Prices on computer systems keep falling with ever major advancement
in computer technology. The most recent being the “Low
Cost” CPU market. Of course, that is not the only thing
that has drove the prices of computer systems down. Many other
things contribute to the appearance of Low Cost PCs.
Many Home users, that are mildly knowledgably
in computers, will get their computer repaired, and sometimes purchase
a custom built PC from a local “Mom and Pop” type of
computer shop. Most are a one room store, with parts in cases
and one big desk. Sometimes, there will be a scrubby guy behind
the desk yanking out some parts from a computer, and sometimes there
will be a kind man behind the counter greeting you into his
store. Both are independent business men; both are their own
boss. One in a community is plenty for some people. I know
I sure wish we had a well known store like this in our area.
Usually, you can find used and new parts, some retail, but most of
them are OEM. Sometimes, the prices are cheap, and sometimes,
others are not.
When prices are low, that usually
means they are in competition, or the parts aren’t Name Brand or of
known high quality. Sometimes, the entrepreneurs that use the
higher quality, and more expensive parts, get screwed in business if
they have competition. Here is the reason why: To the
average home user, a computer is just a computer. If you can
surf the ‘net, and get your e-mail, it’s a fine computer the way it
is. With that taken into effect, consider the following…
Take two businesses; A and B.
Therefore, there are two sellers; A and B. If Seller A uses low
quality parts, and sells at a cheaper cost, and Seller B uses high
quality parts, and sells at a higher cost, Seller A is more than
likely to get the sale to the average home user. Now, if Seller
A is like most salesman, and tells the buyer that his parts are just
as good, if not better, (like the typical salesman I encounter…and
by the way, we all know what I do to these people) he also makes
Seller B look very bad.
We need something to prevent this,
because there are some very good business men that are loosing sales
because of this every day. A suggestion once given to me by a valuable
member of the forum: A Federal Union of Computer
Technicians. Recently, some members of the forum have
started a web-ring to promote such fair actions, more on that on further
issues.
If you have any comments and or
questions on these ideas, e-mail me. If I get enough worth-while
e-mails, I’ll be more than happy to post them in a recent issue of Transistorized
and the Tormented. Because of the length of this, I will get to
Intel Catching up with AMD next week. I’m sorry for any inconvenience.
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