Acquiring PCs In Today’s Rapidly Changing Market (01jun97)

June 1, 1997

One of the questions we frequently are asked is whether an organization should purchase new PCs now or wait since performance keeps going up and prices are coming down. Obviously, one answer does not fit all situations. The right solution depends upon the age and configuration of existing hardware and the software you are currently using or would like to use.

In general, however, we believe that architects and engineers should be provided with the latest equipment an organization can afford and that older units be moved to people with less demanding tasks. It is somewhat shocking to find that many technical people have better systems at home than they have at work.

Too many financial managers believe that they are saving their companies money when they hold off upgrading systems that have not yet been fully depreciated. It does not take a large improvement in the productivity of an professional who costs $80,000 per year including benefits to justify a new computer that might be an order of magnitude faster than what is currently being used.

The Price/Performance Explosion

The accompanying table tracks the typical PC one could buy for about $3,000 during the past five years. We have used Gateway 2000 for this data since that company has been very consistent in its product offerings. For the past decade or so, the guideline in the computer industry was that price/performance doubled every two years. Welcome to 1997 where it appears that this ratio is doubling annually. A number of factors have caused this change:

• Intel has significantly improved the performance of its microprocessors to the point where they compete effectively with all except the best RISC processors used in UNIX workstations.
• In order to maintain its market dominance, Intel has aggressively priced its new microprocessors. When the Pentium first came out, a 60-MHz version sold for nearly $1,000. Less than four years later, a 233-MHz Pentium II (see related article in this issue covering this new microprocessor and some of its competitors) sells for just $636 in similar quantities. This is nearly an order of magnitude increase in price/performance during this short period of time.
• The huge volume of PCs sold has resulted in incredible economies of scale. While less than 500,000 UNIX workstations will be sold this year, over 80 million PCs will be shipped worldwide.
• Memory costs have plummeted. Until about 18 months ago we were paying about $50 per megabyte for DRAM memory. Supply caught up with demand and prices dropped to under $10 per megabyte. Machines with 64 MB memories are readily available for less than $3,000. In many cases, a large memory can have a more significant impact on performance than microprocessor speed. Likewise, disk storage costs have also dropped like a rock.
• Graphics accelerator cards have come down in price to the point where the PC manufacturers include them in the base configuration.

Getting The Most For Your Dollar

Having spent a fair amount of time watching the PC evolve, we have a few suggestions on procuring new PCs.

• You are better off buying a system somewhat below the top-of-line and then replacing it more frequently than you would if you bought a more expensive system.
• Install plenty of memory. Most CAD and GIS packages thrive on memory and at $8 to $10 per MB, you can easily afford 64MB or even 128MB.
• Do not ignore a high performance backup device. With 3.2 GB disks commonly used today, we recommend a 4 GB cartridge tape drive.
• Buy the entire system from one source. Your time is too valuable to be spent configuring hardware and software for your computer to work.

The Melding Together Of UNIX And Windows (01apr97)

April 1, 1997

Many organizations are moving toward a combination of UNIX, Windows 95, and Windows NT systems. Interoperability requires the ability to manage heterogeneous configurations in an integrated manner, the ability to share data files, and the ability to share application programs. With the proper hardware and software, systems can be linked together in a common network, users can communicate via e-mail, files can be transferred from one system to another, and access can be provided to applications loaded on different types of systems.

None of this occurs today, however, without considerable effort on the part of both the system vendor and the user. Ideally, a vendor should be able to provide both types of systems since this provides the understanding of system idiosyncrasies necessary to make interoperability work. Unfortunately, only a few vendors (Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Digital) provide both types of systems.

The number of UNIX systems being shipped today is up only slightly from a few years ago while Windows NT is starting to take off. As an example, market researcher IDC claims that 725,000 copies of Windows NT Server were shipped in 1996 compared to 602,000 UNIX servers. The ratio of Windows to UNIX desktop systems is probably more like five to one today.

Sharing Files In A Heterogeneous Environment

Interoperability between UNIX and NT is rarely 100 percent transparent, but with the proper tools and procedures, it can be fairly painless. The most serious interoperability problem is providing secure file access across divergent systems. An example of how this is being addressed is Hewlett-Packard’s new Enterprise File System (EFS). This software implements a single file naming convention for workstations, servers and PCs running a variety of operating systems including UNIX and Windows NT.

With EFS, an NT user in Europe with appropriate access rights, can retrieve a file from a UNIX system in California without extensive knowledge about that system. It just requires the proper pathname for this to occur. HP has built security features into EFS that prevent unauthorized users from accessing files that are restricted to certain groups of individuals.

Some readers may feel that they can already do this with NFS (Sun Microsystems’ Network File System), but NFS is basically designed for use on a local area network (LAN). Without getting into the gory details, which only a system administrator would enjoy reading about, this is neat technology that can help organizations work with a blend of UNIX and Microsoft-based systems (3.1, 95, and NT). It is particularly useful in situations where different systems are scattered around the globe.

Microsoft and HP Team Up

An indication of how serious HP is becoming concerning the exploding market for Windows NT systems, was the recent joint announcement HP made with Microsoft. The two companies have agreed to:

• Offer software products and services that will help reduce the total cost of ownership of enterprise information management systems. This will involve HP’s professional services organization which will offer system administration consulting support to user organization. HP will also incorporate Microsoft’s Zero Administration Windows (ZAW) initiative into its system management products:
• Combine HP OpenView network management software with Microsoft’s System Management Server to provide better administration capabilities.
• Promote common messaging standards to facilitate the exchange of e-mail between HP’s UNIX systems and those running Windows NT.
• Provide HP consulting services and system support to NT users.
• Cooperate in many other areas of joint system software development and technical support.

It is obvious to us that HP is preparing itself for the day that UNIX runs out of steam. We feel that this is a significantly better approach than currently being taken by Sun Microsystems and Silicon Graphics, both of whom respond "NEVER" when asked when they might support Windows NT. This latter attitude works against users who for one reason or another, find themselves in the midst of a transition to NT.