Eric,

I wanted to respond to this issue that Lew and yourself have brought up (see Lew’s letter from December 6, 2000 - ed.), as there is no real right and wrong here, and the issue of a “homebrew” design or an “off-the-shelf” design from a major manufacture will rage on just the same as the AMD vs. Intel debate will go on. But the simple fact is that every situation will be different and every IT department will have different needs.  Eric has stated that when spec’ing a system for his IT department he looks for the follow:

• Stability
• Availability
• Price
• Performance

You will not go wrong following these guidelines, mixing their order based on what your specific needs are. 

However the actual system and whom you buy the system from are two totally different issues. And when I buy a system from a vendor I look at those same 4 criteria plus I add one:

• Stability - Has the company been around for awhile, do they have a good reputation?  Will the company be around for the long term? A three year warranty doesn’t mean anything if they are gone in one.
• Availability - Does the vendor stock what he sells, it does you no good to call a vendor with a specific need and then having to compromise because the vendor can’t deliver.
• Price - Self-explanatory, but it is your responsibility in IT to make sure you are not over spending.
• Performance - The support, warranty and the general level of service you get falls under here, basically is the vendor going to treat you as a valued customer, bend over backwards to get and keep your business, or are they going to treat you like you don’t exist after the sale?
• Value - This comes from all of the above, if you can manage to get all 4 of the above you are getting a good value, but more times than not you are going to have to compromise something on this list, it is up to you to determine if you are getting a good value.

Now I could expand greatly on all of these and what I think is important and not so important, but that would make this letter a little to book like, so I’ll save that for a later date (plus I think most of you have the general idea).

So we are still at the age old debate of a “home-brew” computer vs. “off-the-shelf” computer from a big manufacture. So lets look at the pro’s and con’s of each.

Home-brew computer from a reputable vendor.

• You will get the best parts for in your computer, which in theory should make your systems more reliable and faster.  An example would be motherboards, an Abit, Asus, etc motherboard is most likely going to be much better than what comes in a Dell, Gateway, Micron, etc computer.
• You can easily customize what you put in your computer, I get pissed at Dell all the time when they tell me I can’t put something in a computer because they can’t support it, like having 2 CD drives (regular and a CDR), a zip drive and a hard drive.  The hard drive is on a ATA-66 card which will support 4 devices, and the MB has support for 4 devices, so why can’t I have the 4 I want? There’s a million examples of this, and these problems go away with a custom system.
• You are more likely to be treated well with a small company, and if you take all of your computer business to one place (read: You’ll be spending some $$$), you are most likely going to be treated like a king, where as you have to spend $50-100 thousand a year with Dell just to get your own sales rep, who is still so busy that you have to play phone tag to order a system.
• You will probably get good support from the smaller company, if you have a problem with a system, they will probably just send you the part to replace it without having to go through the whole “is the computer plugged in?” support process.
• You are more likely to find a company that is local to supply you.  Don’t over look this if you can, you will develop a much better relationship face to face than over the phone (plus you may be able to get a couple free lunches out of it).  Plus the cost savings on shipping computers/monitors can add up over time.

Off-the-shelf computer from a company like Dell/Gateway.

• You are going to be getting a computer with a much lower DOA rate, and in my experience I’ve had less problems with Dell/Gateway computers than the “home-brew” variety, especially when it comes to memory. Basically the big manufactures have a fairly good Q&A process that limits some of these problems.
• You may be getting a lower price, if you spec 2 identical machines one from the big guys and one from a smaller place, the big guys will be cheaper once you’ve added the OS and Office software, now if you don’t need these no problem. But Windows 2000 is around $250, and Office 2000 Small Bus is around $400, there’s at least $650 added to your system, these are new prices since we can’t use an upgrade and still be legal with the license.
• The service department will have more resources available to them, you just have to be patient enough to get to them (meaning the first 3 levels of support), having a good sales rep will cure most of these problems.

This is just a short list as there are many more pros and cons for both.  In a technical sense you can’t really go wrong with either system, but in the real world when your boss’s are looking over your shoulder at what you are doing/buying things become a little more complicated. If you buy a couple of the home-brew type system and have a single problem you are going to look fairly bad, especially to people who don’t know the difference between the two. Where as with a system from a major manufacture if you have a problem it gets chalked up those idiots at XXXX computer, and say things like “No wonder their stock is doing so poorly”.  

I’ll save the reasons why I think AMD isn’t in the business market, and why they may not be for awhile for another letter.

Regards

Andrew

Click here for Eric’s response