Sharing Hardware Can Make the Cost of a Compuer Next to Nothing July 27th, 2011
When you run a business, the idea of having to purchase computers for everyone in your company can seem intimidating. You can relax in knowing that there are ways to share hardware, or create machines that are not really there, to help save money on your computer costs.
Individuals who are looking to save money on their cheap desktop PC can also utilize shared services to help buy a machine that is within their budget. You can reduce the amount of hardware you buy when you share your services across a network. The best part is that even individuals can benefit from the network known as the Internet.
Image courtesy of MarcooJethro through Flickr
Virtual Desktops
A company that needs several computers with advanced functions can actually save money by using virtual desktops. The power of these desktops comes from the server and is not a part of the desktop cost.
For example, a company can buy a server that creates desktop profiles for everyone in the company. These profiles include storage space on the server's hard drives, the operating system and all software applications. The only thing that each user needs to access his profile is a very basic and cheap desktop PC.
In this example, the desktop PCs would not need to have an advanced processor, a hard drive or any drives of any kind. The clients would share all of the functionality it needs with the server and make the PC costs extremely low.
Cloud Computing
You may have heard of cloud computing, but you may not be sure exactly what it is. The cloud is like a subscription service that supplies everything you need to run your computer. The catch is, none of it is hosted on the computer itself. You only pay for the software that you use.
You can buy an extremely cheap computer with a very basic hard drive and access your operating system, processing power and software applications through the cloud. By sharing functionality with the network, you can significantly lower your hardware costs.