A sobering reminder of where some businesses are at in 2018... 1280x1024

[Vexr]

I've recently been drafted over to a site for some short-term problem solving cover. The PC monitor I was greeted with was a 4:3 1280x1024.

I have some quite demanding work to sort through involving large Excel spreadsheets amongst at least a dozen other windows open at any one time.

I've been working from home for most of the past couple of years on my 3440x1440 Dell U3415W, and adjusting to this is pretty horrendous.

I contacted IT stating that my productivity was impaired on such a low resolution, and requesting either a second monitor or at least an upgrade to a monitor that could do HD (1920x1080) or so. I was denied, unless I could approve a budget for an 'upgrade'. Prices started at around £100 for another 1280x1024 dross monitor, all the way up to £250 for a 'premium' 21" 1920x1080 60 hz display worthy of 2006.

Obviously the organisation is being fleeced by its IT suppliers, but it's a sobering reminder to be thankful of what I've got at home. A few years ago I sold 2x 1920x1080 21" monitors and 1x 1920x1200 24" monitor, netting about £120 for all three displays.

I'm certainly feeling thankful to come home to my 3440x1440 60 hz display now.

 

[Legend]

£250 for a 'premium' 21" 1920x1080 60 hz display worthy of 2006.

That is really quite shameful. Makes Nvidia look like a charity! Wonder if managers realise how much they're being taken for a ride?! That's got to impact their bottom line at the end of the day... while the IT suppliers are laughing all the way to than bank!

 

[Vexr]

That is really quite shameful. Makes Nvidia look like a charity! Wonder if managers realise how much they're being taken for a ride?! That's got to impact their bottom line at the end of the day... while the IT suppliers are laughing all the way to than bank!

I 100% agree, and I seriously doubt anyone at a reasonable decision making level realises the lack of value they're getting and the impact something as mundane as monitors is making on employees trying to do their job. I reckon even 99% of employees don't even know it and it wouldn't occur to them to realise their productivity would be massively increased with more display resolution.

Afterall, they rushed out to buy phones that do full HD on a 5" display, and their HP laptop at home does HD, as does the kids PS4, but it never occurs to them to connect the dots and realise how utterly gimped their works PC and display is, and more difficult their job therefore is.

As for decision making management, far easier and more pleasing to all stakeholders to sack staff for cost cutting sakes. Any IT equipment costs that those of us on OcUK would tear to shreds is completely out of their field of vision and deemed sacrosanct and immutable.

 

[Rroff]

Lot of business IT suppliers are day light robbing TBH - £250 for a 21" 1080p display is actually cheap compared to some - bare in mind amongst other costs they will be factoring in an SLA, etc. though too often they are barely worth the paper they are written on.

I've taken to carrying about a reasonably capable Windows tablet as these days it is often considerably more capable than some of the PCs I encounter

 

[chaparral]

I have the same problem at my work place and I also use a 3440x1440 monitor at home..

Also the PC system I have at work takes very close to 10minutes just to boot up after it been switched off (My home system takes something like 15 to 20seconds)

This work PC makes me feel like screaming sometimes . Instead of being able to get my work done am just staring out the window while waiting for this stupid PC to do things


When I click to open a new folder/internet or something nothing happens so I click it a few more times and then 30 seconds later 10 of them will then open

 

[BubbySoup]

I work for the NHS - we still have some 1024x768 displays hanging around. We also have some software that defaults to running in 800x600

We get fleeced for pretty much anything we purchase.

 

[WJA96]

You’re not getting “fleeced”. You’re paying for the support contract through the purchase price of the equipment. If a monitor costs £100 there will be a 3, 5 or 7 year running cost for that device and the deal you’ve done with your supplier will cover that cost. This is how many, many IT staff are paid for these days. So a £100 monitor becomes a £250 monitor. The OP was challenged to come up with a business case for a larger monitor that required them to do less scrolling and they couldn’t justify to their line manager apparently. It’s not the IT department that decides what gets purchased it’s your line management who approve purchase orders.

When people complain about what things cost, I generally say to them - sure, buy that Dell xxxxx for whatever it costs from Dell’s website and when it arrives, you configure it yourself and if it doesn’t work, call Dell and ask them to send someone out... And see how quickly they come out and fix it for you.

And usually the equipment purchased isn’t the latest and greatest simply because it has to be stable with stable drivers and it has to ‘just work’ with everything else in the organisation.

One of the downsides of IT support is everyone thinks they can do your job better than you. Well, it’s a free world...

 

[Rroff]

And usually the equipment purchased isn’t the latest and greatest simply because it has to be stable with stable drivers and it has to ‘just work’ with everything else in the organisation.

Hence why Windows 7 is still so prevalent and XP hung on for so long.

One of the downsides of IT support is everyone thinks they can do your job better than you. Well, it’s a free world...

There are reason I have no intention of going back to working in IT support...

 

[mahius]

It's the same where I work, though recently we did get and IT upgrade, but that was only the PCs themselves (now on Windows 10 at least). Still working on less than 1080p monitors. My supervisor has pointed out that we can request replacement monitors, but of course all of it has to get approved higher up and we need to provide a compelling argument on how it would improve workflow. As someone pointed out above, most folks aren't aware of how it helps and they're in the mindset of "we have to make do with what we've got, it won't improve things that much, etc".

 

[DarkHorizon472]

It is not unusual for businesses to pay thousands in over time due to reduced productivity rather than a few hundred as a one off cost to upgrade IT like monitors, desktops etc.

 

[WJA96]

The problem for most people is they can’t demonstrate a return on investment.

If your company has a 6-month payback period for investment and the monitor you actually want costs £1000 then you have to show that you would save £1000 or generate £1000 in extra income through efficiencies. So if you get paid £500/week (gross) you would need to be 9% faster or more efficient to justify the cost. Even if the payback is over 12 months you still need to be 5% more efficient, which is pretty hard in most workplaces these days. So fundamentally the payback doesn’t exist.

So, if you want a big monitor the besoption is often to play the Workstation Risk Assessment card and claim that the small monitor is giving you eye strain but often that will just get you a big 1080p screen whereas in general many young users would like a big 4K monitor that lets you have multiple pages on screen at once. Personally, my eyes aren’t good enough to use these screens so it doesn’t bother me.

And sadly, one massive reason people don’t get given big screens is simple workplace politics. The bosses have the mega-screens (sometimes 3 or 6 screen arrays) and the lowest paid workers (apprentices) get the crappy old stuff. For general office staff or junior management to get a big screen usually requires an overwhelming use-case. And even then most management just won’t sign it off. You do see managers playing politics with their whole department’s IT and you can sometimes be lucky and trigger an IT arms race between departments where everybody is running £4000 MacBook Pro’s with 43” 5K monitors, but those are very few and far between.

 

[WJA96]

It is not unusual for businesses to pay thousands in over time due to reduced productivity rather than a few hundred as a one off cost to upgrade IT like monitors, desktops etc.

I have to say I’ve not seen that recently. With a Office 365 becoming ever more prevalent, the computer it runs on is less and less of an issue but the big screen argument is something I sympathise with.

If anyone can show they would save money in the short to medium term, you do generally see the investment these days. There are very good tax write-offs available on IT equipment so I don’t usually see lack of money as the reason why IT doesn’t get upgraded.

 

[Howling]

You should see the prices and pitiful SLAs the MOD gets themselves in to -.-

 

[WJA96]

MOD is specialist though. It’s basically a closed shop with only a very few vendors able to offer the equipment and services they want. And even if it’s just Office 365 they have to have it secured to a very high level.

I do think government (and local government in particular) could do MUCH better in terms of sourcing IT equipment and services.

 

[EsaT]

If a monitor costs £100 there will be a 3, 5 or 7 year running cost for that device

Would then expect that monitor to be at most 7 years old and not 20 years old tech.

 

[WJA96]

I think you’ve missed the point. If they bought the newest technology one now they’d pay more for one with installation and a 7-year support contract than one without.

The age of equipment actually in use is purely a function of the fact that monitors tend to go on forever and companies tend not to replace anything that isn’t broken. I’ve seen people running CRT screens in some quite big companies simply because they still work so why would they get replaced?

 

[edscdk]

You’re not getting “fleeced”. You’re paying for the support contract through the purchase price of the equipment. If a monitor costs £100 there will be a 3, 5 or 7 year running cost for that device and the deal you’ve done with your supplier will cover that cost. This is how many, many IT staff are paid for these days. So a £100 monitor becomes a £250 monitor. The OP was challenged to come up with a business case for a larger monitor that required them to do less scrolling and they couldn’t justify to their line manager apparently. It’s not the IT department that decides what gets purchased it’s your line management who approve purchase orders.

When people complain about what things cost, I generally say to them - sure, buy that Dell xxxxx for whatever it costs from Dell’s website and when it arrives, you configure it yourself and if it doesn’t work, call Dell and ask them to send someone out... And see how quickly they come out and fix it for you.

And usually the equipment purchased isn’t the latest and greatest simply because it has to be stable with stable drivers and it has to ‘just work’ with everything else in the organisation.

One of the downsides of IT support is everyone thinks they can do your job better than you. Well, it’s a free world...

My company employees 700 people we do dumb stuff like that.. We store no spare anything so if you laptpp breaks you need the extended next day warranty to get it back in usage..

I think it's old people think... Laptop must cost £5k and is junk in 3 years must buy extended warranty.. Must be screwed by suppliers...

It's thinking like that that allows companies to get screwed .

Id expect to pay going rate for a monitor nothing more as a large business.. Having said that the company I work for usually gets interns or cleaners to speak to suppliers so we p them off asking stupid questions don't negotiate on price and pay extra..

 

[WJA96]

Send me a Trust message. I’ll look after your cleaning staff and interns

 

[BubbySoup]

You’re not getting “fleeced”. You’re paying for the support contract through the purchase price of the equipment. If a monitor costs £100 there will be a 3, 5 or 7 year running cost for that device and the deal you’ve done with your supplier will cover that cost. This is how many, many IT staff are paid for these days. So a £100 monitor becomes a £250 monitor. The OP was challenged to come up with a business case for a larger monitor that required them to do less scrolling and they couldn’t justify to their line manager apparently. It’s not the IT department that decides what gets purchased it’s your line management who approve purchase orders.

When people complain about what things cost, I generally say to them - sure, buy that Dell xxxxx for whatever it costs from Dell’s website and when it arrives, you configure it yourself and if it doesn’t work, call Dell and ask them to send someone out... And see how quickly they come out and fix it for you.

And usually the equipment purchased isn’t the latest and greatest simply because it has to be stable with stable drivers and it has to ‘just work’ with everything else in the organisation.

One of the downsides of IT support is everyone thinks they can do your job better than you. Well, it’s a free world...

Only our boxes have extended support, 5 years next day call out to be precise. Monitors are just your standard 1 year RTB warranty. We expect our users to plug them in, we rarely attend to hook up a screen.

 

[Angilion]

It is not unusual for businesses to pay thousands in over time due to reduced productivity rather than a few hundred as a one off cost to upgrade IT like monitors, desktops etc.

Or anything else. £1000 to replace a broken thing or £200 ten times over a period of time to keep patching it up until being forced to replace it...well, £200 is less than £1000 so that's a saving, right? Costs cut, therefore a "success".