On Wed, Apr 20, 2005 at 10:07:59AM -0700, Andrew Lentvorski wrote: > > On Apr 20, 2005, at 9:20 AM, Stewart Stremler wrote: > > >I think Linspire is targeting the folks who /don't/ have such an > >acquaintance yet. > > > >On the other hand, it sounds like a great business opportunity for > >those > >who are interested in such things. > > I disagree. > > The people who most need help are also the ones least willing to pay > for it. > > Businesses are similar; only they generally have backups. It's > called <sigh> -- paper. > > Sadly, my normal prognosis for a dead Windows machine for most small > businesses (< 10 people) takes about 5 minutes: > > "First, you need at least a new hard drive given the virus infested, > spyware laden, piece of crap that was the old drive. Given that a > cheap new computer will be marginally more, have a new pristine copy > of Windows as well as the latest anti-virus--go buy one. > > Second, I can probably recover your data. It's probably stored in > slightly encoded form by some random Visual Basic application that > you use and is only marginally garbled. However, you likely have > paper copies of all of your important receipts, invoices, etc. > Paying an individual to retype all of that data at minimum wage will > probably be cheaper than paying me to scavenge the hard drive. > > Third, no user other than the CEO/President is to have install > authority on this new computer. *Ever*. > > Fourth, buy me lunch and we'll call it even." > > I have never had anybody take me up on the scavenge the hard drive > option. The advice generally holds for about 6 months and folks > start installing crap on the computer, again. Repeat process in 2 > years. > > Guess what? That totals to about $500-$600 spent on computers every > 2-3 years. It's hard to compete with that. > > Or, in management-speak: > "System administration is a negative deliverable. You only notice > its absence when something bad happens." > > -a
What a discouraging post. Accurate, I'm sure. Just sad. My reading: Those who behave stupidly are acting in the most cost effective way. -- Lan Barnes [EMAIL PROTECTED] Linux Guy, SCM Specialist 858-354-0616 -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
