The Life and Times of Your Office Computers

Do you remember when you last got a new computer at work?  Remember how fast it was and how everything just worked?  But it’s probably not that way today, is it?  

This is where lifecycle planning comes in. 

 One of the underlying “laws” of the IT industry is called Moore’s Law, originated by and named after Gordon Moore, one of the founders of Intel.  They’re the company that likely made the processor in your computer.  Moore’s Law states that on average the number of transistors in a processor chip doubles every 2 years.  This means that the computer you buy today is about twice as fast as the one you bought two years ago for about the same price. 

Why should you care?  Because software being written today is written for the processors being produced today.  This means that in two years, the version of Windows that you’ll be using will likely be created for a computer twice as fast as the one you own today.  That’s why your computer “seems” slow after a few years. 

Our advice is to keep this in mind when you purchase a new computer.  Expect it to have a 3–4 year useful life.  That doesn’t mean it will break in year five, but as software continues to improve, you’ll see your computer seems to run slower and slower as time goes on.  We suggest planning for the lifecycle of your computers and making sure that your highest cost resources or those that are customer facing always have the newest computers.  The best example of this would be a doctor’s office.  The doctor is your highest cost resource, so let’s get them a new computer every two years.  Then we can repurpose their computer to a medical assistant or someone in billing for another 2 years before disposing of it.  That way we’ve gotten four years of life out of it but haven’t saddled the doctor with a slower performing computer the last two.  Same with the front desk.  Since they are the ones that check in patients, we want that process to go as quickly as possible, so they get a new computer every two years.  Then their old one goes to the billing department for another two. 

This process also allows you to have a predicable budget for computers each year and avoid the surprise that some may have in October of 2025 when Windows 10 is no longer supported and many of the computers in use today may need replaced.  

Not every user needs a brand-new computer every year, but keeping the lifecycle of the computers your business in the recommended windows will keep you up and running with the least amount of hassle possible.