Or maybe the question should be: why didn’t I try Apple before?
First, I had a lack of knowledge about the Apple system, in my third-world country I grew up with the idea of total incompatibility with any other system, talking about technology I was taught that Apple was an Olympus’s God, besides being much more expensive.
But lately, I found that this can be a hypothetical way of thinking, yes Apple can look like a more expensive technology but throughout the path, I changed my way of seeing it.
I can speak only about my personal experience. In the path of transformation for my business I needed to acquire and try many of the business tools and technologies of the market and their technical support, I must be honest I have learned a lot, but it has cost me a lot of time and money as well. You are probably thinking; girl this cost could be easily avoided just documenting yourself enough, and maybe you are right. Allow me to share one of my experiences as a technical support engineer on MVS, the IBM dinosaur’s operating system as I call it.
Working for an international bank I had the mission to install and operate the NDM called Connect-Direct for MVS, VMS, WNT, TANDEM-nonstop, and some other operating systems. I was responsible for the entire bank logical connections including the hardware and security network on all those systems. I used to work together with the security, telecommunications, and network engineers, together we made those connections work. The bank had departments and specialized personnel for each one of the operating systems I mentioned, but I had to be capable of operating my NDM in all of them. Said so, I was navigating (monitoring) the VAX system Connect-Direct logical connection due to a midnight technical support that I had to attend. I had to leave my six years old daughter (at that time) alone at home in the middle of the night to attend to that “emergency”.
Yes! I was determined to ensure that the connection works perfectly then and so. In my research this is what I found; that VAX, the connection to a British Bank, the weekly backup tapes, and all the personnel operating it, was costing the bank about one million USD per year, and this was only from the Mexican side. I never knew about the other side, and this was a more than six years old procedure operating until that moment.
Briefly, this was the process.
VAX-Mexico sent tons of information to a VAX-England, England taking backups. VAX-England returning tons of information to VAX-Mex. Mexico taking backups. Just imagine the operational costs and nobody was using that data at any side of the equation.
You read well; nobody was using that data! The tape library on my side was a room of about 16 square meters with all the cartridge tapes meticulously ordered and labeled with a safeguard of 24/24. And I had to leave my baby alone! to attend to that “emergency”.
Should my technical department have done research on the whole old process before mounting the logical NDM connection? Was the NDM investment needed to find out about that useless process?
It seems that assuming things will never work.
After that brief history, of the test-and-fail technology process, on my professional path, I can say from my point of view that today acquiring Windows technology can be more expensive. In the specific case of DELL using the Windows system. Talking about using your computer as a solopreneur´s business too, I can tell you that that combination can become unsustainable with DELL’s new equipment. Above my ignorance about their core techno, their system actualizations can become a terrible and desperate computer operation. I use as many windows and apps open at the same time as I can manage, working on the computer many hours a day, with local and network resources, and even do it suppose that I am not using the equipment at all its potential. Then a “new” (just bought computer) can make 10 system actualizations in 30 days, updating some drivers that will work better and affecting some others that will cause you delays in your business development. Non-counting on the technical support that you will require.
Why “new”? I can’t talk about other countries but in Mexico, you can find on sale obsolete and offered like new, equipment that should be discontinued. In my humble point of view, it can become a higher cost for some companies due to a warranty applied or a “win” option for the customer like in my case. I invested around $1300 US dollars in the first computer (discontinued) that was broken in the first six months of working with it at all its horses. Then after nine months of negotiations and business time/money wasted, DELL sent me a computer with a value of $3550 US dollars. Is that good or bad? Who loses and wins? It is supposed to be a win-to-win, right?
Finally
Of course, is important the computer you choose to use as your business tool, and this is another opportunity for a blog post that I will share later.
Tell me in the comments how is your experience with technology going on.
See you in the arena…
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