Laptops

What a fantastic Easter Weekend we had weather wise. Not sure about you but I got well and truly sun burnt on my face and neck doing some long overdue, brownie point making, garden maintenance; much to the delight of the wife.

So as spring is well and truly with us, we begin the long unlocking of the country and peoples moods and outlooks on this summer are improving, we are still facing lots of uncertainty with the supply of IT Hardware and there is no real end in sight. The stock that is coming through the massive global distribution system has massively over inflated prices; for example: A HP laptop that we stock used to cost us £295 + VAT and now the exact same laptop is costing us £542 + VAT as demand for those laptops hugely outweighs the supply. We have been trying to buy RTX3070, 3080 and 3090 graphics cards since there release date and still to this day we have not secured any stock. IT has also been in the headlines a lot recently due to massive data breaches, more virus, more hacking and far more unethical attacks on people and business.

All this comes at a time when we have never needed reliable IT more. So many people are successfully working from home because of the great work that so many IT professionals have been completing throughout this last year, keeping this country working from practically anywhere. There are unfortunately some massive cracks in the technology we see people using and in this past year we have seen far too many small local businesses muddling on with old, unreliable and very insecure systems. Its therefore no surprise when we hear about more and more people getting virus’, losing data and having data breaches. In 2021 it is alarming to see what technology people are trying to use and its becoming worrying how many home and business users we see who do not have backups and secure antivirus in place on their computers.

On this bank holiday Monday with a slightly tingly face and stiff back this has all led me to think why we are still seeing a massive digital black hole.

Is this lack of investment in IT financial, education or something else?
Has IT been undervalued for many years?
Have we been investing enough money in technology, security and training to keep IT systems running smoothly whatever happens? To be honest I don’t know; but it doesn’t feel like it.

Despite the price rises we are seeing in technology, I still think the technology provides great value for money, especially when you consider most businesses would simply stop without IT!

The only think that is clear in my mind is our garden looks better; but I opened a can of worms with the new ideas; so many more long weekends are required in the garden.

And incase you were wondering; I earned a big bag of brownie points 😊.

Other columns by James Vincent