Apple hires...

We're in the midst of a worldwide banana crisis. No; really. All banana trees are clones of one original Super Banana - and they're all getting sick. Many other breeds of banana have been driven to the edge of extinction by the march of the clones, and thus the best candidate alternative isn't nearly as good for banana farmers as the disease-ridden top banana. As a result, banana futures are looking grim.

It may not sound like there's a parallel to be drawn here, but the fact is we're somewhat in the middle of a monoculture - and Microsoft takes the role of Super Banana. This rule says that if you have to stick to precisely the same release of Windows and the same toolkit across the company, then at least acknowledge the special risks that arise from a monoculture of this kind.

On the other hand, not many parachutes are made out of a patchwork quilt, so it doesn't do to permute every possible vendor, machine specification, software platform, antivirus tool and word processor across each PC either - but at least consider having two different platforms. Don't dodge buying a Windows server because there's a cheap NAS box: buy one of each. That way, if a software fault kills one, the other will be unaffected.

This applies to services too: beware small company support specialists that claim to offer "total care" - the occasional bit of competition can only be a good thing.