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Companies Keeping Systems Longer Than Ever
Ant writes to tell us ComputerWorld is reporting that based on a study done by the Yakee Group Research company out of Boston companies are leveraging the durability and reliability of computers to extend the lifespan of desktops, laptops, and servers. From the article: "IT's life-cycle demands have raised the bar for vendors. "There's more pressure on [the vendors] to make the boxes last a longer period of time."
We're using Windows 2000 Pentium-III machines for the most part in the company. We just have no real motivation to start using Windows XP or 2003 server anytime soon. (Apart from the fact that some of our apps will in time force us to upgrade).
Most applications require Windows NT/2000/XP, which means they can still run on the older Windows NT 4.0 machines. So why upgrade?
I think microsoft dug themselves in a hole with Windows 2000. Its everything companies need, and Windows XP offers not a whole lot more.. (prettier screens? faster bootup? DirectX 9.0c?) Most app vendors have standardized on Windows 2000, and Microsoft will have a tough time to force them to Windows XP alone, or Longhorn, which will force customers to get new hardware as well. In doing so, they'll also force some app vendors to more to Linux, which will happily and freely run on older hardware. Time to sell that Microsoft stock.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
What are most people in offices doing? Email, a little Word and Excel. How much power do you need to do that? If the machines aren't broken, and they're letting people do their jobs, then what's the impetus to make managers spend the money for upgrades? Unless you're doing heavy-duty number crunching or playing the latest and greatest video games, there's no reason to have the top of the line machine.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
...I'm having a hard time getting over a one year warranty on IDE drives. I'll start to believe that people care about hardware lifespan when SCSI drives with a five year warranty start to become the norm again.
Why get rid of perfectly good equipment? The major reasons I have seen for PCs to run slowly is:
1. Spyware/adware.
2. Antivirus scanners/firewalls/spam filters taking up most of the RAM.
3. Unnecessary software getting loaded every time the user plugs in a new printer or USB device. You can't just load drivers anymore. The user is prompted to insert a CD which installs gobs of crap, many of which are not even full apps but trial versions. It is just submarine marketing.
4. Fragmentation. I still remember the good old days when Microsloth claimed that NTFS doesn't fragment.
5. "Upgrading" the system from the OS it was designed for to anything newer, i.e. 98 to 2000 or 2000 to XP.
A few years ago I loaded some version of DOS, WordPerfect, and Lotus 1-2-3 on an old 386/25 laptop. I was blown away by how fast it booted up and by how fast the apps ran. Recalculating a spreadsheet took a fraction of a second instead of the microseconds it takes on my new system, but scrolling around a sheet full of data went so fast that I couldn't even stop where I wanted to. Instead of scrolling over to column G for example I kept overshooting and ending up at like column AK. Windows and Windows apps seem designed to slowly bury your PC under an avalanche of bloat forcing you to upgrade the hardware just to stay even. If this gets modded redundant it's only because everyone knows it's true.
I just retired two servers that were with the company longer than me. They had NetWare 3.12 on them when I got there and NetWare 5.1 when I removed them from the tree. After about eight years of service they had only gone through two OS upgrades.
I agree with you 100% I also think that alot of companies got computers on credit and need them to last so they are not paying off a system that no longer is running.