Re: Hardware specs do matter as well
On the one had I agree - I never buy a mobile phone via a contract, it's always N-1, costing no more than a few hundred quid max, and I'd expect at least 3 years of use from it.
Ditto - my last laptop lasted me 5 years and although it could still handle most of everything thrown at it, it was starting to show its age in some areas. I expect my new replacement to last at least as long.
But when people talk about the lack of an audio jack, or status LEDs, I can actually see the manufacturers stance on it, to some degree - when you are building units by the millions, a faction of pence for the parts, plus the humans and/or automation required to fit them and drive them adds up to a considerable amount of cash.
Many, many, years ago I used to repair Sharp equipment (the manufacturer, that is, not stuff that was pointy or bladed!). I cut my teeth on their electronic typewriters and word processors. On the very basic model of typewriter (around 50 quid from Boots or WHS), the chassis used to be held in with two screws.
Suddenly, they appeared with a case design that had two plastic "clips" built into the moulding. They did the job but were notoriously brittle at first, and would break if you removed the chassis for any reason.
I asked them why they'd gone down the route - turns out they did the maths. With the human to put them in, the extra tooling station etc, it cost 19p per unit for the pair. In the UK alone they sold 200,000 that year (I am still not sure how accurate that figure was, but they were definitely a popular choice for small offices, students etc).
Don't get me wrong - I am not saying scrapping features for the sake of saving money is a good thing, just that in some circumstances, I can see why it happens.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
