Are you hearing this clamor? Nope, this is not London Calling! But your employees calling for more performance, your customers calling for faster response time, your boss for more savings.
Have you been waiting to upgrade until your existing servers clash, I mean, crash? This economy has led to a lot of indecision, but when it comes to upgrading your servers, the benefits are pretty big not matter the size of your company. 
Good news, the new Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 series-based servers will deliver just that and more.

• Save money. By spending money now, you can save in the long run. The latest Intel Xeon processor-based servers deliver more performance than previous generations. Small businesses can consolidate three older servers to one new server and still have room to grow (1). And make sure to take advantage of government and manufacturer server incentives. All of that adds up to a return on your refresh investment in about a year. This tool can help your calculate your ROI: www.intel.com/go/xeonestimator

• Be more competitive. You want to be ready when things rebound and rely on competitive IT equipment. The additional performance and improved reliability offered by updated servers means a more productive staff and faster response times for your customers.

• Avoid hidden costs. The other thing to consider with older servers is the expenses that you don’t expect, like maintenance and downtime. You know - one day is fine, next day is black. To get your boss off your back and your business running smoothly, newer equipment now is a great idea.

[1] Source: Intel Xeon Server Refresh Savings Estimator, Jul 09

     Remember that song from Meatloaf?  I always wondered, “What is that thing he won’t do?” I thought of it the other day when I was in Europe visiting several Intel® resellers.  What really struck me was that there is not a single thing these professionals won’t do to make sure they offer the best hardware and software solutions to meet their customers’ needs.  No matter what the size of your company, they make it a point to deliver. They just love providing the right solution for every situation.

We spent some time talking about the specific needs of the small and medium businesses. The Intel resellers were really enthusiastic about the recent launch of the Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 series. Now they have even more options to offer their customers. For growing companies that are looking for a competitive advantage, the intelligent and adaptive performance of these new processors are just what they need.

     Whether you’re looking to transition to your first server or update your existing servers, it’s important to have the right resource guiding you. “An average small or medium company is totally dependent on their information technology these days. If their server is not working as it should or isn’t appropriate for their needs, they are in BIG trouble. Finding a reseller that can act as a trusted advisor in identifying the right equipment, installing it, and maintaining the device through things like Service Level Agreements (SLAs) is critical,” explained Olaf Pas, an Intel reseller in the Netherlands.

“We’re really excited about what the latest generation of Intel server processors can offer our customers. The virtualization capabilities allow us to aggregate our customers’ small business server, their SQL server and the terminal server in one machine. This can save them a ton on their electricity bill,” Olaf continues. And who doesn’t want to save?  Finding the right server solution to help customers save money and get more performance is what local resellers love.

     So, if your employees and customers are hungry for more data responsiveness and your business is hungry for more productivity and cost savings, perhaps it’s time for a little Meatloaf …and the expertise and attention of an Intel reseller – your local Techoloogy expert.

Learn more about the new Intel Xeon server processors:

• Talk to an IT solutions provider: http://premierlocator.intel.com/http://premierlocator.intel.com/
• Read this brochure for information about the advantages of Intel® processor-based servers for small and medium businesses.

In my blog titled top 10 reasons to buy in a recession ,I discussed generic reasons to invest.  While small businesses (and to some extent medium businesses) don’t have the scale to take advantage of some of the consolidation and cost savings gains discussed in my “why buy for the big guy” blog, the benefits of replacing older servers remains a strong value for smaller businesses also. 

For those business owners who don’t have dedicated IT staff, your technology is depended on for reliable, efficient operation of the business. Technology is depended on to support daily operations and services ... like website operation, email communication, customer management, purchasing and record retention among other things.  If not … then you (as business owner) must turn your attention away from customers and towards your technology platform – not something a you have the time or resources to do.

Before reading, you need to know that I’m not a small business owner but I do have a family (in many ways that is my business) and as such I have several computers at home to support the operation of my family.  Recently, I experienced some issues with my existing computers that have put me in the market for replacement technology.  Specifically, when doing my taxes this year and when trying to load TurboTax*, my computer did not have sufficient memory to support the new 2008 software version.  Additionally, my wife and I track our finances with Quicken* and recently the slow performance on our computer has resulted in us spending too much time doing data entry on a slow computer.  In essence, our technology now is limiting us from doing the things we need to do .. so time to upgrade .. and I am shopping for a new desktop.

These challenges are similar to what I foresee from small businesses when it comes to technology upgrades.  Here are two examples of customers who, as a result of a growing demands and slowing performance of existing technology, turned to a Xeon-based server to streamline operations, boost reliabiilty, improve customer service, improve competitiveness and open up business possibilities for themselves.

ð       Yellow River i-café.  See How this small i-café went from a situation where a demanding workload caused hardware failures, leading to down time, loss of revenue, and frustrated customers to a situation where Yellow River saw performance gains and head room for growth by upgrading to an new Intel Xeon based server.

ð       Lampworks. Read how Jason Harper of Lampworks went from “We knew that we’d hit the wall with our desktop-based server; it couldn’t bear the extra load. Our computer was suddenly a barrier to our growth, rather than a business enabler” ... to ... “We’re extremely excited about the growth possibilities that our new server gives us.”

As your technology ages, you have a choice.  Typically standard OEM manufacturer warranties are supported for 3 years with purchase of a new server.  Before you extend the warranty (for $800-1200 per server for additional two more years), evaluate the enhanced performance, improved energy efficiency and capability to replace many servers (either desktop or true server technology) with fewer new servers.  If you are already at the end of your extended warranty, can you run the risk of server failure inside your business or can you afford the unexpected expense of a service call. 

Additionally there are some government incentive programs, like the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act  that offer businesses accelerated depreciation (60% first year vs standard 20%) on new computer hardware which can lower you 2009 tax burden and accelerate ROI.

Is your current technology holding you back or in your way? ... If so, consider a new server.

Chris