Personal Computers

Are your invoices late? Are you losing track of customers? Computers can help you fix the inefficiencies in your company

For companies buying personal computers for the first time or upgrading a purchase made a few years ago, now is the best time ever to be shopping. Price wars and volume production have driven down the cost of computers and peripherals even while the tasks they are capable of performing have become much more sophisticated.

Choosing a model can be a bewildering experience, given the array of features available from scores of manufacturers. As with all purchases of office equipment, the place to start is with an assessment of who in your company will be using the machines and for what purposes. The answers will bring into sharp focus the features you really need.

Long before making a purchase, outline every step your company takes, from soliciting business to billing receivables. Timm Runnion, president of Moving Systems Inc., in Newburyport, Mass., a company that provides services for employee relocation, bought computers for his business seven years ago when sales reached $1 million. He laid out graph paper on the walls of his office and plotted every important task his employees performed. Then he asked questions such as these:

Where are the bottlenecks in the process, places where a computer could perform a job faster and more accurately? On my present growth curve, how much labor cost can I avoid by adding computers in certain departments? Whose productivity can I increase the most by introducing computers? Where can I remove redundancies in the work process, such as redrafting of reports each time a change is needed? Is invoicing slow because of manual record keeping? Am I getting information out to customers quickly, and does it include the kind of first-class presentation that will command their attention? Does my manual system provide information on costs in a timely fashion, and does it immediately tell me how it will affect the bottom line? Are there problems tracking inventory?

Once you pinpoint where you need computers and how they will be used, as Runnion did, defining the right blend of features is fairly easy. Will you be manipulating a large database of customers? A fast computer with plenty of hard disk capacity is a must. Want to automate your billing department? A low-cost machine with an inexpensive dot matrix printer will do just fine. Will you produce reports with sophisticated graphics and design some of your own ads in-house? Buy a computer with plenty of memory and top it off with a good laser printer.

Whatever your choice, consider following this cost-effective strategy: Buy the cheapest acceptable models for the mass of machines you need and faster, costlier models only for the most sophisticated tasks. As prices come down, you can upgrade the systems of critical users and turn over their models to others. Then sell the obsolete bottom-end machines for a nominal sum to employees for home use.

PC or Macintosh?
Competition in the personal-computer industry has narrowed the field to two competing systems, the IBM PC and PC clones, and the Apple Macintosh. The PC standard was established by IBM Corp. in 1981 and has continued with the introduction of successive models. Numerous companies sell IBM clones through normal retail channels or through mail order. The second standard, the Macintosh, was established by Apple Computer Inc. in 1984; because the Mac utilizes proprietary technology, Apple remains the only supplier, although other vendors do offer peripheral equipment. A handful of other competing systems exist, but these are not widely used in business.

The biggest difference between the two leading systems is that Macs are easier to learn and use. PCs rely on a program called DOS, or disk operating system, to control the basic functions of the computer. Software that runs on DOS requires a user to memorize and execute a series of keyboard strokes to perform every function, and these commands are different for every applications program you buy.

On the other hand, Macs require no memorization of commands, working instead through graphic representations. Users move a handheld device called a mouse across a pad on their desks. The mouse enables a user to position an arrow on the screen on top of a visual icon or a menu that embodies all the commands needed to operate the machine. Clicking the mouse on the right icon or menu entry activates the function you want. These icons and menus are consistent from program to program.

PC makers have been trying hard, with partial success, to make PCs behave more like Macs. Microsoft Corp., the developer of DOS, released a program in 1990 called Microsoft Windows, version 3, which works as an add-on to DOS and enables a PC to work somewhat like a Mac. Although Windows makes a PC look like a Mac, the fact that it still relies on DOS makes it more difficult to use.

IBM has also tried to move away from DOS with a new operating system, OS/2, but at present few programs are available for OS/2 compared with Windows. That is unfortunate because OS/2 is technically more advanced than Windows.

If the Mac is easier to use, it is also more expensive than a PC. The price difference is hard to pin down, since Macs and PCs are equipped differently. A Mac costs about the same as an equivalent high-end PC or $500 to $1,000 per machine more than the cheapest clone.

Another advantage of the PC is its dominant position in the business world. Although Apple has made major inroads in corporate America, it still holds only a 13% share of the computers sold in this country.

This advantage is no longer as important as it once was. Although more programs have been written for the PC, much of the top business software now comes in versions for both the PC and the Mac. Both computers perform business tasks well. The only task in which one clearly outshines the other is in graphics work and desktop publishing -- here, Mac is your choice.

If you already have a few PCs or Macs in your office, it is generally easier to expand by buying more of the same. Spreadsheet, word processing, and other software designed to run on one system will not run on the other, although many of the files and documents you create with that software can be manipulated to run on the other system. Mixing PCs and Macs means that you will have to provide training and support for two systems, which may become a nuisance or worse if you don't have a computer expert on staff.