Blogless Brother Tom has been building up a little frustration on the topic of a sadly common mutton-headed application of corporate funds. As a courtesy, I'm letting him vent a little.

This is something that has been chafing my underwear every time I open an issue of Computer Shopper. I keep seeing ads for faster and faster "business computers"... O.K.... Now how fast do we really need to open that spreadsheet,database, or e-mail? Is there really ANY business software that will take advantage of that 64-bit cpu?

I've done some checking around the office where I work, the bulk of the systems are older Compaq Deskpros, sub-1 GHz systems. I even found an AMD k6-2/400MHz.
However, I've also seen Dell systems sportin' 2.7 GHz. Now, I won't deny the marketing/sales dept their toys and we do run CAD, but most of what you see are older systems, some still running windows 95.

Oh and yes, I've seen the Dell commercial with the retarded IT guy ducktaping 20 year old computers together. My point is that there IS a middle ground. Most of us don't need to outfit the whole office with top-of-the-line Dells or Gateways... unless you've found a way to write the whole thing off, then go for it.

I'm not Dell or Gateway bashing here. If you need or want that kind of service and warranty they are your best bet. But for Pete's sake, don't buy the hype - save some money. Office and home systems are two different animals. Treat them as such.

On the other hand, I wouldn't mind if my bank's tight-assed board of directors would let us buy a couple sticks of used SDRAM so that we could have enough on-board memory to open up more than one window at a time.

Posted by: Harvey at 09:40 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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