Comments on: Whaddya mean it’s not supported?

By: John

John — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 17:05:00 +0000

“Frank” is holding out till he comes up with some money…..
looking to go laptop possible too….still need a home box for the family though..

By: John

John — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 14:05:19 +0000

“Frank” is holding out till he comes up with some money…..
looking to go laptop possible too….still need a home box for the family though..

By: JeffMirisola

JeffMirisola — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 15:59:03 +0000

Glad you liked the rant, John.
I agree, it's tough to decide where to draw the line between updating and upgrading. At some point in time, your “Frankenstein (that's Frank-en-steen)” box may become more trouble than it's worth. Thankfully, I've only had my M4300 for a bit more than a year. I figure I'll upgrade to Win7 in the next few months and get a few more years out of it before passing it on to one of my kids.

By: John Matrishon

John Matrishon — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:34:38 +0000

I'm with you Jeff. The problem compounds when the quantity of users hits certain levels. You have to stagger upgrading so you don't cripple your capital budget. I think a key focus is that “out-of-date” means different things to different people. My home PC is 6 yrs old (ouch), but it still will run SolidWorks although I've upgraded video cards, PS, harddrives, DVD, etc. To me, it is out-of-date. My work computer was a powerhouse 3 yrs ago, so today it's still very reliable, although the processor is overworked some days. Another question is in this disposible computer era, when is it worth the $$ to upgrade vs. just getting a brand new system? IBM has a Thinkstation S20 with 2.66Xeon (3520), FX1800 (768MB), 4GB ram, 500GB HD, and a free 22 widescreen for $1800……..not a big fan of IBM, but jeez…it's tough to just upgrade sometimes…..sorry for the ramble. GREAT RANT JEFF!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 17:23:00 +0000

Excellent points on the QA testing. Bonus points for the use of ‘nebulous’!

By: JeffMirisola

JeffMirisola — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:24:25 +0000

I'm glad you enjoyed it, Steve. See you at SWW!

By: JeffMirisola

JeffMirisola — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:23:40 +0000

Excellent points on the QA testing. Bonus points for the use of 'nebulous'!

By: JeffMirisola

JeffMirisola — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:22:46 +0000

80%? I seriously doubt it. When I was an AE, no one that called in was on anything more than 4 years old. Maybe the OS is older, but not the hardware. That would cripple most businesses, IMO.

By: Steve_Calvert

Steve_Calvert — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 10:18:30 +0000

Nice rant Jeff. We seem to update every three years, sooner for some of us power users.

I seriously doubt 80% are running on 10 year old equipment, maybe the operating system but not the computer its self.

Steve

By: Clongwell

Clongwell — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 12:40:24 +0000

No Jeff, I think you�re right. Hardware costs are negligible when you are look at productivity gains. Hardware doesn�t have to cost you an arm and a leg. Check the Dell outlet.

I think the real key here is that users demand rock solid software, but don�t understand how demanding the QA process is. Would you rather have 100% QA testing on 2 approved operating systems, or 50% QA testing on 4 operating systems? How about video cards? Would you rather have a short list of approved ones, or a nebulous cloud of uncertain ones? Even if it was possible to test all of the hardware and systems out there, but the implications would slow the release cycle considerably and increase the cost.