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In the May 21 issue of Forbes, the article “Thrifty Does It,” describes how Christian Gheorghe Hates started a billion dollar company with a shoestring budget. School leaders tell their communities that they must do more with less.
Hates’ strategies show how he cut costs nearly 90% while he was able to deliver quality technical services. Here’s what he did:
- Replaced server purchases with leased server space in the cloud.
- Replaced licensed email products with Gmail.
- Replaced productivity software with google docs.
- Replaced database software with databases purchased in the cloud.
- Replaced telco services with VOIP services for phones.
- Replaced internal file sharing hardware with box.com.
- Replaced system testing software with open source.
While school technology departments may not be considering using alternative services and may be against specific brand names that Hates uses, he is successful at dumping expensive licensing and using free or inexpensive services to run the technical services of his company. There’s a lesson here for school technology leaders.