[geeks] State of IT

[Tim H.]

On Thu, 1 Aug 2002 16:38:59 -0400
Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:

>  Josh makes an excellent point here.  The morons can use the cheap
> commercial trash, leaving the real computers for those of us who
> appreciate (and know, and have needs for) them.
> 
>       -Dave

But the counter point to Josh's point is that as huge numbers of people
move to commodity PeeCees, there will be less Good Stuff produced, more
Good Stuff companies will be bought by HPaq and killed, and in the long
run the parts for my good stuff at home will get expensive.  Then throw
in the two trends of "RARE SUN COMPUTER CARD, COLLECTORS ITEM" and
"REALLY COOL RETRO COMPUTER CASE THAT WILL FIT YOUR ATX MOBO" and we
lose even more available Good Stuff for us poor people who care.  

Just look at the quantity of Indigo 2s out there, compared to the O2s
(not available, actually out there) and then compare with the future,
there will not be as many of those machines to be had, at any price, and
I think the numbers of people realizing that the Good Stuff is better
for them at home is growing.  I bet in 10 years we will be spending Good
Money to get Good Stuff.  Of course there will be pallet loads of it
coming out of circulation (not as many pallet loads as now though) but
there will be people realizing a potential market, and the pallet loads
will disappear to reappear as pieces on Ebay, or as high priced complete
systems.

The only thing that will help us is insiders getting the pallet loads
out to people who care (possible) or a huge resurgence in people
demanding Good Stuff for their companies. (not likely)  Linux has done
us in, Linux can match the uptimes of any commercial Unix on reliable
hardware, and anybody on this list will talk the suits into Linux if the
only option is Windows.  

A suit doesn't care that the big Sun machine can do x MB across the
system bus day in and day out.  He may not even care if you have to
reboot an XP Server on a scheduled basis to make it work. And suits that
will listen to actual technical people, instead of smaller suits hired
to manage technical people is pretty small.

Dave's vehement opinion about suits may look extreme, but in a huge
percentage of cases it is applicable, and the more ability a company has
to shape markets, the more likely the suits are the *&%&^@#)*$@!! suits
variety.

I may be Woodsian in my doom and gloom here, but I think the zenith of
the era of cheap Good Stuff is upon us, if it isn't already past.

Tim