Planning for the future is something that every business must do, as it is a great way of budgeting what your proposed spend on I.T. over a set number of years will be. Ideally, this should be done every five years but some businesses might do this every seven years.

When you are doing this, you will be checking what software and hardware that you are using must be replaced. You may decide to retain your current software or to retain your current hardware. If you are only using some of your computers to do basic office work such as writing letters and invoices and send emails, rather than replace your computers you can either upgrade them or convert them into modern dumb terminals.

Dumb Terminals are a monitor and keyboard that rely on a mainframe computer for its processing power, any software that it uses and storage of any files used. Modern Dumb Terminals are computers that don’t have the processing power to do work such as editing audio and visual files, the only software installed on them will be software programs such as Microsoft Office, Adobe Acrobat Reader, WinZip and an internet browser.
Sometimes the software that you are using does not need to be replaced or upgraded as newer versions might cost you more money, they might not have some of the features that are in the version that you are using, or they might have new features that you will never use.

When you start planning for the future, you should ask yourself the following questions:

Will the software you are currently using cover all your needs over the next five to seven years?

Will you require any new software over the next five or so years?

Do you need to replace your current Operating System?

Can any of your computers be converted into Modern Dumb Terminals?

What will you be doing over the next five to seven years that your current computers can’t handle?

Can you upgrade any of your computers by adding more memory, new motherboards, or new hard disks?

iPing provides managed services and IT services and we can help provide you with an overview of your IT setup and tell you if any of your hardware or software needs to be replaced. So, if you need some help with the above please contact us or give us a call on 01 5241350.