Problems aren’t in short supply at the moment. If it’s not the Russians or global warming, then it’s the hardware crunch. Ordering a complete new machine may look unchanged from the pre-pandemic days, but the reality is that a filled-in order page on an e-commerce site is no guarantee that you’ll get your order in a timely and straightforward manner.
This is putting the kibosh on equipment-replacement projects, which might sound like a mild and only passing problem in the great scheme of things. It’s not.
Imagine for a moment that you are a reseller or software system supplier (perhaps you are). You will know that it’s not unusual for a single and relatively unknown software package to define how a business works inside its industry. This isn’t the modern world of cloud computing but the retro world of premium-priced, carefully specified PC hardware. If you don’t buy what we recommend, says the reseller, then it’s your fault if the software doesn’t work.
I see some shocking quotes from package suppliers for servers or “suitable” machines on the desktop. To be precise, there are two ways to shock me. One is overpricing some piece of junk; the other to specify machines so close to the bleeding edge they need a heat-resistant re-entry coating. The worst case of this
