I've been approached by a small credit services company which is moving to a new building, to setup and manage their entire IT department. Right now this would consist of 6 computers and a Windows 2003 Server. I'm being asked to setup each computer, install Office 2007 and setup Outlook with Exchange on each computer as well as well as ACT 9.0, Calyx point, Credit Detailer, Blackberry Enterprise Server as well as any other programs that are needed. The server would run the website, AD, Exchange Server, handle DNS, network sharing and other functions. Four of the computers would be wireless, so I would need to setup and install wireless cards/routers/etc. I would have to setup and install everything from scratch (except the WinXp Pro on the workstations). By the end of the summer they plan to have about 20 employees, so I have to take that into account also.

My question is, what type of price would I charge the company for doing all of this? I really have no idea, and would appreciate anyone's input on a range which would be reasonable.

My second question, is what would be a reasonable salary to expect to manage this setup as the only IT person in the company for the foreseeable future?

Thanks for any help.

Four of the computers would be wireless

You'll pardon me for pointing out that wireless is inherently insecure and if they will be dealing with any sensitive data they should go for a wired solution.

As to what to charge in any case (employee or contractor) do market research.

If you're doing the first setup portion as a contractor, research with companies and consultants as to what they charge.

As far as being an employee goes, salary depends on qualifications/skills/experience. Again, research online. Look at job postings for similar work and see what the going salaries are and what type of quali's/experience the people hiring are looking for and base your proposal on that.

They were planning to have the office fully wired but the company they were going with kept upping the price on them so they decided to not do it. So basically the only option as of now is to do wireless. As far as doing the research, i don't have time, which is why I asked here to anyone who may have been in a similar situation. This has to finished by May 21. So it has to be done quick.

Haste makes waste

Doing credit card information over wireless is extremely.. ill advised.

paradox you should be concerned about the liability you are assuming. As a contractor they can sue you or hold you liable if someone hacks their network.

Since you haven't worked as a contractor you don't know about contracts or their proper verbage. I am also concerned on the technical side since you only mention one server with all of those services on it.

This project smells of disaster. Be careful.

Imagine the power of knowing how to internet search
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/Teachin...

Pardon me for asking, but if you don't have time to research the proper way to go about this, where will you find the time to implement everything and maintain it?

Life's more painless for the brainless.

They were planning to have the office fully wired but the company they were going with kept upping the price on them so they decided to not do it. So basically the only option as of now is to do wireless.

Just about every commercial electrical company will also install network cabling....and test and verify it. Again, all one needs to do is call different companies and get quotes. It sounds like a small job so you won't even have to tender a contract for it. Most places will charge you by the outlet. Anywhere from around $85.00 to $200.00 per outlet depending on how many cables per outlet.

I don't know who you've contacted about cabling your office but all I would need is a copy of the blueprints and about 12 hours to give you a quote on my price to cable/test/verify your building and the price wouldn't keep going up unless YOU kept asking for more and more and more. Deal with professionals...always. From the sounds of it, whoever you've contacted is a fly-by-night outfit (unless the price keeps going up because you keep asking for more).

If you already had a consulting business, you wouldn't be asking any of the questions you've asked. You wouldn't need to, you'd know the answers and already have everything in place. Since you don't, my recommendation would be to talk them into hiring you as their IT person (full time) and then stress to the boss he needs to do things in order, starting with having the place cabled correctly by professionals.

Hope that company doesn't have my credit info. A crook will be in that system in a few hours.

"Best Practices", Event viewer, host file, perfmon, are in my top 10

Agreed!

Our Security guy here at work cracked WEP encryption in less than 30 minutes. With enough horsepower and time, he could crack the WPA as well I'm sure.