Home Stretch Will PC-makers' move into home electronics leave thin support for your business PCs?
By Mike Hogan
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Quick--what do Apple Computer, Dell, Gateway, Hewlett-Packard,IBM and Sony have in common? They all sell business PCs, right?Well, yeah. But flagging sales and margins have them lookingelsewhere for profit--namely, your home entertainment center.
"Margins are tightening, prices are coming down, and PCsare becoming more of a commodity than ever before," explainsFind/SVP researcher Larry Fisher, "so PC companies arediversifying into consumer electronics." It turns out Applesells more iPods than iMacs, Gateway and Sony have their eyes gluedto flat-panel TVs, and without its digital imaging division,HP's financials might have no black ink at all. IBM, the onlymajor player without an initiative in electronic gadgets, finallygot tired of the color red and sold its PC-manufacturing operationto China's Lenovo Group. Dell insists it makes money sellingPCs but, by the way, it sure would like to come over and set upyour big-screen TV and home network--maybe even sell you a personalphoto printer over a cup of coffee and some Entenmann's.
With computer upgrade cycles lengthening, manufacturers arehoping that home is where the profit is--something that remains tobe seen, say analysts. But in the meantime, will vendors also havethe resources to support your business PCs?
Not to worry, says Harry Harczak, executive vice president forCDW Inc., a leading distributor of all the brands mentioned above.Manufacturers have separate teams dedicated to creating, sellingand building business products. No one will even notice when IBMThinkPads and desktops start coming from China, predicts Harczak,because the design, labeling and support will still come fromIBM.
In a way, PC-makers are victims of their own success. Hardwarecapabilities have so outstripped software demands that PC-users ofevery kind are holding onto their computers longer and longer, saysFisher. Likewise, the quality of hardware components is such thatthe usual year of free technical support should suffice: PCs thatrun without problems for the first 90 days rarely break down afterthat. These days, according to Dell, the principal cause ofcustomer-support calls is spyware and other external intrusionscoming down from the internet to clog or hijack customer PCs.
Prevention--in the form of frequent data backups and Windowsupdates, as well as the deployment of updated anti-virus, firewalland other security software--is the only cure for those problems,says Harczak.
After that, he says, "It should be business asusual."
