dragons den , pc guy owned

Biohazard said:
I thought it odd myself, but if he couldn't argue his way out of Peters lack of understanding then he didn't deserve the investment anyway imo.
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Agreed. His £250k and £5m figures destroyed him immediately. But then when he couldn't defend himself against, frankly, a crap attack by Peter Jones, the writing was on the wall.
 
If Peter Jones is so knowledgeable on IT then why did BT put him in that advert where he had his head in his hands over a single error? (probably an (l)user error).
 
skippi90 said:
But it could also be suggested that by making these systems 'Green' they are also not as powerful as they could be which is why Jones suggested RS232 as it would have the same, if not better effect but would also reduce performance.
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Hmm, you use the words like you know what you're talking about, but clearly you dont. Do you have any idea how old RS232 is? Or what it's even for?
Here's a car analogy for you. Imagine I'm pitching about the latest hybrid cars, then Peter Jones goes "Yeah, but what about hot air balloons, eh?". It's that irrelevant.
 
Jono8 said:
No it has been proved by some scientists. Some scientists disagree. In fact for the last 10 years the world has been cooling down. Also the big question is whether we are a contributing factor too climate change. The amount of co2 emissions we, as a race contribute to the planet could be deemed negligble when compared to natural sources/events (i.e. volcanos).
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Not quite. I expect there's acceptance that climate change exists - in fact I would suggest it's an undeniable fact - otherwise how can things such as ice ages exist? The question (as you were sort of suggesting) is how much of it is natural and cyclical, and how much is man-made.

NathanE said:
Fair enough - but still. It's not right to compare the two IMO. Yes thin clients are greener but they also don't do as much or anywhere near as much as a full PC can do.
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That's relevent to you or I, but to many businesses it really isn't. In fact, in big business a full PC is precisely what they don't want because the TCO is too high. They'd much prefer thin clients connecting to servers running Citrix or Terminal Services. We have many business customers who do exactly this.

Yes, Peter Jones' argument was seriously flawed. The era of the dumb terminal has long passed its prime (though I won't deny there are still valid uses). The problem, it seems, was that the guy had a bit of tech knowledge and a bit of business knowledge, but far from sufficient of either. Consequently when the Dragons pounced (as they do), he just didn't have the answers, so he got ripped apart - and rightly so.
 
I found the whole thing hilarious. The guy was so full of **** when he left the den, going on about the dragons not caring about the whole "green" issue. His company was majorly over-valued, and at the end of the day, if he starts to do well, Dell and all of the other big pc manufacturers will just start selling "green" pcs with the same adjustments.

The only way to get money out of the dragons is to have a unique idea which other people can't copy.
 
PC manufacturers are already doing this. Dell, Apple, Asus, and other all have low-power PCs. To do this, they use components designed for mobile systems (i.e. laptops). This results in a small, low-heat and low-power system. They do tend to be a little more expensive but I suspect that might change.
 
NathanE said:
Peter Jones got it all wrong with the "dumb terminals" argument. For some reason the guy didn't explain himself terribly well. Dumb terminals may use less power but they also don't run any of todays software and severely lack in pretty much all areas. They are only really used these days in warehouses.

His PC's are just standard kit, off the shelf components. They run Windows. They aren't dumb terminals. Dumb terminals are from the 80s and early 90s.

The guy's crap comeback was to say "yeah but the KVM switching gear of a dumb terminal uses power". Erm ok :confused: Surely he could have simply said "these run Windows and aren't dumb terminals. You can play games on them if you wanted. And yet they still use a fraction of the power that a regular PC uses."
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Exactly. People do not want character based RS-232 terminals because they want to run Windows. He could have scored one on Peter Jones there. All of the dragons would have heard of Windows.
 
The fact Peter Jones knows about RS-232 IMO adds enough credence to his argument.

I think he was just being facetious, because he didn't like the product, the person or the opportunities it presened. Ultimately the business was over-valued and will never be capable of competing in the national or global IT market. By the time his brand is big enough to be recognizable Dell, HP, etc will all be chucking out green PCs for less.
 
Here is me thinking the polar ice caps are melting because we are at the end of an ice age and its computers all along :rolleyes:
 
This program is turning into a highly-scripted farce. About 40 minutes of insulting diatribe from the kings (and queen) of the hill followed by one, or at most two, successful proposals.

I think the last 15-20 minutes are worth watching. I'm sick of, for example, DB spouting that xxx is the most ridiculous thing he's ever heard, he's out. And his "I wasn't talking to you comment!" - pure knuckle-scraper. They can be a venal bunch at the best of times.

Peter and Theo are normally quite good, and Debs gets more grief than she deserves, but the overall tone of the program? If some muppet wants £300k for 2% of his smiley-faces on paper-plates keiretsu, get him some medical attention and show him the door. Why is it necessary for these idiots (the dragons) to gut some token imbecile for laughs. It might be funny from time to time, but the underlying message of beligerence and ignorance leaves a bitter taste.

I feel better now - thanks for listening ;).

/endrant.
 
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Late in this thread, viewed the video, and haven't read it all, but WTF was Peter Jones on about with networking via RS232 connections? That's for legacy market data connections and the like!

I can't see you getting a decent screen refresh even on a 19200 connection! Citrix for example is pants with real time screen updates (eg: for trading applications), nevermind some botch job via RS232 (which would be some archaic ANSI terminal crap, which I admit still exists even in banks these days albeit normally via ssh/telnet over ethernet connection).

The guy was useless at arguing his point. Where I work is "green" as far as centralised apps and distributed clients are concerned, but I deal with issues on a day to day basis. Peter Jones has no clue from an operational point of view IME :p Either that or he was just taking the Michael...
 
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