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March 16, 2009

Money Saving IT Tips for Small Business (Part 4)

Smart investment in IT solutions for your business can actually help a small business make more money. IT is also an area where sometimes small changes can yield big savings.

CDW has put together some money-saving IT tips for small businesses, which are sharing in a series of 5 parts. Here is the fourth set of tips:

Networking and communications:

• Consider web-managed switches (smart switches) offering many features of managed switches at close to unmanaged switch prices.
• Avoid the cost of dropping cables by equipping your office with a wireless (802.11 Wi-Fi) network.
• Add to office productivity by saving staff the time and hassle of having to delete unwanted e-mail by using anti-spam filtering software.

Telephony:

• Switch your phone service to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), and save nearly 40% on local calls and as much as 90% on international calling.
• Save about 40 percent in cabling costs for new buildings by using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) for telephone service.
• Use the same staffer for network, data and telephone setup and maintenance by switching to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone services.
• When appropriate, use Skype for collaboration (conference calling), especially for international calls.
• Use audio, video and multimedia conferencing and collaboration software and web services as an alternative to expensive travel.

Storage:

• Instead of file servers, use lower-powered, lower cost and easier-to-administer Networked Attached Storage (NAS) appliances.
• If you have a lot of files, consider de-duplication software to reduce space demands and eliminate the need to purchase extra storage.

See the rest of the tips here:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

tags: CDW , money saving , tips | 1 comments

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