As your business grows from one employee and consultants, to 5 employees to 3 branch offices, having technology standards is important. If 3 employees are using Word, 4 more employees are using OpenOffice and yet another employee uses pen and paper, the overall efficiency of your office will suffer.

Supporting users on these (well not pen and paper) various platforms is challenging, as you have a variety of implementations and can't easily replicate problems or quickly move a user to an identical backup computer.

Google, a very progressive thinking company is quite liberal in what software and hardware its employees can use and the WSJ writes Unlike many IT departments that try to control the technology their workers use, Mr. Merrill's group lets Google employees download software on their own, choose between several types of computers and operating systems, and use internal software built by the company's engineers. Lately, he has also spent time evangelizing to outside clients about Google's own enterprise-software products -- such as Google Apps, an enterprise version of Google's Web-based services including email, word processing and a calendar.

Work with a technology expert to develop the right technology and guideline for your business.

Criteria for technology guidelines: