iPhone price drop highlights obsolescence

The "neatest, niftiest, coolest gadget ever" that you purchased for $499 less than three months ago is no longer available. That's right, this morning Apple announced that the 4gig iPhone is no longer available and they are slashing the price of the 8gig version from $599 to $399.


Obsolete already?

There are too many variables in the question around "how long does it take a computer to be obsolete?" For most people a computer is never completely useless. You can still type a report on a 286 processor from 1990 but you'll have a tough time finding a printer with 17-year-old drivers.

Although you can still use your mid-range, 2005 Dell computer for many applications, there is a measurable gain in productivity by moving to the same grade produced in 2007.

A few points:

• In 2003 the state of Texas reported that they plan for a 4-5 year desktop computer life cycle. In 2007, 2-3 years is a common report.
• By the time you see a computer advertised at a retailer, the next generation is already in test.
• In 1990 the top of the line IBM PCs ran on an Intel 80386 processor clocked at 4.77MHz, 8-bit I/O buses. In 2007 a mid-range cell phone has many times more processing power.
• According to a Time Magazine article, an outdated computer is worth roughly $6 in recycled raw materials.
• Those annoying animated gifs were all the rage in 2003.

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Vista hurts First Scribe productivity

Windows Vista was released in late January of this year and the tech industry anticipated it would be a huge step forward, visually at least, for the stale PC platform. Vista toted many enhancements over Windows XP including an enhanced user interface, superior security/connectivity, and better integrated backup. While many of these features are well deployed Vista also has its share of quirks and issues.

Improvements and Features

The new user interface, Aero, is visually light years ahead of previous Windows versions. The new desktop allows windows to be stacked and shuffled on screen which makes multi-tasking much easier. It also sports transparent edged "glass" windows which make it look pretty slick when compared to the standard blue or grey XP windows.

The security center is something that has been available since Windows XP Service Pack 2 but the Vista variation better integrates anti-virus, anti-spyware, and Windows updates. The improved connectivity mostly deals with wireless and more complex networks and doesn't seem to have much value to a standard Ethernet based LAN.

A more robust integrated backup solution had been needed for a while. While the standard backup tool provided in Windows XP did an ok job it was difficult to schedule and not very reliable. If the computer wasn't left idle after the backup it was difficult to determine if the backup was successful without digging through event logs... not something your average user wants or knows how to do. Vista makes scheduling routine backups very easy and provides noticeable feedback if problems occur. Some versions of Vista also provide a "Complete PC Backup" option which essentially creates a disk image. This is much easier to restore and more complete than the file backups.

Drawbacks and Limitations

While these enhancements are overall a step forward for PC computing, Vista also came with some unforeseen negativity. The biggest drawback is performance. Two years ago the average workstation had a 2.4 GHz processor and 1 - 2 GB of RAM and rarely was the First Scribe staff disgruntled with the performance. Since the adoption of Vista computer performance has greatly suffered even though current computer hardware is more that adequate for the limited number of applications run on them. The average machine now has a dual core processor and at least 2GB of RAM yet the performance is dismal. Often users have to restart and get "Low on Memory" errors even with only a few running applications. Most production work is done in Adobe Fireworks and/or Dreamweaver and these often become unstable after only a few hours of usage. Users are forced to close background applications, like Outlook, in order to try to keep the main applications running. These problems ultimately lead to lower productivity and the need to sink more money into hardware to try to bring performance up to par.

Another problem, common to any new operating system, is limited driver support. Many basic pieces of hardware such as scanners, printers, and graphic cards are lacking basic driver support and have no support planned going forward either. Major vendors like Hewlett Packard, ATI (AMD), and Adaptec all have products which functioned great on Windows XP but will no longer work within Windows Vista. These components need to be replaced or valuable IT resources need to be invested to develop workarounds when possible.

The bottom line is Windows Vista has brought several great features but at a cost. Vista is currently deployed on less than half of the workstations at First Scribe and will likely get no further adoption. The market offers other competitive products that better fit First Scribe's business needs by providing better performance and a more robust user interface. These are essential for any small business and lead directly to higher employee productivity. That is why the next iteration of workstations at First Scribe will likely be Macs.

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