Dust clears for Small Business IT

Christchurch reseller discusses the earthquake aftermath

By Darren Greenwood, Auckland | Wednesday, 07 September 2011
David Symes, like many others in the Christchurch IT industry, has closely observed how the earthquakes in Canterbury have put cloud services on his customers’ radar.

“I think the biggest impact post-quake is suddenly the cloud seems to be the new buzzword,” says Symes, owner and manager of Small Business IT. “Many customers are asking about cloud offerings, especially around back-ups.”

Until the quake, Small Business IT was noted more for repairs, with its Smart Car a familiar sight around the city.

“We suddenly became very needed and we worked long hours trying to get everyone up and running. Fortunately our building, power, phones and so on were operational so we could focus on customer needs,” Symes recalls.

He launched his venture in 1991, at the age of 25, after a two-year apprenticeship at another company. He says it was tough at first as people thought he was too young, but the company expanded and now has a staff of five.

Small Business IT started off repairing computers and camcorders, adding printers to the list after signing on as an authorised repair agent for Epson in 1995.

However, the printer operation was sold in 2006 to concentrate on business computer support and laptop repairs.
The company does insurance assessment of damaged laptops and advises customers of IT solutions, implementing and supporting those systems.

On the day of the earthquake, Symes watched as a building collapsed across the road from his own on Colombo Road. From that day onward, his company, has been incredibly busy with different kinds of IT challenges.

“We had many customers that needed to be relocated. We had one customer inside the cordon, but we were lucky to get out what we could. We managed to get their servers and nearly all 50 computers out of the building and within a few days had them up and running from the business owner’s house,” he says.

Small Business IT managed to get most of its customers that were located inside the CDB up and running with new laptops, computers and servers. With road closures increasing travel time to client locations, so remote access has become more important.

Most of the company’s clients are in Christchurch and have up to 50 users, though it does some consumer repair and works with a few customers in Ashburton, Greymouth and Wellington.

Small Business IT is a Microsoft Certified Small Business Specialist Partner. It also uses HP for new computers and servers, with supplies easily delivered from Dove Electronics, Ingram Micro and Exeed.

“Our main focus is based around Microsoft Small Business Server. We also like Remote Desktop Services, formerly Terminal Services. A combination of these servers provides customers with a very good IT system, plenty of flexibility to work remotely, synchronise emails on phones, ipads, and so on,” Symes continues.

While Christchurch is “competitive”, rival operators are friendly and will help each other out.

The internet, he says, is a “massive” part of his business and he cannot imagine running any business without it. Six years ago, Symes developed a web-based jobtracking system written in an asp called Bizpower, which the company is still using.

However, while planning more remote support and better off-site backups for next year, it can be hard keeping up with technology.

“There are new products being released so much faster than before. In order to provide our customers with up to date systems, we need to keep on top of what’s available. Microsoft Office 365 is going to be an interesting product to watch.”

Symes will never leave Christchurch as that’s is where his business, family and friends are. But everyone has been affected by the quake and life has changed significantly.

“While our business is booming, our social life is suffering. You start to change your perception of what ‘quality of life’ really means. What was important a year ago is now not so important,” he says.

The father of four says outside work, family life keeps him busy. But he did manage to have a 10 day holiday in the North Island in June.