Acronis offers small businesses tips for dealing with new tech realities

BURLINGTON, Mass., March 6, 2008 - Small businesses that are considering making investments in technology in the next 12 months should heed a few recommendations when it comes to disaster recovery, security and preparedness, says Acronis (www.acronis.com/zh-tw/), maker of easy-to-use disaster recovery software.

"For many small businesses, technology is a gray area," said Walter Scott, CEO of Acronis. "Without on-site tech support, many business owners and decision makers are desperately trying to determine which technology trends are real and which ones aren't worth their effort at this point in time. Here is an overview of what to keep in mind this year."

What Small Businesses Should Consider for IT in 2008

• Microsoft Vista: Microsoft launched this latest desktop operating system in 2007 and many business users are still trying to determine what to do with it. "Vista, despite all of its improvements, still has some hardware and software issues," Scott said. "Many businesses are waiting for Vista Service Pack 1 or until their next hardware upgrade cycle. If your current systems are working fine, stand pat; there is no urgent need to upgrade. Regardless of the desktop OS you use - Vista or XP - keep current versions of Windows up-to-date with the latest updates and patches."
• Collaboration: From telecommuters to road warriors, distributed workforces seem to be the norm rather than the exception. Therefore the need for collaboration technologies is greater than ever. "There are a number of great solutions to the collaboration problem including wikis, remote access software and web conferencing tools," said Scott. "Even something as simple as shared group calendars helps keep far-flung teams rowing in the same direction."
• Web 2.0/SaaS: Software-as-a-Service, or SaaS, and Web 2.0 are both terms used by the IT industry to illustrate how software and Web-based applications are taking center stage, upending the current standard of software residing on in-house servers and desktops. Hosted software services, such as Salesforce.com and Web-based mail, can provide immediate ROI and add the collaborative elements. According to Scott: "Accessing your applications though a browser means you can work anywhere, anytime, from any computer. It also makes for easier computer upgrades at the office since fewer applications will have to be re-loaded and updated."
• New hardware: New technology products are constantly being released. Before taking the plunge, consider the compatibility of new devices with the others already in place. "Hardware companies come out with new versions several times a year, so look for the ones with all of capabilities you require first, then pay attention to how scalable the device is with an eye on when it inevitably changes again in another 6-12 months," advises Scott. "That way, your short-term investment will still be useful for a few years."
• Backup and recovery: Whatever technology a business chooses to implement, IT decision makers would be wise to have a fail-safe backup and disaster recovery solution in place - in advance. The best approach allows users to transfer all of their files and programs easily onto a new device - be it the same hardware or entirely different hardware - in a single step, not file by file: a so-called "image backup." Ideally, these are regularly scheduled backups, or done just before installing new software for instance, so there is always a recent version to restore if anything should happen.

"Small business executives don't need to be well-versed in obscure terminology or be expert in every technology discipline to make intelligent IT decisions," concluded Scott. "All that is necessary is a clear view of what business objective they are trying to accomplish. There are any number of IT professionals able to assist in decision-making and implementation including local resellers, system integrators and managed service providers (MSPs) among them."

About Acronis^® True Image Echo™ Workstation

With Acronis True Image, users can create an exact duplicate image of the live disk drives on servers or workstations, including the operating system, all configuration files, programs, updates, databases and data. The image can be saved to internal or external disk drives (including USB 2.0 and FireWire), networked drives (NAS, SAN), RAID controllers, writable CD or DVD, SCSI tape drives, or even FTP servers. The ability to create transportable images that can be restored universally to dissimilar hardware is also possible through Acronis Universal Restore. The image can be used for any number of purposes, including disaster recovery, data backup, disk cloning, and migration to virtual machine environments.