Here at Salvus, we are incentivized to assist your company in making informed technology purchasing decisions. One of our main goals is to reduce your business’s downtime, and that can be accomplished by investing in the right technology. Ensuring that your devices have the right specifications, operating system and warranty can help keep your business running optimally. Saving a few hundred dollars on a new computer may seem like a good deal at the time but having to invoke a mail-in warranty could cost you days without your machine. Is that downtime more costly than the money saved upfront? Probably.
Over the last few months, we have seen a few examples of downtime stemming from the purchasing of improper hardware or insufficient warranties that do not support business goals. In some cases, the machine was not properly configured for the workload, meaning a slow machine and a headache for the end-user. In other cases, we have seen computers purchased with the “home” version of Windows, leading to additional configuration and cost. These types of issues can cause major downtime that could have been avoided. Consider this real-life and surprisingly common example from one of our clients:
A client purchased a laptop from a big box store to save on time and cost. The first issue with this specific machine was that it was purchased with the Windows “Home” operating system installed. In order to join the machine with the company’s domain, a necessary step to access company data, we had to upgrade the laptop to Windows “Pro.” This cost the company an additional $100 and due to an error in the upgrade process, 3 hours of downtime for the end-user.
While the laptop did come with a warranty from Dell, it did not protect the user from the inconvenience of downtime. Shortly after purchase, one of the laptop’s internal fans failed. Due to the machine being covered by a standard warranty, the user had to give up their machine so a Salvus technician could begin the troubleshooting process with Dell. The original call with Dell added another 3 hours of downtime. After Dell was convinced that there was an issue with the fan, they started the process to have the machine shipped to one of their depots for repair. The estimated time to repair the device was 5-7 business days, not counting shipping time. Dell also stated that there was a chance of data loss during the repair process. Instead of going through this process, the company decided to return the laptop and purchased a different model.
Again, the model that was purchased came with Windows “Home.” One of our technicians spent 2 hours working with Microsoft to move the previously purchased Windows “Pro” license from the old machine to the new. Since the “Pro” license that was purchased was a digital license, Microsoft was unable to move the license to the new machine as they are typically non-transferable. Leading to an extra $100 cost. In total, 4 full workdays were lost between troubleshooting, upgrading and returning the devices. Those 4 days lost could have been reduced to just 2-3 hours if Salvus could have coordinated the purchase and out of box setup.