IT鈥橲 official: new personal computers are becoming obsolete faster and faster
with every passing year. If the trend continues, a PC purchased as we celebrate
the millennium could be good for just six months鈥� use.
This sobering analysis comes from Livingston Rental, a company in west London
that leases PCs to businesses across Europe. Livingston tracks the speed at
which rented equipment is returned by customers who want a newer model. The
trend is inexorable, with the useful life of a PC used in business falling by
two to three months each year. Three years ago, when PCs with Intel 486 chips
were top of the range, their rental life was around 17 months. Machines based
around early Pentium chips running at 133 megahertz, which dominated the market
in 1996, lasted a little over 14 months. Last year, machines with 166-MHz
Pentium chips were unwanted after 11 months and had been replaced by Pentiums
running at 200 MHz. The newest PCs run at 300 MHz. Livingston鈥檚 data show that
the lag between a new PC being introduced and the peak demand for rentals is
also decreasing
(see Figure).
Fred Round, chief executive of Britain鈥檚 Radio, Electrical and Television
Retailers鈥� Association, says that the spiral of accelerating obsolescence of PCs
is a serious issue. 鈥淩enting will soon be essential to a retail dealer鈥檚
survival,鈥� he says.
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There is a silver lining, however. Businesses don鈥檛 need to worry too much
about protecting their current PCs from the 鈥渕illennium timebomb鈥� of software
that won鈥檛 cope with the date shift to to 1 January 2000, says Barry Watts,
Livingston鈥檚 business development consultant: 鈥淲hy bother buying software to try
and make today鈥檚 PCs handle the millennium date change? They will be on the
scrapheap anyway.鈥�