Saving IT expenses

splodgebucket · 14 March 2009 at 4:38PM

I work in IT, and it has occurred to me that there are many costs that could be cut, both for home users and small businesses without in house IT staff. Many of these hints/tips also apply to larger organisations, but there are caveats which I explain where applicable.
They basically fall into four categories:
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Hardware (physical computer equipment) costs[/FONT]
Hardware is the physical equipment that makes up the computer – the base unit, keyboard, mouse, screen plus external peripherals such as printers (see later for printing specifics) and scanners.

Key points:

PC base units still consume small amounts of mains power to them if switched on at the wall. Can reduce electricity consumption by switching off at the wall socket when not in use (or by using gang sockets with individual switches). Note that switching off infrastructure equipment (especially when not dedicated to one computer) can mean extended startup times. Doing this means cost reduction in electricity bill at the expense of a few more seconds switching things on at the start of the day and switching off when finishing in the evening.
Infrastructure equipment is only worth switching off in very small environments if everybody who is legitimately able to use the computer and its peripherals has the ability to switch them on and off and has the technical expertise to work out whether it is running or not and troubleshoot if necessary.

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Software[/FONT]
Software is the lifeblood of a computer. It makes it boot up, send and receive email, word process, spreadsheet, play games or browse the internet to name but a few tasks. Don't just click “I Agree” when installing software, you may consent to installing advertising software on your computer. Check that the particular circumstances you have are covered by the license – eg some of the packages mentioned here are only free for home use, not work.
There are a few costs that can be saved here:

Don't get sucked into upgrading to new versions if the existing version meets your needs.
Many software developers issue upgrades to new versions of their software, typically with new features and enhancements. The cost of upgrading can be quite prohibitive especially with major packages. If the existing software meets your needs, then there is no need to upgrade. These upgrades should not be confused with updates, available for free to licensed users (provided by the developers) and should be applied to your computer system where applicable to fix bugs and security holes.
Look at free or open source alternatives to your current packages. Free software is typically a cut down version of a commercial package that the developers have made available and may be supported by advertising. Typical examples here are the antivirus software AVG Free Edition (http://free.grisoft.com) and Avast 4 Home Edition (http://www.avast.com). The disadvantages of the free versions over the paid products are that you won't get support included in the price, but if you are comfortable with dealing with that yourself, then it is well worth considering.
Open Source means that the source code (the actual code written by the developers) has been made public for anybody to look at, and modify if they wish. Although the actual code is only really of interest and use to to people with a technical background, that the source code is publicly available means that holes in security and other bugs are more likely to be spotted and fixed more quickly than one where the code is kept secret by the developers. Open source does not always mean a £0.00 up front price tag, but more often than not this is the case. Common examples of open source software and their commercial equivalents are OpenOffice from Sun instead of Microsoft Office; The Gimp instead of Adobe Photoshop or Corel Paint Shop Pro and Mozilla Firefox instead of Microsoft Internet Explorer. Although the open source equivalents may not be as feature rich as their more mainstream commercial equivalent, for many people they meet the needs admirably.
If you choose to use open source or free software route for some or all of your needs, then it is often desirable to contribute something towards the costs – whether donating money towards development costs, or time and expertise in answering questions, testing future releases of the software and providing feedback to the developers etc.

Check what comes with your computer. Many of the computers bought today for home or small business use will have a low cost integrated package (such as Microsoft Works) included in the price (models designed for corporate use tend to be different). If this meets your needs, then there is no need to look elsewhere. For many low volume home computer users, this is good enough.
Shop around. Software license prices vary widely for the same thing. At the time of writing, Microsoft Office 2007 Home and Student Edition costs £49.99 from Amazon if you buy it with something else costing at least £100 (which can include a new computer). Its far cheaper buying it this way than activating a 60 day trial version included with some new computers direct from Microsoft. As with other goods, software costs money and prices vary between suppliers.
For students enrolled on a course of academic study at a recognised college or university, academic pricing can be very good – recently Microsoft has run a scheme called the Ultimate steal (www.theultimatesteal.co.uk) that gives students the chance to buy a full version of Office 2007 for £39 with a perpetual license, meaning they can continue to use it after graduating. Proof of student registration is required. Some other software companies also run their own student pricing schemes. For qualifying students, this is a far better deal than the Office 2007 Home & Student edition.
Employees of companies and medium to large public sector organisations like NHS trusts, universities and local authorities may have volume license agreements with Microsoft or one of their authorised resellers (or other software houses). Under these agreements, they may be entitled to one copy of software used in their work (such as MS Office) at a nominal cost under home working rights for the cost of the media and P&P – typically about £20. Talk to your IT department to find out if this is available. The disadvantage of this is that the license is revoked when an employee leaves and although they have paid money, they have to stop using the software.
If the only reason for considering upgrading is the ability to view and print documents created by the latest versions of the software, some companies produce additional file import and conversion software to allow it to be read in earlier versions, or separate software for free to allow the documents to be viewed and printed but not modified.

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Printing[/FONT]
As well as the electricity in running printers, consumables (paper and ink/toner) also need to be factored in to the costs. A study by Which back in 2003 concluded that on average, ink for inkjet printers (that make up the bulk of home printing) is more expensive per millilitre than champagne. I'm not aware of anything more recent to see if this was still the case, but would guess that this is still true. Tips in this section also apply to standalone photocopiers.
There are several issues here:

If you do a lot of document printing, consider buying a monochrome laser printer just for these. Cost per page is reduced quite drastically over an inkjet and use the inkjet only for colour printouts. Colour lasers generally won't give the same level of quality printing for colour photographs (eg from scanners or digital cameras), but for adding splashes of colour to reports or printouts of presentations, they are ideal.
Ensure that you use duplex printing where available. Duplex is printing on both sides of the paper, and many modern printers have this without the need for manual intervention to turn pages over. This will cut down on the amount of paper used, and also the storage required for it. For printers that don't support this out of the box, you can perform manual duplex by printing odd pages, turn the resulting paper over, put it back in the input tray and print the even pages. Difficulty with this is if the paper jams or pulls through multiple pages at once you then have a lot of manual intervention to sort it out.
The very cheap budget printers are loss leaders. The manufacturers make their money on the ink cartridges. Unless you are anticipating very low print volumes, I would recommend moving up to the next level of printer range (around £70-130). The exact cut off point as to whether it is worthwhile depends on the printer itself, what you are printing and how much you will be using it.
For many makes and models of printers, compatible cartridges are available. These look like the original manufacturers, but are sold with far lower prices. Mileage with these is definitely variable. Some work very well, others don't. The big caveat is that manufacturer warranties will be invalidated if use of non original cartridges are used and warranty repair or replacement is needed. Worth checking out with older equipment out of warranty and you don't mind if it breaks.
Routine use of specialist paper for the best output quality with inkjets is a recipe for eating money. Unless there is a very good reason for it, use ordinary photocopier paper with 80gsm weight (or heavier) for draft and normal use and only use the very heavy one for photo prints.
Depending on circumstances, it can be cheaper to get digital photos printed at the high street photograph or chemists shops than to print them on your own printer, especially if you have large numbers of them. By using the high street, they also use inks that don't fade nearly as quickly over time.
Ecofont (http://www.ecofont.eu) is a font that claims to reduce ink usage (by putting extra holes in the letters) but retaining document readability. Although really only suitable for draft printing, and I'm not aware of any scientific studies determining the quantity of ink this saves over more normal fonts with document types.

Printing - References

http://www.ukcra.com/Printer%20ink%20costs%20more%20than%20vintage%20champagne.doc
http://www.articlesnatch.com/tag/Remanufactured+Inkjet+Printer+Cartridge+Recycling+and+Environment
http://discuss.fogcreek.com/joelonsoftware2/default.asp?cmd=show&ixPost=56060&ixReplies=14
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Internet access[/FONT]

Pay as you go dial up is still available, but with the advent of cheap broadband is now only really worthwhile if you are using the internet very little. Consider using internet from libraries instead.
Unlimited access dial up packages are still available (although rare), but budget broadband packages are almost certainly cheaper now as well as a lot faster than dial up. Only really consider it if you are in a part of the country where you can't get broadband.

I hope that this information is useful to somebody.