Are you planning a platform upgrade or migration, but wondering how to get a better control of your microcomputer infrastructure first? Perhaps a perpetual question, is what information technology department is not looking at upgrade or support problems? From an upgrade viewpoint, we've gone through multiple versions of Windows — your IT staff are probably beta testing the next version of Windows or Office beta software. So what is the next step for your company?

Many clients have asked about migration and support issues. Not just the basic questions about what hardware manufacturers to standardize on or which vendors have the best pricing. Platform standardization, operation system selection, and building microcomputer support structures are all part of the ever increasingly important task of maintaining good service and reliable computing tools.

It's important for information technology professionals to have the support of senior management. First and foremost, what are the clear goals for this quarter, this fiscal year, and five years down the road? If the result of getting new computers with the latest Intel or AMD processors and system engineer certification is corporate layoffs, than perhaps rethinking the internal support department is in order.

Let's assume that the budget for building a microcomputer infrastructure is in place, and the mind set of senior management is with the information technology leadership. How do we begin the process of helping our company? Where do we stand for existing client base? Let's take a look at a fictional client situation and perform a walk-through analysis.

Company profile: A small company with $50 million in sales that has most of its employees working out of satellite offices. Those remote users are dialing in through modems to exchange data.

What does this company have to do? For a smaller company, standardizing on a nationwide vendor such as Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA or an independent vendor affiliated with other independents through a contractual basis is a good start. Survey the client's remote users and find out how they are handling their "emergencies" now. It will surprise you how varied some of their resources will be, ranging from electronic superstores to computer literate friends and relatives. Ask your remote users for their experiences, if any, with three of your potential vendor candidates. You'll soon get a feel whether or not your company's experience with company A, B, or C will be positive or negative. It's important to realize that the relationship phase of supporting your remote users is crucial. Every vendor has done an outstanding job for clients at one location and let others down in another part of the country. Use your relationships with vendors to select one that will be right for your client.

After selecting a primary vendor, and a backup vendor as your second choice, begin working on standardizing the central office with a common workstation that you will continue to purchase for at least three months. "Three months?" you gasp! What about the latest, greatest computer mentioned in the gaming magazines? Standardization is the great equalizer in support management, and it's critical that your support staff have a majority of like machines to troubleshoot Windows registry problems, conflicts with hardware, or custom software bugs.

By standardizing, you will also be able to keep spare parts for your workstations, and in turn, decrease your downtime when unforseen hardware problems occur. The last advantage in this process is developing a relationship with your reseller. Unlike large corporations that can buy from several vendors and still have enough of the corporate pie to keep them all interested, smaller companies need to concentrate their purchasing dollars to maintain their status as a valued corporate account. This makes their voice much louder when a PC setup in New York has been forgotten for two days or a networker in Atlanta accidentally disconnected the router in the data/phone closet and now they can't get email or Internet access.

With a basic purchasing agreement in place, and remote support standardized through your primary vendor, the company now must decide their next step. Usually a company of this size can manage local support with one to two PC specialists, and remote support with one help desk analyst routing calls to your outsourcing support vendor. In this particular case, I would not recommend that they hire a full time manager (assuming their CFO was sufficiently computer literate), but I would recommend sending their receptionist to basic computer classes to better assist her actual role as a help desk technician. If your company is in a similar position and wants to have more technical prowess in house, such as an Internet / intranet, basic programming, or electronic mail, then a webmaster, programmer, or mail administrator can be nice additions as well as providing cross training in case your PC Specialist decides to take a vacation or gets called to jury duty.

Remember, information technology management is the key. There are always people in your company who know a friend or relative selling computers and are wondering why you are paying "so much" for standardized name brands. Of course, no one has to remind you about service when a remote server crashes and all you have is your personal relationship with a vendor and an informal time and materials agreement. The important thing for you to do to better serve your company is to put a solid microcomputer support structure in place, which includes hardware, software, and vendor standards.