Once upon a time, we used pen and paper to record and calculate. If we made a mistake, we used an eraser. If a pencil lead broke, we sharpened it. If the pencil lead was low-quality and constantly breaking, we threw the pencil away and picked up a newer, better one.

So answer this: If you had a pencil that was as reliable as your current computer, would you keep it? Or throw it away and buy a new one? Have you ever had a computer that was as reliable as a pencil?

Me neither.

In early 2006, I became responsible for running a company that needed several changes, not least among them, a new way to manage its information. The office was structured as a peer-to-peer (P2P) network with each machine performing a different function for the collective and networked to each other with equal authority. Company data was spread across four computers and no backup solution was in place.

“I know,” I thought. “A client-server network will do the trick.”

I then called our third-party IT tech who set us up with Microsoft Small Business Server, centralized all of our data, and wrote backups to one of the client computers. Problem solved.

In reality, we paid $800 for the server and its software, and a year later it had cost us an additional $4,000 in IT man-hours. And after almost $5,000, it still didn’t do all that we needed. Not the “solution” I had hoped for. Can you imagine how excited you’d be if, rather than getting your job done, you spent two years sharpening a pencil? (“Dear Mr. Gates…”)

Enraged by wasting money on a crappy product, I went searching for the real solution, and now — almost two years after buying that Microsoft piece of crap — I’ve found it.

My search started with a simple, but challenging idea: “I want to turn all of our computers back into pencils.”

If a computer dies, we could go to another workstation (in the next office, at home, down the street) and begin work IMMEDIATELY. No need to spend a day configuring profiles, installing software, restoring data from backups — essentially “sharpening pencils” — and WASTING TIME. True plug’n’play computing would be the result. If we could really turn our computers back into pencils, then any computer would do the job anytime, anywhere, and with any platform (Mac or PC).

Making computers as disposable and as expendable as pencils would be ideal, I thought. The idiosyncrasies, crappy product development and rush-to-market approach of today’s technology would no longer interfere with work-time productivity. The sheer numbers of available computers — in the world, in this town, in my house — would ensure that one was always available. Just like a pencil.

And that would mean… no downtime. Ever.

 

NEXT UP…

PART 2: Cloud Computing for Small Business

* Maintenance-(and-cost)-free collaboration for small business with web-based applications
* Google Apps, 37 Signals and more

And yes, I’ll address the big, scary, Google’s-too-powerful, privacy issue too…

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