* What you'll learn at Network World's Tech Tour for SMBs
Deploying IT in small and midsize businesses is no small issue. Companies have to be just as savvy about IT security as the big guys, and IT managers at smaller companies (who perhaps also double, triple or quadruple up in other roles) have to be experts in a wide range of IT topics.
If your role is to look after IT in SMBs you can bolster your education at Network World’s IT Strategies for SMBs technology tour. The tour, which begins in Chicago on July 12 and ends in Houston on July 21, is moderated by James Gaskin, principal of Gaskin Computer Services and a member of the Network World Lab Alliance. Gaskin also writes the Small Business Tech column for Network World in which he provides hints and tips on delivering efficient IT for SMBs without paying the big bucks.
I caught up with Gaskin as he prepares to head off to Chicago and quizzed him about what SMBs should know about IT. Here’s our Q&A:
Q: What are the technology mistakes that SMBs make?
They make every mistake possible, but they don’t have the budget to make those $75 million dollar screw-ups like the big companies and government agencies. Besides that, most small companies can’t afford to make a big mistake because it can put them out of business.
That said, I believe most small businesses should find a reseller they trust to help them fashion a strategy for secure growth. Business owners trust their accountants, lawyers, and auto mechanics, but not their technology advisers. Midsized companies need to make the investment in training for their IT people. This approach costs less than hiring the most advanced technical people, and employee loyalty increases when the employees know they are considered valuable team members and worth the expense of training.
Q: What’s the advantage of being an SMB – are there any price breaks that you can get from vendors?
Yes, but unfortunately, you get to pay more for less service in far too many cases. SMBs go from Adored to Ignored based on enterprise buying patterns. When the big companies buy, SMBs are ignored. When the big companies slow their purchasing, SMBs become adored again.
Q: Which security products are best suited to SMBs? Aren’t enterprise products a bit of an overkill? Consumer products too simplistic?
The SMB demographic ranges from 5 employees to 500. At least that’s the range we’re focusing on for our tour, although maybe a million businesses are just 1 person. So products for those businesses come from many places.
For security products, I personally like appliances, and maybe two or three appliances depending on the company needs. Very small companies can benefit from a few of the consumer products, such as routers with firewalls, especially since newer consumer products have improved their security features. However, there’s a large group of appliance vendors making specialized firewalls, routers, and security appliances aimed at
SMBs. Larger small businesses (how about that oxymoron?) can benefit from scaled-down enterprise products.
Usually, midsize businesses have more expensive equipment at their main location, including enterprise security products. Remote offices and mobile workers use products aimed at small businesses and even consumers (many consumer routers support VPN, for example).
Q: What are the storage issues that SMBs must consider?
According to a recent survey of 500 value-added resellers, storage hardware is the technology growing most in importance with their customers. Server hardware and storage hardware rank as the top technologies sold to customers, meaning more and more storage, one way or the other.
Storage costs have plummeted, and you can add a storage appliance with a terabyte or more of disk space to your network in about three minutes for less than $1,000. The trick in the future is managing that storage, keeping storage under control, and putting out of date and archived documents on appropriate storage for a reasonable cost.
Q: Where in their IT infrastructure should SMBs consider using open source technology?
I believe SMBs benefit from open source in multiple areas. Around 80% to 90% of all standard office computing can be done with a Linux desktop and OpenOffice software, for a cost of zero dollars to $50 per station vs. Microsoft Windows and Office for $250 to $600. Web and e-mail servers run great on Linux platforms, and once the system is up and running, maintenance for Linux vs. Microsoft server is a wash, and it’s much cheaper to install Linux and Apache (for example) at the beginning.
Q: What other technologies could drive down cost for SMBs?
Voice communications leads the charge to lower costs through technology, driven by the growth of Internet Telephony. While big companies could link phones between branches to eliminate long distance charges from the telephone company in the past, the T-1 lines necessary were way out of reach of smaller companies. VoIP, however, means never having to pay outrageous long-distance bills ever again.
Enterprise quality back-up systems now fit into the budget of the smallest companies, making disaster recovery affordable. As mentioned earlier, storage costs for hardware devices (disk drives and subsystems) keep dropping, and management for exploding storage space will soon be useful and affordable.
Q: What will attendees learn at the Tech Tour?
My slogan for the seminar is “secure growth” and my focus is on helping SMBs use technology to help them grow. Security means many things, but I include obvious security concerns like user authentication and safety from hackers as well as data protection and disaster recovery. Growth almost always means remote offices and a dispersed workforce, so I’ll talk about all those issues as well.
Q: I hear you’ve got a funny afternoon speech – what will it be about it?
“Top 10 Ways to Tempt Technological Fate,” including things no SMB person should ever say, lest they bring calamity down on their heads. Examples?
“I don’t need to test our tape backup system – it did fine two years ago.”
“We’re too small for hackers to worry about.”
“Operating system software upgrades are for sissies.”
Each of these, and seven more, are played for laughs first and then we drill down to the serious issues underneath. The fact that I’ve heard many of these statements from clients over the years just makes it that much more hilariously tragic.
For more about the tour and how to apply to attend, please go to:
http://www.networkworld.com/events/smb05/index.html
