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The biggest computer company in the world, once known for their ugly and boring “beige boxes,” has been hot in the last month, shipping new products and getting the media abuzz with products in the labs. Here’s what’s been coming out of Dell lately: Read more »
Posted in Business, Companies, Decisions, Dell, Marketing, Uncategorized
I’ve been researching notebooks (since I’m in the market for one) and haven’t been discriminating between brands – PC or Mac, Dell or HP, etc. (My gripes with certain manufacturers’ product lines will be up later.) One of my feature requirements of a notebook is to have gigabit ethernet. Why would I need that?
Well, I need it to back up my 100GB media collection (that’s currently stored on an external drive) to a NAS. When I get my new notebook, I expect to place my entire media collection on it. And it so happens that my NAS has gigabit ethernet and makes these backups – which are performed daily (by the night) – much more speedy, leaving time in the night to back up my local system. In total, I’m looking at about 150GB to back up every night. I also expect this number to grow about 20GB per year.
How surprised was I when I found that none – let me repeat that none – of the major pc vendors (read: Dell, HP) have gigabit ethernet hardware in their consumer notebooks? Very. What’s even more surprising to me is that one of Microsoft’s first hardware Windows Home Servers (WHS) – the HP MediaSmart series – has gigabit! Now for those who haven’t done their reading: gigabit transfer rates require that both ends of the transfer have Gigabit hardware.
I would file this under the “one more negative point in having another company be in charge of the hardware your software runs on.” It’s obvious that Microsoft intended for WHS hardware to have 10/100/1000 networking. It might not seem crucial at first, but when one considers the WHS in a family environment with multiple computers – all doing backups at night in a limited 8-hour timeframe – speed becomes very important. Thus, data that will be transferred won’t be in the gigabytes; it will be in the terabytes. Think about it. Example: 3 users, each with 300GB of media plus 50GB of other files. That’s just over 1TB each night!
But what baffles me even more is that HP – the maker of the MediaSmart line of WHS hasn’t added Gigabit to their consumer notebook line (yes, consumer, since the Windows Home Server has the word “HOME” in it). Ironically, Apple is currently the only PC manufacturer to have Gigabit ethernet across their entire lineup. Yep, you read that right: every Apple Mac has Gigabit – from the $600 Mac Mini to the $3000 Mac Pro! (Read that with emphasis on the Mac Mini).
Just to compare how long it would take me to transfer all of my data using 10/100 and 10/100/1000. Keep in mind that these calculations are just for my data. In my household, I’m the one with the most data. But for families with more than one child (who has a 60GB iPod full of music), and with parents who have amassed large media collections, a problem will be seen in backups due to the limited time frame. I’ve included the theoretical speeds and cut them down in half since we all know that theory doesn’t always carry over to reality – especially when it comes to bandwidth.
It’s best if companies – especially close partners who depend on one another for product creation (read: Microsoft, HP, Dell) – have a closer relationship and plan accordingly. I can’t believe that none of the bright people at either company realized or foresaw this issue. Again, this is one of those cases that shows the benefits and efficiency of a vertically integrated company – like Apple. Personally, Gigabit networking is a must-have feature for me and thus I will be waiting out for a new lappie from the PC vendors.
I understand that it might not be in HPs best interest from a manufacturing perspective to include a gigabit networking chip. But that’s what separates great companies who care about the consumer from those that have bottom-line pickers make the ultimate decisions. How large of a price increase do you think it would cost HP to change its current networking chips to ones with gigabit speeds in terms of production changes and materials costs? I’ll leave it at that.
Coming tomorrow: my Apple predictions for MacWorld 2008 and my current gripe with Apple’s notebook line-up. Stay tuned and I’ll see you all next time.d
Posted in Apple, Blogroll, Business, Decisions, Dell, HP, Mac, Microsoft, PC vendors