Investing in hardware for your company can be an extremely stressful scenario for all the decision makers involved. No one is prepared to buy the very cheapest kit that may compromise the technological foundations of the company in five years’ time, yet also investing in the very best kit now is nearly always a mistake because its usually safe to say that the value of that equipment will be halved in two years time as superior technologies usurp their position, according to Moore’s Law. You need to find a happy medium of performance against price. Easier said than done I can assure you.

 

Anyway, eventually these obstacles are overcome and the office gleams with the shine of factory-fresh monitors and the smells of that lovely new computer smell. People sit lovingly in front of their amazing new machines, and some even rush into work because they just can’t wait to get that performance out of their computers that they have been missing for so many years. Well, it’s like that for about an hour…

 

I am totally aware of the fact that my industry (outsourced IT maintenance services) would not be around if people took more care of their electrical assets, so in one sense I am incredibly grateful for nearly everyone’s technical negligence. But that still doesn’t answer my burning question: why do companies let their computer systems fail? I’m sure that if they invested in a fleet of company cars for every employee that they wouldn’t just let them drive round crashing them and racking up monumental garage bills to get them fixed? Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but if a company nowadays doesn’t have access to its computers it will grind to a juddering halt. However if everyone’s company cars were taken away for two days, nothing would change. Why do computers still not have the respect they deserve!? Oh well, at least they pay us well…

 

I thought I’d just leave you with my one super quick tip as to how to make your computers last longer so you can keep us IT engineers at bay: ventilation. If you have your staff working on laptops, great. They are portable, light, cheaper, and can nearly perform at the level of PC’s. But they have a much shorter life. Invest in a decent laptop stand for when you’re at your desk. This ‘breathing room’ for your laptop will improve its life no end. If you have a data room full of servers, make sure that the room is suitably ventilated too. Servers operate at particular optimum temperatures – make sure your data room is properly air conditioned and ventilated to keep performance higher for longer and if you have no idea what you are doing when you are building your server room then get professionals to do it for you (see http://www.commsroomservices.co.uk/ ).  Obviously you can do your own research but if in doubt don’t take the chance.  You don’t want to fry all your servers!