We all know that computers and computer equipment can be expensive,often the most expensive investment in the office. In the current climate, business owners are more inclined to put off updating their technology, is this a good idea, here are some reasons why it is not:

Old technology is slow technology

When computer age they slow down, many of the software packages today are designed to run on modern machines, much more powerful than the standard machine of just a few years ago. If a modern version of a software package is running on an old machine then inferior RAM and processing power can make the package run very slowly, frustrating to the user and making simple tasks take much longer.

Potential hours out of the normal working day.........................................................................1

Old technology is much more likely to crash

Given the changes that can be made to a computer in it's lifespan, it's possible that a new piece of hardware (such as a printer or scanner) could make changes to the operating system that will cause a crash or blue screen. The time taken to determine the cause of the problem and the resolution of that problem can amount to a few hours.

Potential crash downtime hours................................................................................................3

New technology does things better

Providers of software packages such as Microsoft are constantly looking for new and more efficient ways to do things. The major changes made from Office XP to Office 2007 introduced a whole host of new formatting tools and new interfaces saving users time and enabling them to achieve a high level of quality in their documents.

Potential hours gain time per week of new technology...........................................................4

Old technology may become less secure

Hacking technology becomes more and more sophisticated and viruses and spyware is becoming more and more common. An old machine may be more susceptible to attacks particularly from spyware. Spyware can slow your computer down as the application tries to connect to an external server to log your Internet activities, worse you may have a virus that can cause some serious damage to your computer. Newer operating systems are more secure and make your machine less likely to be attacked, old operating systems may no longer be supported by the provider and may therefore no longer receive patches and updates to keep them secure.

Potential hours loss if attacked............................................................................................4

Taking the above into consideration, we have made some calculations below on potential downtime causes by old technology:

In a 6 month period with 3 crashes and a security breach

Working days in period 130

Slow downtime 130hrs

Crash downtime 9 hrs

New software lost time 104hrs

Security breach downtime 4hrs

Total hours lost in 6 months 347

Multiply that by the hourly rate that you charge and you will have some idea of lost revenue.

Although most of the above is written with tongue in cheek, there is a very valid point to push home here; putting of the replacement of your technology is a false economy, just taking the potential hours gained using newer versions of your Office software can save an enormous amount of money, especially when a new computer with all necessary software can cost less than £600.

Worth a thought...