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Computer Makers Cater to Big Business, IT Depts.
Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "By some estimates, twice as many computers are in the hands of individuals and very small organizations than are in the control of corporate IT departments, Walt Mossberg writes in the Wall Street Journal. Yet the computer industry caters too much to big businesses and their IT staff, Mossberg argues: 'The computer industry loves, and caters to, the IT segment because it buys machines in large quantities and is run by a geeky priesthood that speaks the industry language. By contrast, the non-IT camp, even though it is larger in the aggregate, buys one, two or three machines at a time and tends to be nontechnical. ... This focus on the corporate world can have real, and sometimes negative, consequences for consumers and small businesses. For example, some of the big security problems in Microsoft's software in recent years came because the company included features used only by corporate IT staffs in the products it sold to everyone. One was a communications feature, meant for network administrators, which sleazy operators misused to bombard people with ads. Why was that on my PC in the first place?'"
I'm in the IT business and I tend to agree with the ideas in this article but I don't necessarily agree with the negative connotations.
My company primarily consults with large corporations in the contracting and engineering fields (internationally). We don't offer any advice for what brand of hardware to buy, for what software to run, or for what employees should and shouldn't know. What we do offer is advice in how the company can become more profitable, more efficient, or both.
Your average home PC owner does not look at a computer as a way to make more profit or save more time -- generally speaking. I firmly believe that the average home PC user sees the PC as a form of entertainment, just like a VCR or DVD player. As such, the ability for manufacturers to offer value added options or set a realistic upgrade/replacement path is significantly reduced. My own family wonders why PCs from 5 years ago are no longer usable but their 10 year old VCR still ticks.
Beyond even the value added options and replacement path, you also have residual output costs such as customer service and even warranty costs. Many of my customers have warranties on their hardware, but their in-house IT division will work on replacing failed hardware (and their own cost!) and repair software flaws, rather than calling the supplier. The employee that uses the failed PC is back to work faster this way, so more money is saved than spent. The home PC user, on the other hand, is more likely to call Dell or Gateway, and when they do, they're losing their heads over what may be a user error.
We tried for 2 years to offer services to the home users. I will never go that way again. The minute a customer asks me for home PC advice, I send them to Best Buy and the Geek Squad. I have 3 customers who "force" us to service their home PCs, but we charge the US$300 per hour -- no joke. The only way for me to profit is to charge them in advance for the "warranty" issues that we have to pay for.
Finally, the home PC user is much more price conscious than the corporate IT buyer. It is easier to sell a corporate buyer on the return-on-investment figures than it is to tell a home user that buying a better printer will mean cheaper ink, or that buying a better scanner will save them hours over the lifetime based on speed and quality issues alone.
There is nothing wrong with avoiding sales to a specific group -- especially the home user. When you go into business, you focus on not the number of sales you can get, or the gross profit from all those sales as a total figure. You look at all input costs, output costs and stability of the customer base. The home user offers the worst ratio of all 3 of these business variables. The article ends with the key: Alienware is aimed mainly at gamers, eMachines at bargain hunters. Gamers, who shop around online for the rock bottom price, offering the retailer almost no profit. Bargain hunters, who do the same. Both who demand top level service for rock bottom prices.
Same utilities?
How do I fine tune user permissions in XP Home? Do I have anything between the two user levels? I don't think I can even limit who has access to shared folders and printers with XP Home.
How do I use dynamic disks in XP Home?
How about NTFS Encryption in XP Home?
Did they ever add Remote Desktop to XP Home?
otherwise, it's System control panel -> Advanced -> Performance settings button -> Advanced -> Processor scheduling
We spend an average of 250K on Apple a year. They cater quite well to me too. My carton of free 30 gig video ipods are on a fed ex truck outside of Boston right now.
Just a quick compliment... I love your posts on your business, I operate an IT consulting business myself and find myself relating to a lot of what I've read you post lately(especially that other thread where you discussed paying minimum wage and offering a portion of the contract when it's done). Okay, admiration out of the way...
/end rant.
I'd like to totally agree with you here on the home market. There is money to be made there, no doubt, but you reach a point where you see the plain facts... In my case, small businesses will toss me 10 hours a month at a 100/hour, without blinking an eye(in most cases). A substantial number of home users I've worked with are never satisfied, constantly bitch, and proceed to break everything you fix within days after you were there, and then expect you to come out and fix everything for free again. Despite the fact that they went and downloaded everything you told them not to and just generally do everything you tell them not to. Regardless of whether it's verbal, you leave a written list of things not to do to avoid the problem, or both(in my case, I was actually giving a small lecture, then leaving a list of things not to do, then repeating when I came back for the same fucking problem as the time previous).
Who wants to deal with that? I did, when I first started, but after you build up a reputation, start landing contracts with businesses, and discover the far less pain associated with servicing businesses, you don't want to go back. At least I don't.
Anyone want to tell me I don't have what it takes or whatever, sure, tell me that. You go help all the people I don't want to and I'll focus on the businesses. Then at the end of the year, let's compare our books to see who made more, and compare our notes to see who had to deal with more aggravation. I already know from doing this for over 4 years, that businesses are the easiest way to make money because you are given the leeway and the faith, to actually provide long lasting solutions for their problems. Home users only want to pay for bandaids and then blame you when the bandaids have to be replaced.
Screw that.