When Should a business upgrade...?

[IanMatthew]

A freind of mine went for a job interview yesterday....OK it was me! The job vacancy was for a sign designer, working with CorelDraw.

Now I know CorelDraw very well, I have it on my PC at home.

Now the company I had the interview with used CorelDraw ver. 8. I use Ver. 9.xxx.

They have "only just" upgraded to Win 98 from Win 95. I use win XP Home and have been since Aug. 2001.

They use Zip discs for backups. Now there's nothing wrong with zip discs per se. I used the 100mb USB ver for a cuple of years and gave no problems. However as a business they could save cash by investing in a CD-RW drive for less then £50 and use all those cheap CD-R and CD-RW discs. I bought £25 for £3.50 at a computer fair. Zip discs cost around £8.99 a pop...! That's just the 100MB ver...!

They only had a couple of PC's. Their main design PC was probably very old if they have just moved from Win 95 to Win 98. Probably small HD, no CD-RW, no USB, etc.

The point I'm making is whilts it's not always good to upgrade for it's own sake, to "keep up with the Joanses' ", surly there must come a time when old hardware and software makes you less competative....? Yes, it's how you use the equipment rather thanthe equipment itself that often counts, however I could not help feeling that I owned better kit (apart from the sigh making equipment) than they did. Sorry, but I had to get this off my chest...

[Steve R Jones]

It's called return on investment. If shelling out 5 grand for a few new pc's will pay for themselves in a couple of years, then a company would be wise to upgrade.

“Pay for themselves” equals ->improve productivity to a noticeable point and or reduce cost of up keep.

[rraehal]

With our company, we do not upgrade until our corporate offices tells us to or their is something malfunctioning.

We still use a BTRIEVE databse that runs in DOS. We use Windows 2000 workstations. Getting the datavase to work took a lot of effort, but is flawless.

It is all about cost effectiveness.

[j.m@talk]

The big question is: Will the machine they have do the job?

Is it reliable?

If the answer to both of those is yes.......

Its time to take Mr Manager out to lunch ;)

[Bovon]

Of course a business looks very differently than an individual does when it comes to "tools".

They can write off so much for several years on their taxes...when that runs out, they usually start the process all over.

Having used zip disks for a long time, and now I have both...I think I can assure you that a zip disk is much easier for a hard headed, dense computer illiterate person to catch onto quickly than burning disks and the use of the software necessary to do that with.

The KISS principal works very well in most offices.

[j.m@talk]

Originally posted by Bovon

The KISS principal works very well in most offices.

How True! :D

[kimike]

Originally posted by Bovon
Of course a business looks very differently than an individual does when it comes to "tools".

They can write off so much for several years on their taxes...when that runs out, they usually start the process all over.


In that aspect it would almost pay to upgrade as you would get a percent of the cash back in your pocket. Leasing would be even better in a tax savings way.

[j.m@talk]

Originally posted by kimike


In that aspect it would almost pay to upgrade as you would get a percent of the cash back in your pocket. Leasing would be even better in a tax savings way.

Or so the marketing moguls would have you believe...............

"WIGIT" (When Its Gone Its Gone) Ca$h I'm talking about....
How many times have you heard a software house say "This Is Brilliant" ???????? Look @ XP!!!! Then look @ the number of updates available in windows update..........

Biz is hard enough (A bit like paddling a canoe up stream.........
you have to paddle to keep still...... Imagine what happens when you take your eye off the ball......)

Somtimes you have to spend cash to save cash.... But not that often! :rolleyes:

[Bovon]

I have had the business/tax writeoff explaned to me, and it all went way over my head. But here is what I kind of think is the way it works. (Now, you tax experts don't bite my head off if I'm totally wrong.)

Somebody buys a business item that costs $3000 (small change).

This business will have 3 years to depreciate this item...whatever it is. Over three years, the business deducts 1/3rd of the cost for tax deductions for the year. In 3 years, all of the tax deductions are used up...so the business quite often will sell the item to somebody who resells it on eBay. The business comes pretty close to a full recovery of the initial cash outlay for the item in the beginning...the person(s) who buys it then resells it at eBay will make some change. The business buys a new item and the process is started all over.

If the business sold the item in two years, they loose money.

[j.m@talk]

We all have differing taxation regulations, from country to country & it must also be said that, even if your just dealing with one country, the goal posts keep being moved..................... Just to confuse we meer Mortals :p

But in a most simplistic term Yep Bovy baby your about right there

However in order to administrate this beast you really do need :

1. A Good Accountant
2. A "Savvy" Mrs
3. Both
4. A relatively large company which has the ability to re-coop all financial advice expenditure, within said advice...... :rolleyes:

GOOD GRIEF! )-|

At the end of the day, the cardinal rules go:

1. Buy it in cash
2. Stash the reciept
3. Tell no one
4. Use it at home
5. Don't let the Mrs Crash it
6. Keep the kids away from it
7. Sod The Tax Man (IRS)
8. Pray
9. Drop Morals in the Bin
10. Smile

j.m@talk21.com BIZ 4 Biginers ;)

[kimike]

Thats right bovon, items bought are depreciated over a few years and most of the cost is absorbed but its like "save 60% on a new drill", you dont really need the dam thing but you buy because its 60% off....now with leasing I know that a car or truck is wrote off dollar for dollar ( in Canada anyway) so you might as well give 5000 a year to ford or chev or what have you than give it to the feds for nothin.....I dont know how computer equipment would stack up during tax time though.

[j.m@talk]

Leasing is good when the going is good!

When things change................. Millstone............

I guess confidence helps........... :cool:

[kimike]

Originally posted by j.m@talk21.com
Leasing is good when the going is good!


This is true....