bruisedquasar - 2005-03-21 11:16 AM
Come on. I owned a few businesses before I retired at 43. If you are a successful business person, you are aware of the business landscape, not just your particular business. I wonder: Is it attempt to get at truth or attempt to appear to win an argument by resort to blanket ideology and use of one particular business to deny there are entire business niches in which the big boys support wintel machinations because it reduces competition? I gave examples, none were general retail. Seems to me one would need to argue that Blockbuster and chain auto parts retailers do not buy the latest in special software and hardware in order to harm the competition.
I'll bite- they do it in order to facilitate in-house information exchange and information analysis.
Before I started my own retail store, I managed RadioShack stores for a little over a decade. I was with them from the paper ticket books and wooden cash drawers to their eventual use of
(then
) state-of-the-art networked POS systems
(running SCO Xenix at first, BTW!
)
The advantage of the computer systems was to gather information about customers and product to see what sells, when, to whom and for how much. That information streamlines a corporation in a big way, making them more profitable. Is that a "conspiracy" to eliminate competiton? I guess, in the same way everything a company does is an attempt to beat and eliminate competition. Not just the IT department!
bruisedquasar - 2005-03-21 11:16 AM
Are you aware than bar codes and scanning retail merchandise DOES NOT speed up cashing out customers and every huge retail company from Walmart down knows it? What bar code reading does is gives chain stores a big advantage over smaller competitors. Walmart, for example, uses the data collected with bar coding to dictate to manufacturers and suppliers what prices they will pay and what services they will provide Walmart.
Bar coding is an efficiency. Maybe it doesn't speed the checkout process, but it sure as hell speeds the check-IN process- incoming shipments are entered into the inventory system orders of magnatudes more quickly and accurately than hand-ticking off paper count sheets.
bruisedquasar - 2005-03-21 11:16 AM
I personally know couples who owned 30 to 40 year auto parts businesses and auto junk-salvage yards and were forced out of business by the escalating expense caused by wintel cartel marketing tactics. They were forced to upgrade or go out of business. Automart and Murrays (go check out their PCs yourself) have powerful servers and bigger and bigger highly expensive software to inventory, find and sell parts with. I am a former inventory control executive. That does not mean I know everything but it does mean I know something about use of PCs and software and robotics to knock off smaller competitors. By the way, are you aware that Gates new project is to make MS the world's banker?
Are you suggesting that these companies, if not for the "Wintel Cartel" would still be doing business on Zilog Z80s running CP/M? Or Apple IIe's? That they wouldn't continually improve their data-gathering techniques to continue to streamline their businesses?
As for the "world's banker" stuff, frankly, since the vast MS conspiracy doesn't keep me up nights, I admit I haven't delved into it.
The old saying "nature abhors a vacuum" is a business truism. If Gates and Co. didn't have market dominance, SOMEBODY would've. And we'd all be ranting how IBM is pushing yet another buggy bloated version of OS/2 at us, or AT&T or somebody.
bruisedquasar - 2005-03-21 11:16 AM
The business that allowed me to retire young, by the way, was business consultant. I assure you simple accounting and payroll software has forced no one out of business. Many small businesses get along fine with neither. I currently advise a friend with a 25 year-old spinkler biz who does accounting and payroll by hand. Two years ago he suddenly was confronted with three new corporations swiping his customers. How? Offering free services and use of highly expensive Windows parts software. To compete, he had to invest in three XP systems with a lot of ram to run a $15,000 inventory program that allowed the corporation units to provide much faster installation and repair. Training for owner owner and employees alone cost him thousands. By the way, when I say small business I do not mean corner party stores or tiny mom-pop chicken take out. I am talking about serious small businesses that gross one to twenty million a year.
The sprinkler guy isn't simply losing customers because he lacks an XP Pro network- indies are getting killed
(myself included
) by chain/coprporate stores in every field. Customers like name-brand recognition, and they
(usually correctly!
) have faith that the large corporation has a better chance of being around next year. My guess is the competition luring your boy's customers away with "free services"
(more agressive advertising and marketing
) has a lot more to do with his woes than the XP systems! Again- streamlining and efficiency win, regardless of how you get there.
(My retail store, a satellite/cell phone retail shop, is squarly in the "corner store"/"Mom-n-Pop" category, just so we're clear!
) ;-
)
bruisedquasar - 2005-03-21 11:16 AM
A growing problem I discovered in many cases was highly expensive PCs, hardware and very expensive software. An important auto salvage, parts inventory and Internet integrated salvage parts program that firms like Auto Zone, Murray, etc demand from used parts dealers costs $10,000 and yearly upgrades are in the thousands. Each Windows version is a immediately necessity. Big auto parts salvage firms have managed to evolve and eat small salvage businesses across the USA, due to the expense of required PCs and software.
Then that's a barrier of entry to play with those guys
(Auto Zone, Murray, etc.
) If you don't want to play, find a different customer base. Seriously, it's not "Wintel" beating those guys up- it's the large chain demanding their suppliers comply with their streamlining. They don't want to waste an hour calling 50 junkyards on the backroom phone to see who has a functioning '72 AMC Gremlin water pump.
You make many good points, but then you
(seemingly
) go into left field. It's kind of like discussing the pros and cons of Fluoridated water with someone, who's making excellent points about the build up of Fluorine in bones, and then he goes "and besides- it was all a plot by the Russians in the first place..." It kind of takes the "credibility edge" off of the rest of the discussion!
bruisedquasar - 2005-03-21 11:16 AM
Similar tactics drove out phamarcist owned drug stores. Big firms like Kroger, Kmart, Sams Club, Canadian CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aide and insurance companies drove small business drug stores out of business with the ASSISTANCE of very expensive software, broadband connections, and need to have latest PC and Windows version in order to operate the current version of the software. Pharmacist owned drug stores just could not afford the layout in addition to paying more for the drugs.
Again, small druggists were killed by economies of scale. Not Win XP.
bruisedquasar - 2005-03-21 11:16 AM
Of course, Wintel does not put a gun to anyone's head. Given your defense of Wintel or more accurately your blanket defense of a political-economic ideology, I can assume you had no problem with the junk cars Detroit kicked out in the 1970s? "No one forced anyone to buy them." Consumers should stop demanding standards in prescription drug making and selling because no one forces a heart patient to buy drugs that turn out to kill heart patients? People have no complaint when city water managers allow germ contaminated water to flow like they did in a province of Canada? The manager should not have gone to jail because no one forced anyone to consume the bad water and besides here is this one guy who never drinks city water. He drinks well water and this eccentric loudly announced "I always got buy without city water. No one made them use it" --August, 2004, CKLW 800AM, Canada
The 70's Detroit car problem was fixed by the marketplace- Detroit gave up marketshare to cheaper and more reliable Japanese imports, and have regretted it ever since. As to prescription drugs, are you really going to play the "health card"? Of course things like food and drug quality are too important to let the free market sort out. If only the Goverment had some sort of agency, or perhaps "administration" to oversee food and drugs... Same for the water. As to the free markets choice of business machines? I wonder if Pascal used to take the same kind of crap we dish out to Gates for that infernal calculation engine of his...
("Forsooth! He's driving out of business those good fellows that still do long division on parchment!"
bruisedquasar - 2005-03-21 11:16 AM
Your perspective as expressed in your post to me is theoretical and anecdotal based with one special retail case experience (a claim I might add, since we have no way to verify the claim). As Socrates discovered many years ago in his youthful quest for knowledge, most people view the world from the lense of their particular trade experience. Of course...this is just all my humble opinion. I am too old to think I know anything with any finality.
My perspective is based on nearly twenty years in retail doing it "both ways"- with and without PCs. I am not supporting the use or non-use of Windows, I'm mearly pointing out that "Wintel" makes an excellent scapegoat and a pretty decent example of the forces that cause small business to fail- I simply think it's disingenuous to lay the collapse of a small business at the feet of PCs in general, much less "Wintel" specifically. Why not pick on those OSHA guys forcing business to improve safety, retrofitting wheelchair ramps in 200-year old buildings, or the FDA for requiring packaging changes? Large business will always find it easier
(on a cost per unit basis
) to deal with ANY kind of change- regulatory, technological, legal, etc. I would be the first guy in line to buy $20,000 of PCs, OSes, software and networking equipment if I thought it would give me a leg up on my competiton, whether it be Linux, WinXP, System X, or the entire eBay supply of Commodore 64s. Sadly, my problems with competition are the good old fashioned "economies of scale" kind, that I can't blame on, or fix with, a shiny new battery of PCs. The old joke said a businessman's worst day was when he saw the 60 Minutes news crew at your door. Today, your worst day is when Wal-Mart has decided to carry the same product line you do! A lot of things in this world might be Bill Gates fault, but that's not one of them!
As to my perspective being "theoretical" or "anecdotal", I spend a lot of time checking out the competition looking to "borrow" ideas,
(or even employees
) as most small business people do. The small fry like me tend to use cheesy DOS-based database type apps
(using running in a DOS window on a $2000 PC system! Blame a slick salesman or their gullibility there- not a "Wintel" conspiracy!
) and the big chains tend to use a Win-GUI based networked system to facilitate communication between departments, stores, etc. In my old Tandy/RadioShack days, they used Zenix for a variety of good reasons. Back then Tandy was still a PC manufacturer, selling IBM-compatible and non-compatible systems so they had a large in-house department that actually WROTE software. Zenix networked a lot better than DOS, and the licensing was cheaper.
I really didn't respond to your post to defend MS or Windows. I just wanted to illustrate that often real world problems require putting aside your philosophies for a while. Sure it would be a wonderful world if open-source alternatives for every business problem existed. It would also be great if I could buy the world a Coke and keep them company, too. Unfortunately, just like with my joke about your grandkids not crashing Linux because their games don't run under it, if the apps I need to run are "Wintel" apps, I gonig to use a Wintel system, regardless if Bill Gates personally kicked my dog, or tries to usurp the world's banking system. There are certainly problems with MS software and their corporate philosphy as well, perhaps, but let's not go blaming every small-to-medium sized business failure in the last, and coming, five years on them. If it were a true conspiracy, they'd price their stuff just low enough that every business could afford it, to stay in business and buy more. It's like the mob protection racket- if you empty the guy's cash drawer completely, he won't be in business next week for you to hit him up again- you need to skim almost all the profit, but not all! ;-
)
It's been fun sparring with you- like I said, you make excellent points- I just wanted to counter those that didn't jive with my real world experiences
(anecdotal, myopic, or otherwise
). This thread is already so wildly off topic, I'll sign off, let you crush me with your reasoned last words if you so choose, and hope we can still be cyberfriends!
Ciao!