4 Technology Downgrades That Will Save You Money

The entire purpose of equipping your business with technology is to save you money while making you money. When technology costs you more money than it should, you will want to change your tech situation to better suite your needs. This is an example of the classic money management strategy, "only pay for what you need."

Are you spending more on technology than you have to? Are you using hardware that has more power than you need, and are you running applications that have features you never use? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you will want to downgrade your technology. Here are four examples where you may be losing money by using more technology than what you need.

Mobile Devices
When it comes to equipping your staff with mobile devices, it's easy to be sucked in by marketing and purchase the newest device because you've been convinced that you need it. Only in the device showroom is it logical to buy the latest device solely because of the "cool factor." When the marketing magic wears off, and you're sitting there with pile of the latest gadgets and a bloated credit card statement, it's then that you might regret your shopping spree.

For getting company work done, you really don't need to pay an extra $200 for the latest device when the biggest difference between version one and version two is an upgraded camera. Before you shop for mobile devices for your staff, you will want to first assess your company's mobile needs. You may be surprised to learn that an older model may do everything that you need it to do, and in many cases, a wireless service provider will even offer older models for free with a service contract.

Microservers
When it comes to hosting company data on a server, you may not need a full-sized powerful server to host applications that have a low demand for resources. A microserver is a great solution for hosting applications requiring lots of processes, yet each process doesn't require a lot of resources. A common task that microservers are used for is supporting your company's applications and that is the only task you ask of it.. Additionally, microservers take up less power and space, saving you money and freeing up space in your server room.

Server Virtualization
Another example where your server units may be costing you more money than what they're making you, is when you have a large number of old server units that are underutilized. With a process called server virtualization, SMART Services is able to help you streamline your IT infrastructure by consolidating programs and data from your old inefficient servers to your newer ones. With server virtualization, your network will consume less power and have more resources available. In some cases, a server virtualization procedure is able to consolidate the number of server units by 4-to-1.

A Print Server
Another way that you can downgrade your technology and save money is by using a print server to get rid of several of your old and inefficient printers. A print server will handle all the print traffic over your network, thereby eliminating the resources pulled from your main servers for printing, which will free up more server resources if you're going through the process of server virtualization. You can have SMART Services install your print server for you and we'll map out a more efficient way to print while we're at it. By using fewer printers, you will save on printing expenses like ink, paper, and electricity.

Conventional wisdom says that the more technology you have, and the newer it is, the more money you will save. As we have just seen, however, this is not always the case. Sometimes it's more practical and more efficient to downgrade your technology and consolidate your IT infrastructure. To have the professionals at SMART Services evaluate your company's technology and show you where changes can be made that will save you money; give us a call at 586 258-0650 .