How much do you spend on information technology?

Do you go full speed ahead without any restraint, or at least as far as your wallet lets you, or do you try to spend as little as possible on information technology? Do you opt for a compromise and believe that, in a general manner, this is the wisest attitude to adopt? If you think you spend reasonably, then what is reasonable when it comes to computers, the Internet, smartphones and the like?

Enterprises have learnt their lesson well, many years ago. They usually allocate a substantial part of their expenditure to their IT department. They perfectly realise its importance, what it brings to their business and most importantly what the dire consequences of trying to skimp in such a critical department would be.

Understandably home and small business users are not always as wise as big enterprises when it comes to this matter. Whereas some would go to extremes by always being up to date with the latest, the fastest and nothing but the very best, other would play the penny-pinching game and make do with the bare minimum.

The truth is that keeping up with IT is rewarding. Regardless of whether you think you need or don’t need this device or that Cloud service, you need to communicate with your friends, family and colleagues today. This alone makes it essential to have new devices, new software and to have subscriptions to the services everybody uses. It’s about being in or being out — as simple as that.

Still, and since very few people have unlimited budget, knowing what is expensive and what is less, can help to spend more smartly. As a general rule, hardware is considered to be relatively inexpensive, whereas services, software licences and in a rather insidious manner, Cloud services, are becoming expensive.

Imagine that a good laptop, a mid-range model, would cost you JD600, but that Windows and Office Pro are almost as costly. Not to mention programmes like Photoshop which will set you back some JD400 — per year! Adobe products are now only available as Cloud subscriptions.

And then there are these little things you spend here and there on the Web and that add up significantly. Countless Cloud services charge you less than JD10 per year. Deezer music streaming is one of them, for example. Several Cloud storage charge less than JD20 per year. Go for a few of these and you can find yourself paying JD200 to JD300 every year without even realising it.

One item that I find very cost-effective is my ADSL annual subscription. For about JD400 a year it gives me 24Mbps speed and unlimited download. When I think of all that I can do thanks to this lifeline I find it money well spent. The savings in international phone calls alone would more than justify the expense. For instance, thanks to Skype paid calls (Skype Credit) it costs me 2.3 cents a minute to call the USA or Canada. Of course, I wouldn’t mind if my ISP would lower its rates even more, but…

On the other hand high-end smartphones are rather expensive. Not that they are not useful, quite the opposite actually. I use mine extensively and benefit from virtually all of its functionalities, but given that it costs almost the price of a laptop computer and that most of us replace our smartphone every two years, on average, it becomes a rather expensive device. Samsung’s Galaxy S6 Edge Plus with 64GB storage is a “mere” $1,050 on Amazon and around JD800 in Amman.

Perhaps one way to see a top of the line smartphone as not-so-expensive equipment is to remember that it is indeed: a great mobile telephone, a great camera, a great Web browser, a great e-mailer, a great memo recorder, a great music player, etc.

One has to try and strike a good balance, but IT has definitely become a major expense chapter in our life, be it at the personal level or in the workplace. Being reasonable is to spend substantial amounts of money on it and to know that in most cases it is well spent and rewarding.