According to Computer Weekly, approximately 80% of IT expenses are spent on maintenance and support of existing infrastructure. We've probably all seen similar statistics. That leaves precious little room for innovative new projects. In a Computerworld article, a Columbia Business School professor, Rita Gunther McGrath, recommends that companies spend no more than 50% of their IT budgets on maintaining current systems, with the other half going toward new projects. The question for most IT organizations is not “Why?” but “How?”

Standardizing on a single modern infrastructure lets you do far more by reducing labor, maintenance, and other operating costs. When you standardize your IT infrastructure, you bring simplicity and consistency to your datacenter, enabling you to:

• Streamline and automate management and administration for greater IT staff productivity.
• Reduce downtime by gaining greater reliability and faster problem resolution.
• Decrease help desk workload.

In short, standardizing your environment lets you reduce the amount of your budget required to “keep the lights on” and free up budget for innovation.