Is That Really Necessary?

It's About Timing
Why should you buy technology? To make more money by enhancing your productivity. For that to happen, you will have to do better than just recoup a product's deployment costs before it's replaced by a successor.

Some products, like Windows Millennium or digital cameras, return so little on the investment and are replaced so quickly that you can't get your money back. Others, on the other hand, with even shorter life cycles, such as cell phones and 802.11b networks, offer so many advantages that it pays to get on them early despite the costs. Eventually, you'll have to refresh each of your technologies or be nibbled to death by lost worker efficiency.

· Desktops    · Memory    · Operating System    · Networking    · Displays    · Storage    · Digital Cameras    · Applications

· Why (and What) to Buy

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It's up to you to figure out the right timing for each investment-unfortunately, there's no neat rule of thumb that applies to all product life cycles. But we tend to agree with experienced IT managers and analysts who advise against being the first on your block with the latest version of anything. Then, take a hard, skeptical squint at the potential for return on each investment. That's the approach that guided these product judgments.

TO BUY OR NOT TO BUY?

Here are some of the purchase decisions you're likely to face this year. Your company might not, in fact, need every recommended "buy"--you might have just upgraded, or it may not fit in your budget at this time. Similarly, you may have an immediate need for something that most businesses should wait on. "Skip" refers to technologies whose time has passed, that are due to be obsoleted by something else or that just cost more than they'll ever deliver.

TECHNOLOGY NEED IT? 2.5G CELL PHONE + 10/100 ETHERNET LAN + 802.11B WIRELESS LAN + ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE + BLUETOOTH CONNECTIVITY + COMBO DVD-ROM/CD-RW + FIREWALL SOFTWARE + LINUX + NETWORK-ATTACHED STORAGE + PENTIUM 4/ATHLON/ATHLON XP + SDRAM MEMORY + WEBCAM + WINDOW'S XP SUCCESSOR + OFFICE XP x PENTIUM III/CELERON x RAMBUS (RDRAM) MEMORY x WINDOWS 2000 x WINDOWS ME x WINDOWS XP x 3G CELL PHONE · 802.11A WIRELESS LAN · BIOMETRICS · DIGITAL CAMERA · DOUBLE DATA-RATE SDRAM · INTERNET-ENABLED PHONE · WINDOWS TABLET PC · WIRELESS DATA-ENABLED PDA · += BUY              x= SKIP              ·= WAIT

Mike Hogan is Entrepreneur's technology editor and "Digital Edge" columnist.

Contact Source

• Gartner Group
  www.gartner.com

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