The Purchase: "Gimme, Gimme!"(computer System Purchase)

Quint, Barabara, Searcher

"Next month: the arrival of my new Dell Computer Dimension XPS P90 ($3,699 in the PC/Computing December 1994 issue, $3,149 in PC Magazine's December 4, 1994 issue)."

Hold it, buddy! Not so fast. Those concluding lines to last month's inaugural "The Great Upgrade" column turned out to be wishful thinking.

The first thing you learn after you've made the basic purchase decision for a new computer installation is that the purchase process takes a lot longer than you thought it would. For one thing, more than one purchase decision occurs when more than one player defines the purchase. Bundled packages of peripherals and software from computer sellers offer the best bargains. However, they also lead to an involved process of Chinese menu ordering ("One from column A, two from column B." , where the vendor's willingness to provide must synchronize with the buyer's wants and wishes.

As the decision process slows down, mired in lots of semi-negotiated choices, another danger strikes -- the onslaught of the dread disease, Technolust (Latin name: Moremore-itis). One would think that the innate reluctance to change my work environment which had kept me from buying new equipment all these years would have inoculated me for the disease. No such luck. One would have thought the shortness of funds which really stopped me from drunken revels at Computers `R' Us in the past would have left remnants of fiscal conservatism. HA!

The first faint realization that Technolust had me in its "grippe" came when a conversation with my cousin the programmer about the criticality of the V.34 modem …

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Publication information: Article title: The Purchase: "Gimme, Gimme!"(computer System Purchase). Contributors: Quint, Barabara - Author. Magazine title: Searcher. Volume: 3. Issue: 2 Publication date: February 1995. Page number: 24+. © 1999 Information Today, Inc. COPYRIGHT 1995 Gale Group.

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