SMB Study Says Give Up that Old PC

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According to a new Techaisle study, small- and medium-sized businesses that hang onto their PCs longer than 3 years in hopes of saving money during the downturn are actually setting themselves up for significant increases in maintenance and repair costs, as well as more security breaches and system failures. For a quick overview check out the fact sheet or white paper, or better see the media briefing with Intel Business Client Group VP Rob Crooke, ASUSTeK and Gigabyte.
 
A study to push businesses to buy newer equipment. I agree, businesses usually take the long approach to updating their IT infrastructures, but 3 years really isn't that great amount of time IMO.
 
yes, because the age of the hardware has alot to do with keeping your security tools/firewalls/anti virus updated.

bunch of crap.
 
Some companies such as the one I work for pay their IT people by the hour during a normal work week. It's not like they're racking up additional cost for maintaining our computers and servers. If our warranty's up, then I fix them myself. It's what we're here for.

The article's exaggerating greatly.
 
Monkey God said:
yes, because the age of the hardware has alot to do with keeping your security tools/firewalls/anti virus updated.

bunch of crap.
Click to expand...

qft

while the computers may be slower, an older system that's well updated should stand up better than a cutting edge system in terms of security.
 
My company switches roughly every 2 years. I think our slowest machine is an E6300 paired with 2gigs of ram running XP which is still plenty fast. I can see these machines lasting longer than 3 years.
 
ah! No edit! I meant to say that the switch this time around will take bit longer than 2. heh
 
I read the title and the first thing I thought was "what are you talking about, old PCs make great Linux+Samba file servers!" :p
 
I work at a hospital and the age of the hardware itself does next to nothing for security, unless you maintain the original OS on the system. Prime example XP/Vista/7(yes I know it isn't officially out yet) these all came out in a 3 year period and depending on your licensing will determine which OS you install. But this isn't just about security, where I work they have dumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into 5 year old systems simply because the PCs where already in place. Suddenly we get a director who understands the need for newer systems and all that money for memory upgrades, video cards, modems, NICs and various other items will be wasted. I am not saying a 3 year rotation is for everyone, but be willing to listen to people with the tech knowledge on times to replace.

One last comment, some have problems remembering but we are running PCs that are 2.8 Pentium 4s with only a gig of memory. Those PCs are less than five years old and in our work situation are as slow as Christmas. It all depends on your situation and perception.
 
It is just a ploy to attempt to convince the non-tech savy business owners to purchase new hardware. If your just doing office stuff I don't think that you will really get a huge boost from upgrading your hardware for most tasks. Besides maybe a Moral boost in the office when the old systems are replaced, but that will only last a month max.

I have found that breakdowns much of the time happen when proper maintenance isn't done. Build up of dust causes systems to overheat and parts to fail. Investing in a air compressor and blowing the dust out once a year can help stretch a computer's life span and help insure it's components continue to operate correctly.

Another thing,upgrading your software instead of a hardware upgrade. Besides people gaining physical access to a machine or network, software is the your most important layer of security. It simply doesn't make since to feel more secure with new hardware if you are running the same software.

Instead of attempting to scare prospective clients into purchasing new hardware, how about convincing them to purchase new software with even greater reasons, like power efficiency, space saving designs, and etc.
 
We used to have a 3 year life cycle for workstations/desktops. We found replacement process to take to much of our resources to complete properly. Also for the most part the PCs were fine except for memory upgrades which now a days is cheap cheap cheap.

We now are on a 4 year cycle, our desktop warranties are 3 years so there is a 1 year gray area where if a motherboard fails we just replace the system for extra cost.

Though as an enterprise desktop admin, you really have to over plan for desktops these days. We have seen our memory requirements jump pretty much 1GB each year. Our 3-4 year old PCs generally need a upgrade but we are now specing desktops way above and beyond our current needs because within 4 years we will need the ram...
 
I wonder if this study was funded by Dell's small business department :D

I swear they send me a new magazine every other month telling me I should upgrade now!
 
I find it better to replace 1/3 or 1/4 of the PCs per year (in a 3 or 4 year cycle, respectively) than to try to replace an entire section or department at once. This keeps the work steady but manageable. I can use the older PCs to replace broken PCs or put temporary PCs in place as needed.
 
I understand where they are coming from....if they werre talking about decade old machines that can barely handle the OS and the virus scanner on their own, let alone a modern version of office.

At my last work, I had the joy of using a 13 year old Dell....running outlook was busting it's chops. I could safely say that a new PC would have tripled my productivity due to no longer having to take 5 minute breaks while it saves documents, etc. Heaven forbid IT rolled out a service pack a couple hours before work, I'd be stuck until lunch.
 
this is like saying "everyone should buy new cars every three years because were all the same people and use our stuff all the same way"

i would think for some businesses, a 3 year old pc wont be fast enough for their job (art design, other shit like that) but for most businesses, running a web-based app that your workers work off all day can probably be done on a 10-year old pc just fine.
 
spacetrader said:
this is like saying "everyone should buy new cars every three years because were all the same people and use our stuff all the same way"

i would think for some businesses, a 3 year old pc wont be fast enough for their job (art design, other shit like that) but for most businesses, running a web-based app that your workers work off all day can probably be done on a 10-year old pc just fine.
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Last place I worked still had some PII systems as production machines.. why? Because the computers were put together specifically for the machines they ran.... Was it a good choice to keep using those old PCs? NO... why? Because they were as slow as 90w gear oil in a temp of Absolute Zero. And they were becoming rather unreliable as well.

And to top it off... a lot of the people that had to use Autocad and other CAD programs were using things like Optiplex GX270s with integrated video and 512MB RAM.... AGGGHHHHH!!!!!! I actually used some extra RAM to bring a few of the machines up to 1GB and also old Geforce2 MX 32MB video cards to help speed them up.. even those small changes sped those computers up significantly.

The company was refusing to spend money on new equipment and was he-hawing about corporate trying to force them to replace their systems with new ones.

And they wonder why it would take so long to get stuff done and why they were losing money.
 
I have to laugh at this. The plant that I work for, we still have old Dell Optiplexes with 350mhz cpu's and 64mb RAM running Windows 98. We even have 2 PowerPC (Macintosh-based) computers. I think they have about 200mhz cpu's in them. I remember we put some kind of add-on cpu in one of them years ago to make it 350 (I think).
 
I think to protect the companies, they should replace these analysts every three years - with a new magic 8-ball.
 
A lot of the people commenting on this don't see every aspect of the situation. Techs typically get a service call and do the work. Sometimes they see part costs, but that's about it. 3 years is pretty standard for a corporate warranty period. If a part dies after that, there are all kinds of costs incurred.

The most obvious is the cost of the part. Costs can vary, but you're looking at $100-$200 if you buy from Dell (And most companies do). Then you have to pay the tech to do the work (Even the pay for hourly techs needs to be taken into account). A dead hard drive can easily take 2-3 hours to replace, reimage, reconfigure and install. 4+ hours isn't unheard of if there are a lot of custom apps for the machine. So add on another $100 for the tech's labor. These days, everyone in an office setting is totally reliant on their computers. Having a machine down for a couple days hinders their productivity a lot. You're looking at around $200 in lost productivity on average. Sure, you can setup a temporary machine, but that still costs tech time, and even with a replacement, most people wont be back to 100% productivity. So now you're out around $500 for a machine that still out of warranty and behind in specs. All of this doesn't even take into account lost income for for-profit businesses.
 
It's funny. The ratio of computer to employee at my company is about 4:1 right now since so many people have been laid off. If one breaks we just get another one!
 
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