In many ways, the wave of budget priced
computers in the past couple of years has seemed like a godsend for
many small business owners. You can now own a Pentium 4™
based computer system for prices as low as a few hundred
dollars. As good as these systems sound, it has become
increasingly apparent that they aren't worth the money.
The cost of maintaining a "budget" computer
can be astronomical. They are made with the cheapest components
available, and anyone with any real world experience knows that
cheaper is definitely not always better. The myriad of hard
drive failures, system crashes, and bad components we at MGI have seen
in these systems is virtually unbelievable. Coupled with that
fact is
their inherent difficulty to upgrade. Some of these systems
actually have processors and cables hot glued in place so that
components can't be replaced!
The point of this is that a lower purchase price is
very often an expense in the long run. MGI systems are often
more expensive than virtually identical sounding competitive
systems. This is not because we make a bigger profit. It
is because we use higher quality components in places the average
consumer doesn't notice. Most people look at things like
processor speed and hard drive capacity when they purchase a
computer. Few make in-depth motherboard comparisons, or check
things like the MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) on a hard
drive.
These are the things which few customers check and
make a huge difference in TCO. There really is a difference
between the $50 motherboard in a competitors system and the $100
motherboard we use. A hard drive failure, even if you back up
regularly, can cost you dozens of hours of work, if not, it could cost
you thousands. System stability simply cannot be sacrificed for
purchase cost. It just isn't worth it.
