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One Size Does Not Fit All

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PCQ Bureau
New Update

Last month I wrote about how in the hardware space, performance differentiators are becoming meaningless and how all hardware seems to give excellent performance. One of the questions that come up is whether we have reached a situation where one size fits all needs. My answer to that one is a strong no, particularly in the solutions space.

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Consider the example of you going to buy a car. There are cars and there are cars, all the way from the Maruti 800 to the Mercedes and the Ferrari. All of them have four wheels, consume fuel and can transport you from point A to point B. Now, keeping issues of style aside, is there any other difference between one car and another?

The difference between these cars obviously is in the quality of transport they provide, the comfort they provide, and the assurance they give you of that quality being met. The same thing applies to computing. You can get a given solution at different price points.

Take the example of video conferencing. You can have a videoconference using a webcam and a dialup connection to the Internet. At the other extreme, you can have a videoconference over a dedicated high-bandwidth leased line, using state of the art equipment. And there are a number of options in between the two. The principles used are the same. The technologies are the same. It is the budget and the quality of the conferencing that varies. As also the assurance of that quality being available at any point in time.

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Let us take another example, that of ERP solutions. There are accounting packages, which with a few add-on features let you do rudimentary ERP on a shoestring budget. There are also the full-blown built-from-scratch ERP packages that can set you back quite a bit on the budget front. And, of course, there are any number of options in between. Obviously, they are all not the same.

The good thing, of course, is that there are solutions that fit almost every budget. You need not be deprived of a given technology or solution just because you are not a rich multinational company.

The flip side is that you could end up being penny wise and pound foolish. In a world where every organization is trying to save on costs in whatever way they can from wherever possible, it is very easy to under budget for IT purchases and end up buying stuff totally unsuitable for your needs, even if you get the basic technology right. A basic Maruti 800, for example, will not do for a trans-Himalayan rally at the height of the summer.

The trick is to correctly match your needs, your budgets and what the solution in question

offers.

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