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Small firms 'cannot afford to upgrade networks'
Friday 29th May 2009, by Daniel King
Small and medium-sized businesses can often not afford to reconsider their broadband internet and technical services - and therefore do not upgrade until it is too late, one expert has suggested.
A spokesman for Business Link, a government-funded organisation that specialises in providing advice and support to service enterprises, said very often the cost outweighs the risk when it comes to networking improvements.
Ganesh Selvarajah, adviser at the group, suggested it was much more likely that a company would wait until there was a failure before they even considered updating systems, computer equipment or web connections.
He added that although such firms may see these investments as a necessary evil, there were actually "very few" with access to the latest mobile internet or phone technology.
"It's very much still office-based equipment that we're looking at and the equipment [is updated] usually only when there's been a system failure or their applications are getting very resource-hungry," Mr Selvarajah explained.
He concluded that very often it can come down to one piece of equipment - either a printer or a laptop for example - that budget controllers will be deciding between when the time comes to make upgrades - leaving regular system reviews to go undone.
A recent report issued by Salesforce.com revealed smaller businesses were increasingly turning to cloud computing as a means to cut costs and keep systems up to date.
Spokesman for the group Steve Garnett said this was reflective of how firms are looking to reduce risk and lower their expenses.
Categories: Broadband, Internet Security
