Here are a couple of things that Michael has learned and would like every business to understand so they can make the best educated decision about their technology needs and get past the biggest misconception that all hardware is the same:

Most manufacturers have products for two different markets, the Retail market and the Commercial market. The Retail PCs such as HP Pavilion, Compaq Presario and IBM Aptiva are designed for the home market and are not designed and tested enough for a network environment. If there is any chance that a PC is going on a network, do not purchase one of these. The Commercial PCs are designed and thoroughly tested (unless it is a Clone PC) in a network environment. If you think about it for a minute, most of the people purchasing a PC for home are looking to fulfill different needs than one for a business. The home user wants the most they can get for the least they can get it for. So the manufacturers, even the name brands like IBM, Compaq, and HP, design a PC stripped down as much as possible with all the software they can get on it for that certain price range. REMEMBER – You will always get what you pay for! Commercial PCs are designed for running certain applications and only come with the Operating System. There are PCs designed for the user that is just running Microsoft Office, one for the person who is running Office and other business applications, and one designed for graphics and imaging, which requires the most resources.

 There are two different types of PC manufacturers, Clone and Name Brand. Name Brands include IBM, HP, Compaq, Apple. Clones include Gateway, Dell, and any other company that does not manufacturer their own parts. Clones are great for home use, but on a network it is a different world. Most of the companies making clones are buying the cheapest parts possible that day and marking them up as much as they can. Gateway is a prime example of this. I have only seen 2 out of about 25 businesses that used Gateway PCs on a network that were happy. One major corporation purchased 10 Gateways to try. They not only had problems with 8 of them, most of them had different system boards even though they were all the same models and features. One other major corporation had over 1500 Gateway computers (which are rapidly being replaced with IBM) and they had about 100 monitors that had a manufacturer defect in them. The manufacturer would do nothing about it because they sold them to Gateway and Gateway would do nothing about them. You would think that if a company bought that much from you, you would take care of issues like this. On the other hand, Clones are fine for home use. I haven’t heard many complaints from home users about Dell or Gateway. IBM and HP have always been at the top for customer satisfaction and service.

Recommended Manufacturers for Businesses

All of these manufacturers are recommended because of the excellent customer service and support and because they have some of the best quality and reliability.

  PC, Laptop, and Server – Hewlett-Packard (HP) and IBM

These are among the first hardware manufacturers that software companies like Microsoft and Novell test their products. These are the most tested and tried computers. Local manufacturer representatives that are available for any major issues. We spent 3 months going around in circles with Dell on an issue with four new PCs at one of our customers. They were blaming us, the network equipment, and everything else until they finally realized there was a manufacturer defect in two components in their PC, the 3COM Network Adapter that was built into their system board and the sound card. We knew from one of the network companies that this was an issue, but we could not get past the first level support at the 800 number.

PC Manufacture Comparison Chart for Small and Medium Size Businesses

  Network Equipment – Enterasys Networks, Intel, SMC and Netgear.

     Enterasys is the best at keeping an upgrade path and supporting legacy equipment. Their equipment runs at line speed and no one offers the redundancy that they do in their products.

  Wireless Equipment – Enterasys Networks

     The Enterasys Wireless technology came from original Digital Equipment Corp (DEC) wireless, which was one of the main pioneers of wireless networking. They were the first to use power injection across the CAT-5 cable for their access points without having to run extra electrical outlets. Enterasys is the first to come out with an access point that can support 802.11b and 802.11a. They have won numerous awards since 1993 and hold many patents in this area.

  UPS Equipment – Liebert

     Liebert’s technology offers the best protection and the longest battery life. The standard warranty is 2 years and upgradeable to a total of 5 years. In the event of a failure under warranty, they will advance replace a NEW unit and pay for shipping both ways.

  Storage and Backup Equipment –   Maxtor, Iomega and Western Digital FireWire Hard Drives

FireWire Hard Drives are 3 times faster than USB and 10 times faster than Travan Tape Drives. No special backup software required. C-tek will write an XCOPY Script to backup every night and use the built-in scheduler in Microsoft Windows. We have found this is the easiest and fastest way to restore data in the event of failures. Hard Drive does not melt in a safe in the event of a fire. FireWire Drives are Hot Swappable and portable. No mechanical parts showing which will attract dirt like DAT drives. These drives are half the cost of DLT, less than DAT, and about the same price as Travan.

Backup Solutions for Small and Medium Size Businesses

  Monitors and LCD Displays – LG Electronics and Viewsonic

     LG and Viewsonic offer the best warranties. Most companies are unable to do without a monitor in the event of a failure. They offer advance replacement service. These two are some of the oldest manufactures of monitors.

This is just a sample of the technology equipment that we recommend. We use the same criteria in all areas of technology. Our goal is to provide each customer with a long-term solution and an upgrade path.