and power of the netbook.

So why choose a netbook? One great example was a four-day meeting I attended last month. One of us had a small netbook computer and was able to enter and organise his thoughts on the go. One of us had a pad of paper and was forced to spend hours after the meetings writing up his notes (ok I confess, my notes). Having seen the comparison I’m never doing that again. I’m buying a netbook – it’s small enough to be discreet and not affect the human interaction in the meeting and it has enough battery power for a day-long meeting. If you are a Riverbank client and would like to try it out, you are more than welcome.

It's Microsoft. In a deal announced earlier this month Microsoft is outsourcing its own IT support to Infosys. It just goes to show that as a business model, outsourcing functions like IT can be a very effective solution, whether you are Microsoft or a small or medium-sized business.