The pace of the evolution of technology in IT keeps accelerating. The first notebook PCs I saw had lead-acid batteries, were thick and heavy and cost a premium over desktop PCs. It took more than a decade for notebooks to slim down and get close to being portable. It was a bit of a surprise when they began to exceed unit sales of desktop PCs. The first tablet PCs were rather clumsy too, but in the last couple of years ARM and improvements in touch-screen technology has made the grade.
In 2012, “It is estimated that as many as 20-30 million low-end tablets will be sold in the third quarter alone”
That puts the tablet as the new standard device for computing, at least for the mobile consumer of content, which is just about everyone. Between the smart phone and the tablet many people have everything covered and the old desktop and notebook technology is not really necessary.
see Digitimes – Tablet PCs expected to surpass notebook sales in 3Q12.
Hmmm… Where are those that continue to claim a tablet or other small cheap computer is not really a PC?
Expect unit sales of x86/amd64 PCs to remain flat or even decline soon. I would not bet on “8″ or “ultrabook” or any other campaign of Wintel to roll back the tide.
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Regarding ARM, here is a nice presentation: http://prezi.com/_zwqpnowk8cv/arm-server/
- http://blog.canonical.com/2012/05/08/calxeda-delivers-arm-powered-cloud/
- http://blog.canonical.com/2011/11/02/hpmoonshot/
- http://content.dell.com/us/en/corp/d/secure/2012-05-29-dell-arm-based-applications-solutions
Thanks to ARM, server racks are becoming more dense, which requires less infrastructure and translates to 10x less power consumption, 40x less cables, 10x less switches, 20x less racks, 4x more servers for 3x lower cost.
$300M data-centers would be $100M data centers, etc..
Here is a bunch of media to view concerning ARM: http://h17007.www1.hp.com/us/en/iss/110111.aspx
ARM’d thingies is the future.
Hmmm… Where are those that continue to claim a tablet or other small cheap computer is not really a PC?
Right here where we have always been, Mr. Pogson. You are looking through the wrong lens as usual. The main thing is that the table and cell phone are not direct replacements for PCs, as much as you yearn for them to be the vehicles by which Microsoft finally gets its comeuppance. In most cases, they are merely adjuncts that modern day citizens use to augment their away from home access to others via phones, texts, tweets, and even email or Facebook posts.
Most people still do their major computing at home on a PC with Windows OS installed. If you check your favorite web stats sources you see that, despite actually outnumbering PCs today, phones and tablets only account for a tenth or so of overall web activity. That should give you a clue, but, alas, it does not. Keep thinking, though, and perhaps you will start to get a clearer view.
What does it all mean? Hard to say until it happens, but I think that the older, more mature market for PCs will continue to produce tens of billions in profits for the existing suppliers, i.e. Apple, Microsoft, HP, Dell, et al, and add profits for the phone makers, particularly for Samsung and the Apple iPhone division. iPad and Kindle and Nook and Nexus and others will similarly build revenues and profits from tablets although not as much as PCs.
Someone probably said the same things about laptops.
“Cramped keyboard!” “No expansion slots!” “It runs out of battery!”
Obviously the laptop market didn’t suffer as a result of these winers who want to keep computers the size of fridges.
@ Clarence Moon
In case you missed this:
http://venturebeat.com/2012/08/22/hp-to-report-its-biggest-quarterly-loss-in-history/
http://www.nasdaq.com/article/dell-profit-falls-18-outlook-weak-20120821-01042
a bit dated but still of relevance:
http://www.crn.com/news/channel-programs/226200118/sec-details-dells-drug-dependency-on-intels-cash.htm
“Where are those that continue to claim a tablet or other small cheap computer is not really a PC?”
Back in 1995.
I would not bet on “8″ … to roll back the tide.
Probably not, but there seem to be other opinions, Mr. Pogson. For example:
HP is banking on a revival for its PC business as Microsoft launches its Windows 8 operating system Oct. 26
Clarence Moon, ignoring the numbers, wrote, “The main thing is that the table and cell phone are not direct replacements for PCs,”
A lot of tablets are being bought but scarcely any more PCs. That means that tablets have replaced the growth in x86/amd64 PCs for the last few quarters. There is no hint of a change.
IDC:
China has had negative growth of PC sales for the last quarter. That’s the hottest PC market in the world.
The world had zero growth in PC shipments in Q2.
Meanwhile tablets are growing by leaps and bounds. Don’t you think some of the money spent on tablets is unavailable for buying PCs?
The question should be “where are those that continue to claim a tablet or other small cheap computer like smartphone is not really a PC?”
I think the answer is that those are the people who can’t stand the fact that Microsoft has lost it’s monopoly. That’s why they are starting to argue that only non-mobile desktops and laptops are only “real computers”. I compare them to Tea Party zealots. (Actually some of these zealots are claiming Linux as communism while it’s more likely that M$ ecosystem is more like Stalinist, not Linux).
Mr Pogson,
how did you arrive at the “two years” for tablets? Even leaving out yet earlier gizmos like the Newton and the Siemens SIMpad, tablets are easily ten years old:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Tablet_PC
Yes, those tablet “PCs” sucked at being a universal PC but they found a niche in some businesses.
“Where are those that continue to claim a tablet or other small cheap computer is not really a PC?”
Everywhere.
In order for us non-telepathic beings to communicate we use these things called “words” to convey meaning. So those words must have the same meaning for the persons involved in a communication, or said communication is likely to fail. The meaning of “PC” has been determined decades ago, just to quote Wikipedia for convienience:
“A personal computer (PC) is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator.”
(Emphasis mine.)
What about this “general-purpose” bit? Well, it means that you can use a PC for a lot of different purposes, e.g recording music:
http://www.yworld.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/compact-home-recording-studio.jpeg
Please note that a lot of stuff has been attached to the three PCs involved, including quite some screen real estate. Try that with a smartphone …
Even tablets – provided they are iPads and not Androids – can have their place in a studio, e.g. running apps like these:
http://www.moogmusic.com/products/apps/animoog-0
http://www.korg.com/ims20
Note however that those iPads would serve in auxilliary functions – for a lot of reasons you don’t want to run a recording studio exclusively on iPads.
Here’s another extreme example, and once again a tablet in a siderole:
http://www.geek.com/articles/games/this-is-the-ultimate-in-home-flight-simulation-2010103/
So here’s where PCs differ from tablets and smartphones:
+ Keyboard & pointing-device & (usually large) screen UI vs (typically smaller) touchscreen
+ way more expandability
+ more processing power
+ less mobility (even a notebook is typically slightly more to lug around than a tablet)
So, nobody can prevent you from calling a smartphone a “PC” (yes, even Microsoft tried that way back when, with the same success) as you might call a turnip “an apple” – but be predared for other people not understanding what you are talking about.
“A lot of tablets are being bought but scarcely any more PCs.”
“Scarcely any” ? A few hundred million a year are “scarcely any” ?
PCs have a huge installed base, and the fact that their sales are mostly stagnant of course has a lot to do with the maturity they have reached: In the 80ies and 90ies, most of us could hardly wait for the next better PC because the current ones could barely cope with current software, but in the naughties this has changed, and now a five-year-old machine will get most things done. So for most people there is less incentive in getting a new one, and most people who are likely to buy a PC already own one. So the market is saturated -> stagnating sales.
Tablets as a mass-market phenomenon, however, are rather new. As I pointed out before, tablets have been around for a while, but only with the iPad have they become mainstream (like the PC became mainstream only with 386+ CPUs and Win3.x), and e.g. the iPad 2 has quite some improvements over the original iPad, likewise todays Android tablet are mostly way better than those from last year. So the incentive for upgrades is there, and the market is not saturated yet -> rising sales.
ch wrote, “the fact that their sales are mostly stagnant of course has a lot to do with the maturity they have reached”.
The world of IT is not mature. Thousands of millions of people can afford electronic IT for the first time thanks to Moore’s Law and no thanks to M$ and Intel. In Kenya, for instance. The whole country is skipping copper and going straight to wireless, skipping $billions of expenditure in the process. Smart phones and tablets are affordable to many who cannot afford a PC. I am not talking about iThingies but Android/Linux devices. These people may eventually buy an x86/amd64 PC but in the meantime they will use an ARMed PC. Even people who use both types of PC spend a lot of time using ARM so fewer x86/amd64 PCs need to be sold to meet their needs. e.g. A person who works with an x86/amd64 PC may play all evening and during a commute with ARM. The number of people equipped with electronic IT is about to double and sales of x86/amd64 PCs are flat. Get a clue.
Sales of PCs was mature in mature markets for a long time. Still sales increased ~10% per annum but now that growth has gone to small cheap computers. People are letting the perfectly satisfactory PC last longer. People here scorn schools with 8 year old PCs but business has found 8 year old PCs with XP are still working well enough to keep them going. That’s not about maturity of the market but adequacy of the hardware. M$ cannot slow down XP enough to make people chuck it. By the time XP is chucked, web applications will eliminate most needs for applications specific to that other OS. Then there are thin clients which can run ARM too…
ch wrote, “In order for us non-telepathic beings to communicate we use these things called “words” to convey meaning.”
Hmmm… Ever heard of “texting”? My kids all do it. The little woman is the only one in the family who still relies on e-mail for the mail. I think my kids mainly “check their e-mail” to keep up with me and the little woman. Also, one can hook up a full-sized/proper USB keyboard and mouse to many tablets and even some smart phones.
Further, ch wrote, “+ way more expandability
+ more processing power”
In all my years in schools, I doubt I ever saw an expansion card in a PC except one school had a second NIC installed so they could still run their obsolete version of GHOST that could not see the newer NICs… and a few places where I added a second or third NIC or video card for whatever reason. Expansion slots are all about waste. That’s why boxes with fewer slots still sell. Small cheap computers are about frugality, not waste.
Further, many people are running 32bit single-core PCs still. Some smart phones have four or five cores at 1gHz+ and more RAM. Do the maths.
“The world of IT is not mature.”
Here I do agree: Overall, the world of IT is still in its infancy – especially software development.
However, I was referring particularly to PCs, and they are quite mature. In your own words: “People are letting the perfectly satisfactory PC last longer.” Replace the hyperbole “perfectly satisfactory” with a more considerate “mature”, and that’s what I was on about.
“but in the meantime they will use an ARMed PC.”
Where can I get an ARM-based PC? No, they are using ARM-based smartphones and sometimes tablets.
(I have been and am using various ARM-based smartphones for ~10 years now. They are still an extension to my main PC, not a replacement.)
“Also, one can hook up a full-sized/proper USB keyboard and mouse to many tablets and even some smart phones.”
Yes – with mobility going down immediately. Guess why so few people bother? Once again, it’s a “you can” thing.
“In all my years in schools, I doubt I ever saw an expansion card in a PC”
Then you were very late to the show. In the 80ies, no PC could be used without several exansion cards, and even in most of the 90ies graphics and NICs typically came on separate boards. (And the joys of using proprietary expansion cards for CD-ROM drives!
I guess you meant to say “the PCs didn’t need more expansion cards than they came with”, and for basic needs such as yours, that would probably be right. However, other people have other needs, and that’s why I included those links – lots of expansions going on there.
“Expansion slots are all about waste.”
No, they are all about – surprise, surprise – expandability, and the original PC (or the Apple ][ for that matter) would have been much less appealing without those slots. It is one sign of the maturity of PCs that nowadays so much stuff is incorporated right in the mainboard, but I still have quite some stuff attached to my machine. And sometimes I hook my smartphone up to my PC, but except for earphones I don’t hang any stuff to my smartphone.
“Small cheap computers are about frugality”
And with so many things, there are situations were frugality is a virtue (like when you carry around a smartphone), and there are times when it is a hinderance (like when you want to record music and have to make do with a 4″ screen and a built-in phone-quality microphone).
“Further, many people are running 32bit single-core PCs still. Some smart phones have four or five cores at 1gHz+ and more RAM. Do the maths.”
“four or five cores at 1gHz+” if ARM are not necessarily faster than a x86 single-core. And PCs with at least 1GB RAM (about the max for current smartphones AFAIK) have sold for many years now. So what’s the point?
A current PC has way more CPU/GPU performance, storage and whatever you want than a current smartphone, you can hook up way more stuff (including way bigger screens) and it has input devices (keyboard, pointing device) way better suited for a lot of tasks. Of course, there is a place for smartphonesd, too – but there still are a lot of things PCs are better suited for, including typing text longer than a text message.
the little woman…
You are letting your chauvinism show here, Mr. Pogson. Be more careful or you are going to be eating your corn raw, right off the stalk, and sleeping out with your welding machine!
As to overall maturity, I can only point out that Microsoft alone had nearly $74B in sales and generated $23B in cash as profit in the past year, almost all of it due to PC products. That is a predictable part of a continued growth profile over 30 years.
You can pretend to find some sign of gloom and doom for Microsoft in that record, but you look sort of silly to most people to spend so much time waxing about these imagined ills.
The PC is in a mature market stage that is centered on Microsoft OS today and anyone with any education and/or experience in business and marketing knows that it is not going to change its character ever. Smart phones and tablets have themselves almost reached the end of their shake-out stage and we are seeing the sort of price-cutting and consolidation that marks the entry into product maturity there as well.
Overall, the profitability of phones and tablets is still not up to par with that of PCs and perhaps it never will reach that zenith with the onset of the price-cutting moves that are part of their own product maturity phase.
Clarence Moon wrote, “the little woman…
You are letting your chauvinism show “.
Nope. Really. She is little. I am not writing about the average height of women, but 15 cm less. I can hold open a door for her and she can walk under my arm.
On price, small cheap computers are the first competition M$ has not been able to crush by making exclusive deals because they have little or nothing in that market. That’s not about to change. What will change is that small cheap computers are taking share of tasks/users/revenue that used to flow through M$’s tentacles.
ch wrote, “if ARM are not necessarily faster than a x86 single-core. And PCs with at least 1GB RAM (about the max for current smartphones AFAIK) have sold for many years now. So what’s the point?”
Uhhh… This is not about faster. IT has been fast enough for more than a decade for all but a few particular uses. Small cheap computers don’t need to be faster to sell and take share. They just have to be fast enough. They are.
ch thing to remember ISA slots of the XT came from IBM and that goes back to how to expand a mainframe.
History is repeating. ARM expand slots most likely will be designed and sorted out in the server room.
ch you asked where to buy a ARM PC
http://www.solid-run.com/products/cubox
One of many in fact I could list about 30 devices in the ARM PC class.
Basically ask a stupid question you can buy ARM PC devices. Currently I would put the ARM PC at the evolution point of the c64/amiga of limited expandability.
Of course arm PC is still evolving. As arm gets used more in server room expect to see more conventional expandability appear.
Clarence Moon
“The PC is in a mature market stage that is centered on Microsoft OS today and anyone with any education and/or experience in business and marketing knows that it is not going to change its character ever.”
Only people who don’t read enough history say this. Times change. 30 years to a person who studies history is almost nothing. Really lacking enough education. Same was said about Unix before Linux flattened it in the Server market Clarence Moon.
Remember only when ARM chips go 64 bit do you get to make a generic OS for them all.
ARM in servers + ARM 64 bit is a new ball game. Its a disruptive force. 30 years of MS market dominance there has not been a major disruptive force.
Also governments are backing FOSS more often.
“and that goes back to how to expand a mainframe.”
Telling that an IBM mainframer of the time would have been a Bad Idea. In all likelihood, the people designing the PC got the idea rather from the Apple ][.
http://www.solid-run.com/products/cubox
Quote: “CuBox Developer Platform is a highly energy efficient and miniature open source development platform for different applications, like multimedia, set-top-box, NAS, automation and other applications.”
They don’t say it’s aPC, so why are you? Ah yes, reading skills …
“Times change.”
Yes they do. It is perfectly reasonable to assume that eventually PCs will become a niche product or die out completely. However, it is Not Bloody Likely that any non-MS OS will take over the mainstream PC market before that happens: You Linux fanboys are doing your dead level best to prevent any discussion of what’s holding back Linux on the desktop (and still believe a gazillion different distros are a good idea), the developers are mostly doing their dead level best to make Linux unappealing to the masses, and meanwhile MS is actually improving Windows – never mind the occasional quirk.
small cheap computers are the first competition M$ has not been able to crush…
You are letting your biases run away with your reasoning once again, Mr. Pogson. Microsoft is, fundamentally, a software company and anyone wishing to compete with it would need to be providing software products to its customers.
What you are describing here is a sort of alternative product market for smart phones and tablets wherein Microsoft has few product entries, none of which are dominant in any large segment. That manifests as a smaller market for Microsoft to dominate than might be theoretically possible although that is not a certainty.
Thus there are new markets for companies, that might otherwise actually compete with Microsoft, to compete within. These alternatives to classic PCs may indeed be stiffling the PC industry and, with it, Microsoft’s Windows cash cow, but that eventually happens to all product markets. What is telling here is that Microsoft, as a corporation, continues to prosper and is finding other product areas to enter and lead that have been filling in for these revenue losses.
For what it is worth, can you put a value on the OS business stemming from phone and tablet sales? It is not so easy to do, since there is only one company, Microsoft, that is selling OS into those product markets and so there is not much opportunity to directly measure the value of the OS there.
Microsoft gets a taste of the business, some $5 to $10 per unit sold, from almost all Android phone and tablet vendors, so they are not completely shut out, even if you ignore the chances of WP7/8. That is rather easy business, with not only support and fulfillment farmed out, as it is with Windows on PCs, but even R&D and reference product marketing. Imagine, a billion dollars a year, right out of the tap, no effort at all. Sweet.
Clarence Moon wrote:
“Microsoft gets a taste of the business, some $5 to $10 per unit sold, from almost all Android phone and tablet vendors, so they are not completely shut out, even if you ignore the chances of WP7/8.”
We know the true value of the patents Microsoft relies upon to collect the tax on Android devices. Don’t expect that tax to last forever. When it fails, Microsoft will have no technology to take its place.
“When it fails, Microsoft will have no technology to take its place.”
Are you sure, or is that just wishful thinking…
or an article of faith?
Wishful thinking becomes an article of faith around here, it seems, if only it is repeated often enough.
@ Clarence Moon
@ Clarence Moon
Your comment refers…..What is telling here is that Microsoft, as a corporation, continues to prosper and is finding other product areas to enter and lead that have been filling in for these revenue losses.
Leading what ?
Don’t expect that tax to last forever.
Nothing is forever, of course, but one is reminded of the furor that occurred over Microsoft’s licensing deal with Novell some years ago. There was a controversy over whether or not such a deal negated the GPL license in regard to patent infringements and it was suggested that such deals would disallow Novell from selling their Linux services or distributing their version of Linux.
As I recall, there was even a website or two created to “boycott” Novell and anyone else who might take the easy way out and sign up with Microsoft as a way to indemnify their customers from any patent litigation arising out of use of open source products licensed under the GPL. It all died out, I sense, when years went by and no one seemed to give a darn.
Today, the same sort of patent actions are not even raising any eyebrows in the “community”. What has happened to the fiery crusaders who used to rail against such deeds? Has old age taken them away or have they been drowned in the sea of complacency that now surrounds open source?
ch
–“CuBox Developer Platform is a highly energy efficient and miniature open source development platform for different applications, like multimedia, set-top-box, NAS, automation and other applications.”–
The first Personal Computers were development platforms as well. CuBox and others are appearing as thin client options. Guess how a lot of the first PC’s were used to Unix mainframes
ch
“Not Bloody Likely that any non-MS OS will take over the mainstream PC market before that happens”
Problem is we are not talking Not Bloody Likely. We are seeing governments and others do 80% plus Linux Desktop deployments.
Clarence Moon Motorola under Google is playing for Keeps. So that 10 dollar per Android device is a short time thing. Yes current apple vs Motorola case if Motorola wins and has every apple product banned from sale MS will have to think twice about the path they are on with Android.
Yes Microsoft using patents to get money might be the very thing that sees them killed.
Apple thought they were save from Google the dominate Desktop in Google is Apple. So that Google is using Motorola to hit Apple this hard what are they going to do to Microsoft that none of Google core operations depend on.
oldman
““When it fails, Microsoft will have no technology to take its place.”
Are you sure, or is that just wishful thinking… or an article of faith?”
To be correct unless MS changes path and makes true peace they will end up neutralised by patents and unable to sell anything.
Nothing in law says I have to grant you a right to use my patents Oldman. This is the big problem with Patent law. MAD solution equals dead companies. FOSS can live after a Patent MAD battle. Google model is also very resistant to patent attack.
“The first Personal Computers were development platforms as well.”
No, they were first and foremost running end-user applications.
“Guess how a lot of the first PC’s were used to Unix mainframes”
No, they were used instead of mainframes or Unix systems, thus reeing their users from the shackles of MIS departments.
“We are seeing governments and others do 80% plus Linux Desktop deployments.”
Funny how most of those “success stories” involve governments, not businesses. And don’t look too close at those “successes”, that’s better for your believes
“FOSS can live after a Patent MAD battle.”
Perhaps if you are kludging together FOSS onto some white box crap in small quantities that might be true. But the minute a vendor who uses infringing technology in a product that becomes successful they get sued.
“Nothing in law says I have to grant you a right to use my patents Oldman. ”
And Nothing says that you would be that stupid either. You will come to terms, or you will make zero money, especially if you use some of my patents.
Care to play chicken idiot.
ch wrote, of migrations to GNU/Linux, “Funny how most of those “success stories” involve governments, not businesses. And don’t look too close at those “successes”, that’s better for your believes”.
Governments being taxpayer-funded tend to be more open about things like expenditures than businesses which just have to show the bottom line. So, it’s not surprising a government like Munich will discuss expenditures and results while IBM will just quietly go about using GNU/Linux internally for fun and profit.
I have not read of any “failures” of GNU/Linux migrations. It’s an OS. It works. Occasionally there have been reports that a migration was reverted but that’s usually by top-down decisions or weak management. Businesses would likely fire an employee who refused to use that other OS. Why shouldn’t they fire an employee who refused to use GNU/Linux? There certainly is no shortage of successful migrations and government is big business, usually/often the biggest business in any country. In Canada, for instance, the government of Canada has ~200K employees. That dwarfs global corporations like M$ and Google but not IBM. It’s a huge business by any measure. Imagine a country like USA, Russia, India, China with much larger populations. The only difference between governments and business is that most businesses care mostly about the bottom line and most governments care mostly about other issues like keeping it all together or dealing with common problems or crises. Governments are corporations more or less and they do run on money, people and technology.
The large sizes of governments does give them more inertia than most other businesses so it is remarkable when large countries take a position on FLOSS and decide to change for the good of their citizens. That takes effort but it has rewards like increasing local employment, improving “balance of payments” and reducing overall costs while improving productivity. Many governments, certainly at the national level are quite capable of making and sharing FLOSS rather than paying licensing fees to foreign corporations. It’s a valid option.
“Many governments, certainly at the national level are quite capable of making and sharing FLOSS rather than paying licensing fees to foreign corporations. It’s a valid option.”
Licensing closed source commercial software is also valid Pog, whether you like it or not.
oldman wrote, “Licensing closed source commercial software is also valid Pog, whether you like it or not.”
With the scale involved and the margins of software companies, closed source is also much more costly. Some governments actually spend $billions annually on IT with a large part of that licences. They could hire developers more cheaply and get a better and more reliable product. Why should governments or anyone else pay more for software than it would cost to make it themselves? Suppose I can mow my yard for $5 worth of fuel and $10 worth of wear and tear and an hour of my time. Should I really pay someone $50 to do that for me? It’s a valid question that could rationally be answered either way but when you realize I actually enjoy the activity and it’s good for me, the grass and it makes the Little Woman happy, the answer is clear. I do it myself. Governments have their own reasons for making decisions. All I ask is that they actually make a decision giving FLOSS a shot. Many did not do that and now are locked in to more expensive migration. Those who have already migrated are laughing all the way to the treasury.
Oldman, whether you like it or not. Pog, brings a valid point.
There are a few companies that have relied on proprietary software and are struggling financially, had to let some people go or are teetering on closing their doors. They spent capital on IT foolishly with reviewing alternatives.
Other companies that did review alternatives and decided to develop in-house or used opensource software are flourishing, have learned to adapt to markets sooner and even published some Android apps.
I know of one company that has spent $2M plus, for proprietary software written in Java, the terminal servers where the software resides cannot upgrade to the newest Java version, as it breaks the software. So now the servers are subject malware, which they have already falling victim on more then one occasion.
By using opensource, they could have easily built something for $250K using PostgreSQL , intern some college comp-sci majors and have it developed for web-based access. In doing so, they would be able to scale, instead of either being told they cannot or they have to spend another $50K.
There are a few companies that have relied on proprietary software and are struggling financially
Such as?
You see, I know a few companies whose executives eat bread regularly. The result? They had to let some people go or are teetering on closing their doors.
Evil baked goods.
“By using opensource, they could have easily built something for $250K using PostgreSQL , intern some college comp-sci majors and have it developed for web-based access. In doing so, they would be able to scale, instead of either being told they cannot or they have to spend another $50K.”
Believe it or not this kind of setup used to be all over academia. My group regularly got called in to clean up after such cockups, because more often than not the comp sci students didnt do that good a job and the departments were left with a mess that was left by successive waves of student help. ANd we wount even get into the fun that we had figuring out the “documentation” for such systems.
But yessiree the dougman is recommending them, do they must be good!