Readers' Comments

Reader Comments on Aardvark Daily 3 July 2001
Note: the comments below are the unabridged submissions of readers and do
not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher.

From: Rob K
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: when to trade up and decision critera

You've got a good point about trading... except for gamers,
most people use computers to type with (email, letters,
resumes, etc).

I run an automated logistics operation.  For us to upgrade
just my site takes tens of thousands of dollars for over
150 PC type computers.  To upgrade the HP9000 series file
server just cost us $100,000 US. We're one of MANY sites
that got converted.  The entire communications and
management package with limited database liscensing is
almost 3/4 of a millian US$!!  Multiply that by 30 or 40 or
even a hundred and all of a sudden scale of upgrade takes
on a whole new dynamic!

My machine room has seven servers and over half a terabyte
of active storage.  Data has no value if it's not moving.
The faster it can be moved and processed, the more accurate
the results, and the MORE DECISION MAKING ABILITY that you
can have results in a higher return on investment.  For us,
upgrade is a simple formula:

IF
(how much we'll make divided by how much will it cost)
IS GREATER THAN
(how much we make now divided by how much we spend to
maintain status quo)
THEN
upgrade
ELSE
count your profit and see if you can survive against the
compitition that just upgraded!

You tell me Bruce... what's the magic formula?

Of course, at the house, I use whatever I can afford :)

Rob K
Baton Rouge, LA




From: James
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Homeuse

Intel and Micrsoft know they are both on to a good thing.
Software pushing the drive for more power. There is a limit
you know, we can't keep increasing the power on a chip
forever.

I can't afford to keep up with this game. I expect most home
users are the same. Until recently I used a 486 which I had
owned for 5 years. I extented the life of it by installing
Linux and using it as a desktop.

It was then I found out that GPL software is as good as
Bill's and a lot, lot cheaper (free). Now I can afford lots
of software doing lots of stuff that I would never have been
able to do with Microsoft and pay-to-use code.

The problem was I needed a faster chip. This was solved by
being able to rent-to-buy from my wife's place of work.

I still use Linux and GPL software and will continue to do
so. I will only upgrade my processor when I really need to
.... Thats when the software won't run on it anymore because
it has got to slow.

I would suggest that most home users who have to stay with
Microsoft should upgrade machine and software together and
then only do it it they really need to. I mean if all you
are doing is word processing and web surfing. The machine
you are using now should last for years.




From: Christopher Cookson
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: State of the chip business

As Intel and AMD battle it out over bragging rights to the fastest CPU,
and Microsoft builds ever more functional ...er bloated software, it's
interesting to compare with another industry that underwent phenomenal
growth for most of last century, but has consolidated considerably over
the last few years. Remember when Richard Pearse or the Wright brothers
first managed to get one person and machine airborne? How about the
massive advances between the days of the Red Baron, and the Battle of
Britain? These days the ubiquitous 'Jumbo' and 737 pretty much rule, and
while there have been progressive improvements, the basic design hasn't
altered dramatically in quite some time now. Sure, it is quite possible to
go faster, higher, and further, but that's not where the demand is. As far
as PCs go, Moore's law is becoming less of an issue as the current breed
of processor is more than adequate for the average user. Of course there
still is room for improvement, but since the average PC has become more of
a communications device rather than a computing device, boosting processor
performance is going to be a case of diminishing returns while bus speed,
hard drive transfer speed, and most of all, Internet connection speeds lag
so far behind. Sure you can come up with compression software that reduces
the amount of data to transfer, and is more cpu intensive, but the reality
is while your cpu is ticking over at several hundred MHz waiting for your
dial up modem to do something, it's mostly just running as an expensive
heater. Of course some people do have the benefit of high speed internet
access, but it's far too scarce a commodity, and the way it's priced if
you can get it, chances are you won't be having a great deal of spare
change for that new CPU, even when there's a chance that you can utilise
it. It's ridiculous really, that with all this talk of Moore's Law, and
dramatic increases in CPU performance and storage space, yet Internet
connectivity is still pretty much at the same old analogue speed it was
three or four years ago.




From: Richard
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Upgrading

It's really really simple - only upgrade when you cannot use
your computer for what you bought it for anymore.

Among the PC's I have at home is a lowly P100 running
Win98SE with 64MB of memory and a 6GB hard drive it runs
Office97 and IE5.5, Netscape4.77 and so on with ease. I
cannot type faster than it can process my input so why
upgrade? It does what *I* want, (not what the Wintel
alliance thinks I should be doing). In between keystrokes
it's also crunching numbers for distributed.net with ease.

Unless you are authoring digital media, manipulating large
datasets or playing games then the need to buy bigger,
better, faster, more, is a bright shining lie perpetrated by
Microsoft, Intel and the media propagandists they support
(that means you PC World, et al).

The other one is the upgradeability of a system - most users
DON'T - the most they do is add RAM or a bigger hard disk
and that's it. Sure, I want my AS/400 to scale, but I
couldn't give a toss about a PC that's used for letters and
email. Will the fact that it can run at the speed of light
and have more memory than God, make the text in my email
look any better? I doubt it.

I must be getting jaded ;-)
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