I have three shops and they need to communicate between themselves as to who has what stock. My shops are very small and are in rural areas and I am trying to keep the costs as low as possible.

The main shop has a telcom line, the other two just have 8ta cell phones (cheaper rates to telcom lines). This is already quite a saving on the high business line rentals.

Now I am think of a) cutting some of the call costs, b) increasing communication and c) being able to send stock taking spreadsheets for them to full in so we don't get into situations where there are 6 of one item at one shop and nothing in the other two.

So all will get an internet connection. I am a fan of prepay and the best deal for me seems the 100mb p/m x 12 for R349 once of from vodacom. i like the idea of it being capped every month instead of 2gb for a year.

Each shop will have it's own email address

Couple of questions...

Can I delete all browsers, or is this unwise?

I do not want that 100mb to be used up on useless updates - is this easy to control/stop?

I want them to have some sort of instant messaging system - what is the most basic and preferably a stand alone system.

What i would love is to make this a "closed network" - them only being able to communicate with the other 3 computers and the mail server, is this possible?

Is it easy for the modem to automatically connect and stay connected every time the pc is switched on?

Cheers