Innovation
Rupert Goodwins' Diary 02.04.2001
Thursday 30/03/2001New, low-priced chips are due from AMD and Intel next month, meaning another drop in the price of decently-specced PCs. Which everyone in the industry wants, because the signs are that people just aren't buying as many computers as they used to.
Thursday
30/03/2001 New, low-priced chips are due from AMD and Intel next month, meaning another drop in the price of decently-specced PCs. Which everyone in the industry wants, because the signs are that people just aren't buying as many computers as they used to. Thing is, the last three people I know who bought a PC didn't buy a new one at all. There are now so many second-hand PCs floating around as a result of corporate upgrades that it's very possible to get perfectly good email/word processing/web browsing systems for under a hundred quid. For most people, that's all they want, especially in the sections of the market currently less likely to own a computer at all. The retired, the unemployed and the stuck-at-home are picking up on this as a good way to get online and never mind what Intel's up to. Which if you believe in the Net as a great educator and deliverer of good things to all, is very heartening. Less heartening is the fact that a whole new generation of newbies is getting online and they all have questions to ask us old hands. Bet you thought that in-depth knowledge of DOS batch files was forever useless...
30/03/2001 New, low-priced chips are due from AMD and Intel next month, meaning another drop in the price of decently-specced PCs. Which everyone in the industry wants, because the signs are that people just aren't buying as many computers as they used to. Thing is, the last three people I know who bought a PC didn't buy a new one at all. There are now so many second-hand PCs floating around as a result of corporate upgrades that it's very possible to get perfectly good email/word processing/web browsing systems for under a hundred quid. For most people, that's all they want, especially in the sections of the market currently less likely to own a computer at all. The retired, the unemployed and the stuck-at-home are picking up on this as a good way to get online and never mind what Intel's up to. Which if you believe in the Net as a great educator and deliverer of good things to all, is very heartening. Less heartening is the fact that a whole new generation of newbies is getting online and they all have questions to ask us old hands. Bet you thought that in-depth knowledge of DOS batch files was forever useless...