Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Small Business Owners: Think you need a server for your office? Think again most techs say yes I assure you they are lying!


Windows server $2500 or My book World edition server $400 you decide
Recently we had a small home office 5 computers, husband and wife team with 2 employees and a graphic designer. The Problem: they were looking for a centralized storage system were all files could be stored and shared but the owners did not want financial data to be accessible to the entire office. Our client needed to keep cost down but productivity high,this is pretty common for us since many small business owners start out on  boot strap funding. Prior to calling us our competitors came in with the traditional windows client server setup at a cost of $5000 to $9000 for this simple office setup.

Our solution: First thing was to go out and get computers that were running Windows XP (we would have preferred to use Ubuntu but our client denied the OS) Quick Note: on software Windows Vista sucks my apologies Microsoft, but it is not a good OS no matter how much they spend trying to convince me. Our solution was to install the Ethernet western digital my book as their file server with its simple security features we were able to make folders accessible with password protection. This enabled the client  to have a central storage system and keep the financial data secure from all but the owners (it also has remote access). We recently went back in to add more storage for the client so we just connected another WD World Book to the existing one and presto another 1 tb of storage available.

Clients Final cost is as follows:
5 New Computer @ 400 each from dell $2500
1 TB World Book -$350
Installation-$500
Total Cost $3350


As of this writing our client is also using SaaS as well to keep software cost down and support the 2 employees since those employees  now work from home, but we will save that for another writing.

End Note: Technology has transformed the way we work and the entire office structure, unfortunately many computer technicians are not accepting this change due to lower profit margins. If you are a small business owner, you may want to use a computer consultant rather than a technician since most consultants are unbiased because they are getting paid from their knowledge versus the products you purchase. 

For more information on how this could work for you and your organization contact us at 877-400-9321 or visit our website at www.dbdexposure.com 

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