"I underestimated," says Collins wryly. "I told him we'd probably double in size every year."
The consultant got the picture anyway: expandability would be a major criterion for the network. That's why he recommended a server-based LAN, a setup that requires all the workstations on the network to interact with a central network server -- a single computer that holds the system's programs and databases and that generally is used to run the printer and other accessories. The other possibility, a peer-to-peer LAN, gives all the workstations on the network equal status: each can act as a client to or a server for the other machines on the network. Although both types of LANs have their advantages, some network consultants recommend server-based networks for sites with 25 or more nodes. They're faster than peer-to-peers when large numbers of users are involved, and they have more security features. (See "Peer-to-Peer or Server-Based?" at the end of this article.)
Once the decision was made to go with a dedicated server, Collins says, choosing a network operating system was a no-brainer. "Novell has something like a 70% market share, and there's a good reason for that. It's pretty bulletproof," he says.
All that technology didn't come cheap. Collins estimates the company has spent as much as $400,000 on computer resources since 1992. "It's been a major cost for us," he admits. But the network has kept head count down. "And quite frankly," he says, "it's impossible to imagine running the business without it."
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Magnifying Resources
Networks have a way of pushing small companies to the next level -- endowing them with the sophisticated information management the big guys have but with none of the bureaucracy. Consider Elite Cos., a $5-million hotel-supply business located in Port Jefferson, N.Y. Elite prides itself on the service it delivers to its 3,000 customers, including all the national hotel chains, with a sales staff of 25.
"The network makes us look like a $1-billion company," says owner Sheila Skolnick, who started the business in 1984 in a spare bedroom in her Long Island home. She credits her network -- a 12-node LAN running InvisibleLAN, from Invisible Software, of Longwood, Fla. -- with allowing her to triple her business without adding to her payroll.
The network, installed in 1993, was the response to a paradox that had troubled Skolnick since the early 1990s. "I was afraid that if we grew too big, the company would choke and die," she says.
Skolnick had built the business by giving individual attention to her customers -- going "back of the house" to talk with general managers or riding shotgun with housekeepers as they scrubbed bathrooms and made beds. But as her customer and supplier lists swelled, the company began to show unmistakable signs of organizational breakdown. While she was out rounding up new accounts, her crew back at the office could barely service the ones she already had.
The source of the struggle: outdated Macintosh machines running antiquated accounting software, and a paper-based customer-information system. When frantic hotel purchasing managers would call to order cleaning supplies, shower curtains, or any of the thousands of products Elite carries, Skolnick's salespeople could hardly remember where they had put customers' file folders, much less what the customers had ordered before. Instead of cross-selling, salespeople were shuffling stacks of invoices and hurriedly paging through manufacturers' product books.
"We needed to function as one big brain," says Skolnick. Throughout 1992, instead of focusing on customers and products, she spent her days reading about customer databases and networks, and pumping salespeople at computer stores. "I was obsessed," she says. "My whole business rested on this purchasing decision, and I didn't want to make the wrong choice."
Skolnick began search- ing for help in setting up a networked database. The trail ended when she found network guru Dick Guzal, of S&E Computers, in Remus, Mich. Guzal agreed to configure a 12-PC LAN for the company.
Skolnick hadn't heard much about InvisibleLAN, the peer-to-peer network operating system Guzal was recommending. "But it was so inexpensive -- about $2,800 total -- I figured, what do I have to lose?" she recalls.
Self-sufficient to the end, Skolnick says she also opted for InvisibleLAN because of Guzal's reassurance that it would be easier to maintain than a server-based system. With her guru a thousand miles away, if the network went down, she'd be the one responsible for getting it back up and running.
Indeed, when the LAN crashed at one point, it was Skolnick who crawled around on her hands and knees, tracing wires until she found the loose T-connector that was causing the problem. Another time, lightning fried a couple of Ethernet adapters -- the cards that plug into the PCs to connect them to the network -- and she had to sweat through 72 hours without the network until she could get replacement cards. But otherwise, says Skolnick, the network has been rock solid, and its performance has made the LAN seem, well, invisible.
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To Network Hell and Back
There are many potential horrors to networking, and Joe Alloway knows them all. In 1991, Alloway, owner and founder of Credit Union Marketing Inc., in Mt. Pleasant, Mich., purchased his first network, a six-node peer-to-peer LAN called Novell NetWare Lite. The idea was to link writers, graphic designers, and typesetters to more efficiently produce the 150 quarterly credit-union newsletters that are the bread and butter of Alloway's more than $4-million business.
