In the past, we’ve discussed the importance of making sure your business-grade devices do not exceed a lifespan of more than five years.
This is a great rule of thumb for you to follow when thinking about how long your current work computer has been in use.
It’s also important to consider if you were the first person to use your system or not.
Many people find out too late that a vendor provided them with a refurbished system, meaning you might be using a workstation that you thought was two or three years old, but is actually running on a five or six year old backbone.
The lifespan that you can expect out of your system decreases when we’re talking about laptops, which are built to be portable and are more vulnerable on a day-to-day basis, compared to desktops that normally remain in one place for their lifetime.
Some manufacturers, like Lenovo, recommend replacing your laptop every three to four years.
One of the reasons we emphasis having an IT inventory for your business is to have a single snapshot of your organization’s IT assets with a recommended timeline for replacement.
This allows your team to set expectations on your technology investments.
Most businesses that operate with less than 15 employees can quickly find themselves reaching that five year mark across devices.
Some companies, upon referral, will find that all of their systems are out of compliance and are ready to make a big investment right away.
Others work with us on a quarterly replacement plan, where you can budget to replace 2-3 computers every few months until you have reached a baseline of technology health.
Most clients that come to us struggling with slow networks and response times during their normal workflow will find that we can alleviate many of their issues by ensuring that they are on hardware that is within its replacement lifecycle period, by providing regular updates on their systems through patch management, and by advocating for the best service from your current vendors, like Internet Service Providers.
Contact KnowIT today at 888-603-8280 to take the first step towards better technology experiences!
