Choosing the Right IT Equipment... OR: Don't buy a ride-on mower to drive to work.

Written on the 22nd of May 2007 by Scott Jones
General Manager, IT Leaders

Cut price and direct computer retailers have made a huge impact on the IT industry, with the continual downward trend in hardware pricing proving fantastic for consumers and businesses alike.

However, problems arise when the service side of IT is stripped away from the bare mechanics of the hardware and software. When computer  equipment is sold like kitchen appliances, small businesses buy the wrong equipment and don't realise until it's too late. 

If you are out to buy a car, then you have a pretty good idea of what you are after. You want a certain number of seats, a particular body shape, transmission, engine size and paint colour.  You specify all this because those features are important for the purpose you are buying the vehicle. For example, you want your car to have 7 seats BECAUSE you have a big family; if you bought a 2 seat sports car it simply wouldn't do the job.

But imagine you are arriving in Australia from your jungle home in the Amazon, and you know NOTHING about cars.  Someone tells you that you will need one to travel to work each day, and when you ask what a car is, they say "a vehicle on 4 wheels with an engine, that you can drive around."  So when you see an ad on TV for a ride-on mower - hey look, 4 wheels, an engine, and a steering wheel, and cheap too - then of course you rush out to buy it so you can drive to work.

It sounds like a silly analogy, but that is what otherwise sane business people do time and time again with their IT purchases.

When a business owner or manager responds to a cheap offer in a mail-out by a direct PC supplier, or a big retail chain, they are quite often buying a ride-on mower to drive to work. It's not that the faceless fellow in the call centre is deliberately selling them the wrong thing; it's that the buyer doesn't know what they actually need, and the salesperson doesn't ask the right questions to find out.

A business owner I know recently bought from an online catalogue to replace their business computer. The machine is a gorgeous black shiny piece of gear at a reasonable price. Then the client called us to have it installed. 

From our perspective, it was as if someone had shopped through the retailer's catalogue and deliberately picked the very worst computer for that business. It was a great system for home, or for multimedia use, but had entirely the wrong plugs, sockets and slots in order to integrate to their particular point of sale setup. It took hours of work and several more hardware purchases to modify that computer so as to be useable AT ALL in their business.  They spent as much on the subsequent modifications and installation as they did on the computer. It was also weeks before the point of sale systems were completely functional since those suppliers had to come onsite also.

    This could have been avoided if they had simply asked an IT expert to tell them what was required, instead of buying a ride-on mower to drive to work.  I would much rather this business had called us, got the right advice, and THEN done their shopping around for prices. We are not interested in pressuring clients to buy from us, we just want to make businesses work better for all concerned.

That was a business with just one computer and a very simple set up that was burning their time and money.  Imagine what this is like with servers worth tens of thousands. And yes; the same mistakes are made there too.

So when you are in the market for new equipment, make sure you are buying the right gear, and get advice from a trusted and knowledgeable source on how to spend your dollars wisely. Computers are not kitchen appliances and no amount of retail discounting and packaging will make them that way.