We have all heard of the pressures that the current economic downturn is having on companies. Since the beginning of the year, Wall Street Journal, Forrester Research and others have told us that spending on information-technology goods and services for this year is declining or will be declining. But these same outlets are also predicting the current bad economic times are coming to an end and that technology spending will increase again in 2010 across various categories to the degree of 7-10 percent.
Despite this forecasted turnaround, some small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) can’t sit idle that long. SMBs still must manage data growth and protect more information regardless of economic conditions. So while many parts of a company can limp along through tough economic times, not continually updating the technology in their corporate data centers puts them at a decided disadvantage in supporting their business.
As we enter into the fourth quarter of 2009, it seems that some companies are starting to loosen their IT budgets. Companies are still scrutinizing every dollar they spend, however, so they are trying to figure out how to get more for less and still solve their current data growth problems.
In that vein, Overland Storage is doing its part to assure companies make every dollar that they spend count, at least in the area of data protection. In a “Cash for Junkers” program that Overland announced last week, the company is offering trade-in allowances for tape libraries and NAS devices when customers purchase a new NEO® E-Series tape library or Snap Server® NAS storage device. This program is available now until November 15, 2009, through Overland’s channel partners in North America.
The program is fairly straightforward. Any customer, whether or not a current Overland customer, can work through one of the company’s many resellers. To qualify for the credit, the customer only has to let Overland know which product it wants to trade-in for a credit toward the purchase of a new Overland system. The reseller then will take care of the rest by validating the eligibility of the trade-in, and once approved, will pass on the savings to the customer.
One aspect of the program that Overland is emphasizing is its intent to make this easy for both customers and resellers. Initially, Overland had considered constructing a matrix of which products would be eligible for “Cash for Junkers” program but quickly realized that this would become too complex to implement and administer.
So to avoid the same headaches that the Federal government ran into with its recent “Cash for Clunkers” program, Overland elected to make this an “honor” system. While the intent is to be flexible in the administration of the program, not every device will qualify.
One of the main prerequisites for trade-in is it must be of an equal type. For instance, if a company wants to trade-up to a new tape library, then it must trade in a tape library. The same principle holds for a disk storage device. In other words, customers should not expect to trade in a tape drive or an externally attached hard disk drive and receive a large trade-in credit.
For customers who have legacy tape libraries or disk storage devices, however, the savings offered is generous. Customers can see savings of up to $7,000 off the purchase of Overland’s next-generation NEO4000E tape library and up to a $500 credit toward the purchase of any of Snap Server rack-mountable 1U products. A complete list of the available savings can be found in a FAQ document on the Overland website.
Companies are still struggling with purchasing decisions as economic uncertainty continues to pervade, so it’s nice to see storage providers such as Overland Storage have not forgotten about these challenges. Overland’s “Cash for Junkers” program makes it easier for SMBs to justify the replacement of their tape or disk storage devices now, so they do not have to worry about putting their steadily growing pools of data at risk. The fact that Overland has made this trade-in program about as easy as it possible for customers is an attractive benefit.