Business computers

Downtime is the real cost

The expensive part of a business computer is rarely the computer. It is the hours lost when it stops, the work that has to be redone, and the person who has to deal with it instead of doing their job. A machine chosen on purchase price alone often costs more over three years than one chosen on reliability.

This is why business buying tends to favour fewer, better-understood configurations over whatever was least expensive each month. When every machine is the same, a fault is diagnosed once and a spare part fits everything.

Specify for the work, not the job title

Most office work is limited by memory and storage speed rather than by processing power. A machine with a solid-state drive and enough memory to keep the applications people actually use open at once will feel faster than a machine with a better processor and neither.

Where a role genuinely needs more — large spreadsheets, design work, several applications and many browser tabs at once — it is worth specifying that role separately rather than raising the standard for everyone.

• Solid-state storage as a baseline, not an option
• Enough memory for the applications actually in daily use
• Consistent configurations, so a fault is diagnosed once
• Room for one more screen, which is the least expensive productivity change available

Support is part of the purchase

We sell and repair in the same building, so a business machine that fails comes back to the people who supplied it. New parts carry a one-year warranty, excluding acts of God, physical damage and neglect.

For anything involving several machines, it is worth a conversation before ordering rather than after: the right answer often involves standardising on one configuration, which is easier to arrange up front.