ComputerWorld posted a white paper from Dell titled “Why your small business needs a real server.” A few other technical online magazines are also offering this white paper.
The lead for the white paper at ComputerWorld says “Your small business could be more efficient, productive, and profitable. Everyone in the office could share a single source of data, access their printer of choice, and be assured the e-mail they receive is virus- and spam-free. You could realize the advantages of running a workplace where employees, partners, and customers can access information whenever they need it, wherever they are. You and your business could truly work from anywhere and enjoy the protection of having a consistent way to back up data so that critical information survives individual desktop crashes or laptop losses.”
Any business network NOT providing all those things, with or without a server, is not structured properly. The good news is that smaller businesses can now have all of that without the additional cost of server hardware, software and maintenance.
If your business has found success with a server in a business with less than 25 seats, talk to us before replacing or upgrading. (These upgrades should be occurring every three to five years to maintain a minimum risk of hardware failure.) And if your network does not perform like the one described above, call us – we can help.
Microsoft developed Windows Server SBS to sell server software to businesses with as few as three computers and up to 50 - a huge new market for that line of business at the time. Until SBS, server software and functionality were not cost effective for SMBs. For the past several years SBS has been a great way for smaller businesses to have, at a reasonable cost, functionality previously reserved for much larger organizations.
Microsoft and its hardware and consulting partners have flourished in that niche and continue to market and sell servers to SMBs. IBM is now marketing Lotus Foundations as an alternative to the same small businesses.
With the availability of higher quality network attached storage (NAS) and new cloud computing applications, On-Site Technical Solutions is no longer automatically recommending servers for businesses with less than 25 seats. Some businesses will still need a server because of application software specific requirements, and most businesses with more than 25 seats will still need a server to effectively manage their networks. But most of the functionality delivered with servers can be obtained more cost effectively with less expensive hardware and cloud applications for the smaller environments.
Server projects are typically more profitable for IT consultants than NAS and cloud-based solutions, they work and they repeat every few years, so there’s still plenty of incentive to sell those products. But our first question is always, “why does this business need a server?” More and more we’re finding the answer to be, “it doesn’t.”
Feel free to call or text me at 949-212-2168 with questions about moving your business to the cloud and saving money on better technology.
You should follow me and On-Site Technical Solutions on Twitter at @MHBoys
On-Site Technical Solutions
Microsoft
SMB
servers
No comments:
Post a Comment