...I know a bloke who does a bit of that....

I met a guy the other day who was having a bit of difficulty with his company's IT infrastructure. If I had a pound for every time I have this conversation.

"We've got xxx application running on a server in our office and it's broken/not doing what we want any more. Can you fix it?"

Well, yes, probably. But how do companies with no IT expertise end up with huge systems flogged to them by some bloke they knew then he left/went bust/went elsewhere and now we're high and dry with no IT resources.

Also, why does someone recommend MS Small Business Server and MS Exchange to an organisation that clearly don't have the resources to maintain it? At some point the underlying SQL Server will run out of space/run into problems emails will get inevitably get lost and the whole thing will fall apart. It happens at big companies (I've seen it!) and can cause all sorts of issues, but it can cripple a small organisation.

These are the same organisations that don't get a consultancy in to give them a realistic breakdown of the the options and costs. I'd want to see 3 or 4 different options and cost/benefits for each and make my mind up from there. There's no doubt that there are a lot of clever systems out there with lots of features but they all come at a price and maintenance is no small part of that price.

I'm not saying that consultancy is a solution in itself, far from it. In the UK Business Link can be a good source of advice as well as numerous other organisations. There's a range of issues to consider when buying an IT system. Hardware failure support, software training support, procurement, installation & deployment, maintenance & disposal. Having seen a few RFP's (Request For Proposal) usually issued by very large companies to invite bids from suppliers. This seems a good way for small businesses to think too. If nothing else it forces the purchaser to consider the requirements as a whole rather then just as buying a shiny sparkly new computer that looked great in the add. A little bit of light research will show up RFP examples and guidance

This company I spoke to could have achieved all they wanted (email, shared docs & calendars, holiday forms linked to storage and basic work flow) from Google Apps for example or any number of other systems and it wouldn't have cost him the best part of 6k GBP and he wouldn't be high and dry when it went wrong.

In this case SAAS(Software As A Service) services (or ASP - Application Service Provision - as it used to be known) could have a real benefit. YOU don't have to have a DBA and a Sys Admin on your books. There's plenty of time and scope to bring that in house as and when you're big enough. But please don't "get a bloke you know" to do it for you unless he's prepared to enter into an SLA(Service Level Agreement) and can provide you with a DR strategy for when he gets hit by a bus.