Slashdot Mirror
Generic PCs For Corporate Use?
porkThreeWays writes "I work for a government agency supporting about 1000 PCs. The economy has hit us just like everyone else and we are looking at ways to save money. We currently buy Dell computers and even with our government discounts end up spending about $1,000 for a pretty mediocre computer. I had the idea of building our own PCs for considerably less. We'd spec out a standard configuration that we'd use for 18 months. CPU speeds and RAM sizes may change during that time, but socket types, memory standards, hard drive interfaces standards, etc, etc would be required to stay the same. We have Dell warranties right now, but I could see just keeping spare parts on the shelf and building that into the cost of the PC. We'd also be able to transfer Windows licenses because the Dell installs are non-transferable. However, I couldn't find anyone on the large scale doing this. Is anyone on Slashdot using PCs they built themselves on the large scale?"
Wat?
So long as you have an competent IT staff, you should be good. It's so much better to have internal people swapping out bad hardware and dealing directly with the RAM vendors, etc when possible. Not only do the vendors of specific hardware normally have longer warranties, they're normally faster than the end vendor at swapping out hardware. Think of it this way, if you keep paying Dell to do support and replacing bad hardware, then what is keeping another, less competent person from taking your job? So long as you create a good mechanism for keeping up with machines, parts, and vendor relations, you should be good. I highly recommend this approach. From my experience in government IT, it seems that the ones who go with vendors who provide a lot of support, the employee gets replaced with a drone who just interacts with said vendor. By doing what you're talking about doing, and doing it in a well executed and organized fashion, you are not only doing your employer a favor by saving money, you are also securing your job. You might want to do this in increments, maybe 100 computers at a time. That way you can find problems that you'd never think would ever be an issue. Doing things in small increments at first is probably the best move you can make. Also, think about keeping parts on hand, maybe enough parts to replace all the parts in every 25 computers or so. That way you can fix failed hardware on site, and then worry about swapping with the vendor later. If you keep up with your data, you can find out what fails the most and when, and then you can become more efficient in dealing with vendors, part swaps, and stocking of said parts.
Sig: I stole this sig.
Windows is too expensive in support costs and training costs. Building-your-own just means more support costs and training costs. Again and again I have seen companies and individuals save money by buying Macs and now iPads because the users take them and go off and do productive work with them without I-T support, without training. And a ton of money is saved by reduced need for I-T consultants. I've seen places where 1 I-T guy manages hundreds and hundreds of Macs because AppleCare is cheap and Apple Stores are nearby when components fail. A $999 MacBook and $149 AppleCare is 3 years of guaranteed computing, day-in, day-out, for $380 per year. Then you sell the MacBook for $400, reducing your cost to $250 per year, and go again with another MacBook and AppleCare for the next 3 years. No viruses, self-patching, automatic backup, reliable Unix, and world class software all built-in and ready to run.
Rewrite this article about phones ... would you save money by building your own BlackBerry? It's an archaic mindset. It would be great if more than one PC maker knew what the fuck they were doing, but that is not so. Only Apple is shipping 21st century systems right now. And users go more easily from XP to Mac OS than they do from XP to Windows 7.
For corporate users, just having Keynote alone is an improvement for them. Their presentations will be a hundred times better, more like Steve Jobs or Al Gore, they will communicate better, sell more. And Keynote is a fraction of the price of PowerPoint.
But I'm wasting my breath because I-T people are very, very rarely involved in doing what's best for their clients. Instead, you will take advantage of their naiveté and keep them as powerless as possible and that means Microsoft.