10 Common Tech Mistakes, Part
I
In a small business or organization, a technology
mistake can mean the difference between the success and failure of
the business. Large companies with a dedicated IT staff have
trouble making good tech decisions, so as you know, it is even
harder for small organizations with no IT staff.
The following is the first 5 of a list of 10
Common Mistakes made by small businesses and organizations, from an
article by Erik Eckel at Tech Republic. We will cover the last
5 in our next newsletter:
1) Insufficient Tech
Support
Who does your tech support? The teenage son
of the President? The video game enthusiast in Accounting? A vendor
support person in Albania? It may seem like this inexpensive
tech support is a good deal, but they usually end up costing you
more that you save.
Poor support leads to inefficient employees, and
poor use of your technology investment.
Avoid this mistake by finding professional support
people you can trust without breaking the bank.
2) Hardware/Software
Issues
It may seem like hanging on to that old PC for 4
or 5 years is saving you money, but you might be surprised to find
that it is costing you more than a new one.
PC hardware is designed to work well with specific
operating systems and software versions. As a PC ages, it is
likely to develop an increasing frequency of software issues due to
incompatibility with newer software versions. Further, older
hardware, especially hard drives, will suffer from the increasingly
likelihood of failure.
Most large companies consider the appropriate
lifecycle for a PC to be three years, and in our experience, that is
an appropriate figure. Consider replacing your PCs before they
cost you more than they are worth.
3) Insufficient Power
Protection
Providing good protection from power surges and
dropouts may be the easiest and cheapest thing you can do to save
tech dollars. Without protection, you may not only face the
loss of expensive hardware, but employee downtime and business
disruption as well.
At a minimum, you need a surge protector for each
device on your network. Failure to protect a single device may
allow a voltage spike to enter your network, and damage other
equipment. We also recommend surge protection for phone and
cable lines.
