Efficient IT Support

What next, a plague of locusts? I have opined about tough economic times here before, but jeez it’s getting a little nutty out there.  I think it’s time to make everything a bit more efficient, wouldn’t you say?  How many people do you currently employ to keep your IT infrastructure and software running smoothly?  Chances are you have at least one person that keeps the whole shebang operational and several “experts” on retainer.  This traditional metric has served business well for some time.  There is, however, a more efficacious way of going about the business of keeping everything running smoothly. 

Computer hardware, as it turns out, is remarkably reliable stuff.  “Yeah right” I can hear you saying.  “How come I’m always having IT problems?”  Take a look at your invoices for IT support.  See much in the way of hardware?  Nope.  It’s all labor.  And – shocker - it’s less than clear what exactly was done and to what.  Most problems are between one piece of hardware and another, out of date patches/updates, or malicious attacks on unprotected systems. 

Now imagine a world where all of your hardware and software is continually monitored for errors, user errors, patches, updates, licensees and network policy–A system that PROACTIVELY looks for that glitch, patch, or miscreant that’s about to bring your company to it’s knees.  Now, imagine having all this and paying significantly less for it.  Sounds like a sweet world doesn’t it? Certainly better than the $4.00-a-gallon world we’re living in now. 

Enter Office Assurance.  An enterprise that is spending on the order of 100k a year for IT support can cut those costs by 80%.  You may want to re-read that last sentence.  That’s right, EIGHTY big ones.  Now I hear you saying “Tell us, oh Shaman of the computer”…  Look, I’m no Carlos Castaneda and there’s really nothing mystical about it.  Basically, it’s self policing.  Considering computers can only tell the difference between 1’s and 0’s, they truly are remarkable tools.  The fact is, by being a bit clever our remarkable tool can be used to monitor your remarkable tool, for a fraction of the price of doing it manually, AND do it better.  Isn’t that what made computers so desirable in the first place?  Now was that locusts, or frogs?  I can never keep ‘em straight.