No Upgrade Needed

As computers get faster, storage gets cheaper and software gets more sophisticated, the question of when or whether to upgrade is always a tricky one to answer.

If you consider, that with one of the latest generation of PC's, you will have more computing power on your desktop than it took to put a man on the moon, then ask yourself the question of how is your business going to benefit from this technology.

There are a number of questions to be answered before we can determine that upgrading is beneficial.

Firstly how fast can you type? May seem like an obvious question, but if your main use is for e-mails, letters and faxes, then how much speed do you need?

Also consider how fast your printer can print. Will upgrading the computer speed up the output? - No it won't.

Will I get a faster connection to the Internet - not really. The speed of your connection is governed by the speed of the modem you use, the intergity of your phone line and how far you are from the local telephone exchange. Move from a modem dial up connection to an ADSL broadband connection and you will have a faster connection, but that has nothing to do with upgrading your computer.
Plus if you now working with hard disks that store Gigabytes of data, then how will you back it up?

Knowing your software?

The most important aspect though, is do you know your current software intimately enough? Fundamentally Spreadsheets and Word Processors are the same as they were years ago, most of the new features are simply easier ways of doing things you could already do, if you knew how. We still use databases to produce sorted and summaried lists and DTP is still just words and pictures combined, so what keeps changing to create the need for faster, bigger and more sophisticated computers.

Certainly if you are creating Video's or making music then it makes sense to have a fast computer with loads of storage space. If you are only sending e mails and using it for general office tasks then maybe you don't need all that speed and space.

One of the most annoying facts of computing is that the computer you use in your business or home life, that had (when you bought it) the latest all singing, all dancing system, is very quickly superceded by a new all singing all dancing system.

Do we then assume that the original system cannot do all the things we now need without upgrading to the new system. I think not, as most systems and software have been able to accomplish all your general business tasks with ease for some time now.

Whether it is a Word Processor, Database, Graphics or Spreadsheet program, the latest upgrade will probably make some tasks easier to accomplish, but at the same time it will make assumptions on your behalf that may get irritating. WP programs that capitalise acccording to rules you may wish to break, spreadsheets guessing what you are going to enter. Sometimes you just want a plain old typewriter, and it doesn't seem like you actually have one.

Turn it off?

I have certainly found myself turning off a lot of the automatic features that some new versions of software comes with. (Especially paper clips that dance around the screen making purile suggestions about what I may be just about to do.)

I am not saying that software manufactureres are wrong in making things easier for us by adding features and functions - but sometimes they seem to be for the sake of creating an upgrade.

As an average small business will most probably use computers primarily to store and retrieve business information, it is speed of recovery and size of storage that are the important factors. The data that is stored will still be used it in the main for printed material, Letters, Faxes, Reports and Marketing Literature, whether you print to electronic documents or paper.

Also remember that the computer itself is the cheapest part of your system. Upgrading all your software will be an additional cost, and will probably be a higher cost than the box that runs it all.
Then you have to re-configure the system. We don't realise how personal our computers become over time. Altering control panels, adding email accounts, spelling dictionaries, software preferences, and so forth. It make take you up to a month to get all the new bits working as you had them before.

Out with the old and in with the new?

So don't throw out the old computer until the new one is running properly, you may need to go back and find some settings.
As a tip, I have a book that I write down all my e mail accounts, servers, passwords, and log ins in. It is best to keep a hard copy, just in case everything goes wrong and you have to reformat the main drive. Then you loose all your electronic data - not fun.

Now to contradict myself, I do think that there are good reasons for upgrading systems. Certainly there are vast improvements in new versions of software and new computers are generally quicker at what they can achieve now. It's more a case of not being seduced into believing that you need to upgrade because your old computer must be out of date now.

In summary, think carefully before you upgrade. Think about the whole system, software, wiring and external devices such as scanners and printers. Don't forget to check out compatability of these external devices with your new system. Look at the websites of the device manufacturer to check out compatability issues. Look for pages containing FAQ's. (Frequently Asked Questions) Other people may have had an issue previously and there may be information available to save you heartache.

Then try to calculate the cost - not just the money, but the downtime whilst you reconfigure the new system, and how much time is it going to take you to learn about the upgraded software. These are hidden costs which need consideration.

Lastly, this was written on a computer which is more than three years old, using a WP program that was created in 1987 (Word 5.1 still does all I want from a Word Processor) So when am I going to upgrade?
Only when it feels right and I can justify it, maybe next year or the one after who knows.

Alan Betts - sigma-it.co.uk

Back to Articles