Cheapskate tech

Anyone who has ever set out on a tightly budgeted journey will recognize the debt that this month’s special report, “IT on $5 a Day,” owes to the famous “Europe on $5 a Day” guidebook that launched the writing career of travel guru Arthur Frommer.

The inspiration for the series came to him in 1955, while Frommer — a law school grad who had been drafted into the Army — was struggling to see as many of Europe’s famous capitals as he could afford on a meager soldier’s pay.

“Sitting at a sidewalk cafe and reflecting on how much I was enjoying Europe,” he wrote recently for Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel magazine , “it occurred to me that the reason for my pleasure was precisely because I had no money. The less you spent, I suddenly realized, the more you enjoyed.”

Prices have escalated a bit since then. The 45th edition, “Frommer’s Europe from $70 a Day,” now published by Wiley Publishers, sets a more realistic target for bargain-seeking globe hoppers.

Nevertheless, the insight behind the series is relevant to IT. Nobody claims that putting together an affordable infrastructure is as much fun as, say, rambling around Paris or cycling through Munich. But part of Frommer’s insight was that if you have less money, you should hold down spending on necessities — food, lodging, etc. — so there is some left over for the extras that make the experience really special.

That has sure been IT’s situation for the past few years. With capital budgets slashed, many IT managers have stretched their existing equipment’s lifespan far beyond its original goal.

Now that the economy is showing modest signs of life, and budgets are beginning to loosen, the challenge is to hold down spending on commodity hardware items so that you can afford the extras that will make everything work together smoothly.

That’s where this week’s tips from noted tightwads Tom Yager, our Test Center Technical Director, and Senior Contributing Editor David L. Margulius will come in handy. They evaluate a number of budget-minded strategies ranging from buying name-brand gear on the used market to switching to white box servers to building your own.

Not everyone needs such extreme measures, of course. And the fact that PC shipments were up 14 to 16 percent worldwide in the third quarter (mainly on consumer notebook sales, admittedly), suggests that some businesses — perhaps yours is one of them — may be starting to upgrade their aging equipment.

The point of our story is simply that, as you refresh your company’s infrastructure over the next few years, spend cautiously — even stingily — on predictable expenses. That way, you’ll have something left over for unpredictable expenses as well as for those purely discretionary purchases that will make the journey so much smoother.