I was chatting to a friend last night who happens to purchase and install hundreds of desktops in a very large company, which shall remain nameless. He was explaining just how this particular company, which has hundreds of employees on one site alone, chooses hardware.
It’s not down to budget or hardware, as you might expect – as long as they come in at around £350 they’re fine, he says, for what’s demanded of them, whatever the internal specification. Far more important are the needs of the IT department itself, and that comes down to the shape of the case.
What’s needed is “great stability and no scratch-each-otherness” when piled on top of each other, says my friend. When big bundles of computers come in they’re piled up on a desk where they’re given a standard disk image, transferred to a trolley and taken all over the site to users. Most cases don’t stand up well to this abuse, but he’s found one that does, and it has become the backbone of the organisation, all because of its “no scratch-each-otherness”.
It’s interesting that buying decisions can be made on the basis of something manufacturers may never have considered.
Last week I opened Facebook to find the following status update from one of my friends:
“Ilana Drunk with love people with I love. I love m best friends who talk. Farmers weekly f***** hell.”
(And before the pedants start commenting about my over-zealous use of the asterisk, she was so inebriated she’d even managed to misspell the f word.)
I should explain that Ilana is a writer, and a bloody good writer at that, having had her first novel published by Orion and a second on the way. She’s not normally the type of person who litters Facebook updates with jibberish. But until someone fits a breathaliser to her mobile phone, she will probably continue to make a proper Charlie of herself with booze-laden Facebook updates.
When a system arrives in the PC Pro Labs, we don’t often hear rambling tales about its birth and development - instead, the machine arrives in the back of a large van in a big box and normally leaves the same way. It was refreshing, then, to hear about the protracted development of the Blackbird 002 - the new high-end gaming system from HP.
The Blackbird began life as the brainchild of an HP engineer by the name of Tom Szolyga. A games enthusiast stifled in the more sedate entertainment division after the comparative failure of a range of Compaq gaming machines, he began work on the Blackbird, keeping it in a box under his desk - in much the same way that Google engineers can work on their own products 20% of the time.
Harrod’s unveiled its refurbished Sound & Vision department last night - and very nice it was too - with a host of major manufacturers, including LG, Sony, Philips and HP, taking over various corners of the hall to hawk their latest HDTVs, camcorders, mp3 players and more.
Samsung managed to somewhat steal the show, though, by formally unveiling several new notebooks. We’ve already seen the X360 and X460 in all their luxurious, portable finery, but the more intriguing - and surprising - event was a somewhat low-key appearance by Samsung’s entry into the netbook market, the NC10.
As you can see from the photos, it’s a stylish-looking machine - the blue, slightly glittery finish looks far better than the traditional Eee PC-white which, predictably, is also available.
Last night I attended a round table discussion with Enrique Salem, COO of Symantec. The theme was the encroachment of consumer technologies into business environments.
Of course, that’s a huge topic. “Consumer technologies” covers everything from Facebook to the iPhone, and different types of business are affected in very different ways. Unsurprisingly, the discussion started out uncertain and unfocused, and I admit at first I found myself wondering it was supposed to achieve.
But as the evening went on it dawned on me that these difficulties were precisely what had drawn Mr Salem towards the topic. It’s a fascinating challenge to try to devise even broad principles for accepting new technology into a business without simultaneously opening up untold risks and challenges. Our ultimate inability to make a useful dent in the problem was in a way an eloquent conclusion. (more…)
We got talking in the office yesterday about Facebook, and social networking in general, about how the younger generation has a different set of standards on privacy. The youth of today…
We all have different ways of handling our profile pages; I won’t upload embarrassing pictures or let people swear on my Wall, while some others here (Bayon) are happy to talk in ways that would make a sailor blush, for all to see. (more…)
At present it’s nothing more than an industry rumour, but it’s one that can’t come true soon enough. Nvidia is reportedly about to rebrand its graphics cards in a quest for much-needed simplicity.
Gone will be the 8000 and 9000 number schemes, with things going back to (kind of) the beginning. So we’ll see 100s and 200s, and all the divisions of ten in between; while the suffix letters will find their way to the beginning of the names, a la G100 and GT140.
Because that’s simple.
Perhaps I’m just being picky on a Friday afternoon, but surely I’m not alone in thinking simple would have been to do away with the ghastly prefix/suffix convention altogether, in an entirely fresh start. Can anyone even remember why a GT was decided to be faster than a GS, which in turn is faster than a G, in the first place? (more…)
Remember when Gmail first arrived? Unless you’re unlucky enough to be called John Smith you probably got the username you wanted first time, and without having to add six digits on to the end. Then you experienced the fun of sending invites to your mates so they could join you in your exclusive little club - after all, Gmail was still in beta, they couldn’t have every Tom, Dick and Harry overwhelming it before it hit its stride.
Fast-forward four and half years and guess what? Google Mail, as it’s now known, still has that little BETA label under it, and it shows no sign of buggering off.
Over at the Royal Pingdom they’ve gone through the whole Google catalog and counted the applications that are in beta today. While 22 out of 49 may sound reasonable - Google is always coming up with innovations, after all - when you realise that these include Google Mail, Docs, and Product Search, you have to wonder if Google interprets the word beta in the same way as the rest of us.
Boris Johnson made headlines today after appearing on BBC London radio saying that he hopes to roll-out WiFi coverage to the entire city. What a noble aim, considering the importance of the internet today and the fact that not everyone can afford the cost of home connections. It’s precisely the sort of thing that can win support in the short term, but it’s never going to happen.
“They’ve done it in other parts of the world; why on earth can’t we do it?” he asked.
Because it will cost a fortune, Boris, that’s why. An investment in infrastructure that big would cost millions, hundreds of millions. There’s little point in it, either, as 3G mobile broadband continues to fall in price. Londoners won’t be happy paying for a costly organised network in extra taxes when £10 per month per person could solve the problem instantly. Just look at the animosity towards the ever-increasing Olympic budget if you need proof.
There’s a continual attempt from political parties and big companies alike to define the population, and Acer is the latest to unveil its thoughts. So the question is, do you recognise yourself in any of the below?
Techno Leader Is very advaned in technical matters. He knows what he wants: “The best and up-to-date”. He wants best performance and he is not price-sensitive. And - he can afford it. He is affluent and young.
Techno Rational Shares the same positive attitude towards technology as Techno Leader, but his comparatively lower income makes him less ready to pay a premium for brands. (more…)
I was chatting to a friend last night who happens to purchase and install hundreds of desktops in a very large company, which shall remain nameless. He was explaining just how this particular company, which has hundreds of employees on one site alone, chooses hardware.
