Taking the Mystery out of Computer Technology
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  • Security, are your systems protected?

    Posted on April 13th, 2010 Rich Schierer No comments

    Everyday you hear on the radio or TV, or read it in the papers or internet, that the security of your desktop computer or laptop running Windows XP or Vista or Microsoft network is getting harder and harder to keep up with. Hackers and viruses and spam and trojans and worms and downtime OH MY! Sometimes you might think that the Wizard of Oz is protecting (or not!) your systems!

    Antivirus software doesn’t do it all any more. Now you need a combination of that and antimalware. And you have to keep up on those too! Long gone are the days of turning on the computer and having an interesting surf thru cyber-space!

    But the end is not in sight my friends! At least not for securing your computers and networks! If you do the numbers, it costs less to have an experienced, trained professional come in and secure your network and computers.

    Let me ask you this… “How much do you think it costs you on a daily basis to have problematic computers and networks vs having a professional secure and configure your networks and computers properly?”.

    Let’s say you have 5 computers running Microsoft Windows XP Pro and one server running Microsoft Windows Server 2003. If each person loses 15 minutes a day because their computers froze and they had to reboot to get back to work. Now multiply that by a weekly time loss of 5 computers x 15 minutes loss per day x 5 days = 375 minutes a week or 6 hours 15 minutes. Multiply that times their billable rate $100/hour (if you are a law, accounting or health care firm you are billing at a much higher rate) and you now find that you are loosing $625 per week (or $2500 per month) in billable time to computers freezing up or running slow.

    Now bring in the computer professional who will clean up all your problems and create a proactive approach to your support consisting of a visit once a week, plus managed services, plus off-site backup and your monthly cost is way less to have a properly configured, secured and running computer network. Fees vary depending on your location but here on Long Island, NY you are looking at approximately $1000 per month.

    And that includes supporting the server also! And we didn’t even get into your company data being protected. What if the server goes down????