just do it

In yesterday's MSNBC webssite they had an article about folks in Japan not buying PCs as much as they used to. Now they want Plasma/LCD TVs, high-end cellphones and other high end electronics. To which I say "Duh"!

If everyone there has the latest & greatest laptop and desktop, it is natural they want other high end stuff because the current crop of PCs doesn't offer any new must-have features and it may be a shock to most manufacturers but you don't have to buy a new PC every year just like most folks don't buy a new car every year.

If you think about it besides new software and Operating systems like VISTA and Leopard are the only (sort of) must-haves on the consumers' list when it comes to the almighty PC. Cell phones break like cheap tools you buy for a buck and folks are constantly buying new phones because they break when you drop them, lose them or you work like crap. Plasma / flat screen TVs are still the rage if you don't have one and since they're slightly higher in price than the old style tube / projection TV some folks actually have to save up to buy one or take the leap into the $1K plus TV.

I, along with my fellow PC based income people, may own a new laptop every year but we do because it is our income source and most of us peddle off the old unit when we get a deal on a newer unit or like my last purchase: new technology - Duo-Core CPUs and Vista to support customers with new technology.

Ok so I did get my neice a new Thinkpas as well but her HP of 5 years was on its last legs and not worth the cost of repair vs expected extended life. And that was at my cost of the repairs.

I'm not saying the PC is dead but last year's group of consumers who wanted to buy a new PC thought they'd get one for Christmas if Vista came out by then. When Microsoft missed the cut-off date the OEMs wanted, they suffered in pre-holiday sales but were able to dump the XP based machines in January which the consumer sucked up because they seemed like a good deal. The first tiimer got a good deal and the seasoned PC user who purchased a pre-Vista machine probably replaced a tired machine and wasn't going to jump on a Vista machine until they felt confident that there wasn't more problems like most new software releases have.

Well almost a 1year later Vista has a Service Pack to fix "issues" and the monthly patches continue to roll out. It's not a bad OD but if you don't buy enough memory or use a decent graphics card you will suffer in performance vs happiness or ease of use.

I ran the various Vista Betas last year on machines mainly to teach myself the product and to see what was the minimal cpu and memory you could live with in a used machine and in most cases a P4 Thinkpad with 512 or 1G memory felt just like a Windows XP Pro machine. There lied the problem. If I had Windows XP Pro and had no issues with it, why change? The old OS runs office 2007 Pro without problems so if I had access to a used machine without Office in it buyimng the new Office suite and not upgrading a working system is a viable and cost effective purchase. Plenty of corporate customers agree and Microsoft just released another batch of OEM Windows XP Pro licensees to keep those corporate and power users happy ntil they are ready to jump to Vista.

In my experience to date, the power user may need 6 hours of "driving time" in Office 2007 to feel comfortable with it because the toolbars, now "ribbons" are logically laid out as opposed to the old familiar formats we are used to. (Does that mean pre-2007 Office was illogical?)

Adding Vista and the new Office suite will set back a business at least one week in productivity which they will get back later once they are proficient in the new software. The folks who use Powerpoint will love the fact they can whip up a fancy presentation in the 2007 version that used to require farming out the graphics since the good folks at Microsoft now include templates and cool features you can make in 2 minnutes vs the 2 days it used to take some outsourced vendor to complete. Good for the biz folks, bad if you're that outsourced Powerpoint guru.