| |
| |
As Web 2.0 heats up we envision a day where everyone will do everything on the internet.
In order to jump ahead of the curve and help people save money we’re testing the below idea.
First let me explain the scenario that gave us the idea:
A customer calls us and tells us that their five year old computer isn’t working. We diagnosis it as a bad hard drive.
The hard drive has to be replaced ($40) and the computer needs to be reinstalled ($169 – labor). The customer unfortunately,
doesn’t have Windows XP ($99 – XP Home) or Microsoft Office ($170 – 2007 basic) or antivirus ($40) CDs. We present an
estimate of $518. Then we tell them that it’s better to put that money into a new PC. They tell us Cosco has them for
$399 and Dell has some for $450. We then pull up a quote online and show them that the $400 PC doesn’t come with
Microsoft Office ($170) or antivirus ($40) – they come with trial versions instead. The $400 PC also doesn’t come with a
3-year warranty ($150), it comes with a 1-year warranty. Hard drives generally last about 3 years, but so many of our
customers have bought $400 PCs that have crashed after a year that we have to insist on the 3 year warranty. After we add
antivirus ($40), Microsoft Office ($170) and a 3-year warranty ($150) the price of the Dell or Cosco $400 computer comes
up to $760. We recommend they buy the Dell because the warranty service is overnight and better than Cosco. Also if you
buy everything packaged in it will be less expensive and they might throw in a flat panel monitor. In general, we’ve
noticed, that desktop computers with everything you need generally cost $700 - $800 and laptops $1200 - $1500.
In the above scenario some of our customers buy the new Dell’s right away – about 1 out of 10. A few go with the repair
if it comes out to around $350. This is possible if they have their CDs. Some of them buy the Cosco PC then call us
later and ask us to fix it – this usually comes out to more than $800 in the end. And about 50% of them give us and
wait until they can buy a new PC.
Our web 2.0 idea is to install a new hard drive in their crashed old computers ($40) and install a very simple free
operating system that will load up directly to Firefox (a free web browser, much like Internet Explorer). We believe
we can offer this service for $99. The computer will be able to immediately browse the internet, so you can view
your e-mails and use Zoho.com,
Google Docs or online storage to create or upload your word and excel files.
You’ll also be able to view your pictures from a thumb drive and upload other files to the internet. You can view
PDFs and with create PDF through Adobe you can also create them. You can also do your
taxes online with Quickbooks Online.
(And call us when you come up with something else you can’t do online and we’ll point you to the right place or
show you the work in progress.)
Because the your old computer has a new hard drive and it’s hardly doing anything – only running the internet through Firefox, it should work for a
very long time and run very fast – just as fast as you can click through web pages on any new computer. I’ve seen DOS
6.0 computers running for 15 years because they’ve never contracted a virus and they’re running very lean. However, if
this OS somehow does get a virus then it can be reinstalled in a few minutes with the click of a button. Because your
data is on the internet or your thumb drive, then if the computer gets wiped nothing will be lost.
There is one potential drawback - however we view it as our contribution to the environment. The majority of printers
won’t work on it. We can probably configure it to work with about 10 printers and we could sell those printers along
with the service. We’re also considering presenting it as an environmental “printer-free” computer. What better
way to encourage less printing than having a computer that can’t print! When you need to print you can take your
thumb drive files to a printer-friendly computer or Kinko’s or print your online files from a computer that has a
printer. For example, if photos are the main thing you print – then you might consider Kodak Photo Gallery. If it’s letters,
consider faxing them through efax.com or e-mailing them instead.
We believe we can do this on old computers for $99.00 – including a new hard drive. We’re also considering selling
refurbished computers for around $130.00 and new computers for around $170 – $200. That’s the idea :-) We appreciate
your feedback – info@witzendcomputing.com. |
- Steve Fink MCSE, MCSA, A+, Network+, Witzend Computing -
return to Top |
|
|
|
|
