Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Intel Corporation (INTC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: WTSherman who wrote (121006)	12/7/2000 12:27:25 PM
From: Dan3	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 186894

Re: The previous trend of 30-36 month replacement cycles for desktop PC's is now stretching out to 42-48 months for machines that are 500Mhz and above. I'm not sure that's the case. At least, you have only speculation to go by since no 500MHZ machine is more than 20 months old at this point. Very few are more than a year old. Whether these machines will be replaced (on average) 2 years from now or 3 years from now is not yet known. Another factor is that, compared to previous years, machines sold in the last few years were less costly, and used less substantial power supplies, cases, etc. that may result in their requiring replacement earlier, not later than previous generations of PCs. But I tend to agree with you that, in general, replacement times are stretching out some. Regards, Dan

To: WTSherman who wrote (121006)	12/7/2000 1:49:37 PM
From: Mary Cluney	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 186894

WTSherman, <<<The previous trend of 30-36 month replacement cycles for desktop PC's is now stretching out to 42-48 months for machines that are 500Mhz and above. For desktop applications there is no appreciable advantage to using a much faster PC. For enterprise or departmental applications the overwhelming majority of the response time is related to the server and the network.>>> First of all, I doubt there was ever a 30-36 month replacement cycle. Where do you find this metric? Anecdotally, I would guess the replacement cycle is more like 60 months. The vast majority of the replacements are those character based applications running on dumb terminals using mainframe computers running mostly cobol programs that are still in place because the graphically rich and database intensive replacement programs required processing capabilities that are still not cost effective enough to replace. The overwhelming majority of Corporate purchases are for applications that have not yet been developed. Go to the vast majority of Corporate IT departments and you will find backlogs of 4 or 5 years worth of applications that still need to be developed. That is not to mention millions of man years backlog of improvements to existing applications. <<<Moreover, the trend is for everyone, but power users, to use browser interfaces as the interface with these applications, whereby the client PC is little more than a dumb terminal.>>> When the client PC is little more than a dumb terminal, the dumb client is being replaced by AIT. The client PC will have to multi task and when it is not a client, it becomes a server. Even when the majority of CIO's tell us they have more computing power than they need (which I don't think is the case now - or even close to it), there will always be creative CIO's finding a competitive edge by being first and getting there much faster with all the technology at his disposal - even when that technology is not yet available. This is what the future of global competition is all about. The cpu, no matter where it resides, on the client or on the server side, will never be powerful enough. Bank on it. Mary