During the early years of the tech industry, obsolescence was something people looked forward to.  Since systems were so slow and were so limited in what they could do, people were very eager to get the latest and greatest in PC hardware as soon as it came out.  Same went for games, video cards, and so much more.  But now that we’re hitting a level of technology that is more than sufficient for a large majority of users, the rush for the latest and greatest isn’t as big anymore.  There’s many reasons for this, but the biggest is that current computer systems are more than sufficient for current needs.  There is and always will be a fringe group of users who wouldn’t be satisfied even if computers were 3 billion terrahertz.  They’d still want more.  They’re the kind that upgrade every three to six months or so to always have the latest and greatest bleeding edge hardware no matter what.  But these days they’re a shrinking minority.  Yet they seem to be the ones most companies try to sell to.  They do it because they know these people will get something, use it till something new comes around and then buy whatever that new item is.  The companies also know these same guys will go tell their friends and family about these items and recommend them highly.  Those people will in turn go out and buy that hardware, then go tell their friends and family as well.  After a while a critical mass is reached and sales quickly take off.

The catch is that most of the people who buy that high end hardware based on the recommendations of that elite few actually don’t need that much power.  How much power do you really need to surf the web, read email, do word processing and a handful of other tasks common to most computer users?  I certainly don’t see someone needing a 2.5ghz machine to play pogo games.  Even if they play the Sims or some other similar games, most people are happy with older machines.  Another big perpetrator of this rush to obsolescence is the software companies.  They are partially to blame because of the fact that they choose to be lazy in their programming and refuse to do anymore streamlining of their code than is absolutely necessary.  We call it bloatware.  They call it profitable.  The hardware companies also like it because it means that you’ll need to upgrade to use this new software, then the software companies turn right around and close that gap by producing slower software that requires another hardware upgrade.  It’s a completely vicious cycle that needs to end on both sides.  Software bloat especially needs to end.  Programmers need to go back to the days when coding for computers meant you had to code lean.  If a company wants to impress their customers, program performance and speed will do more to impress them than eyecandy ever will.  The faster and smoother an app runs, the happier customers are.  

If I have two separate apps that do exactly the same thing and one does it in 3 seconds but looks bland and the other looks gorgeous and takes 2 minutes, I’ll take the ugly one over the gorgeous one any day.  It’s probably why I prefer older software too for many of my daily tasks.  I’ve got nine and ten year old software that I use that does everything I need.  The software companies hate that.  But if they want to keep producing bloat, I’ll stay with the older, non-bloated software.  I can be more productive that way.  One of the big reasons that quality control has faded out and bloat has faded in is that software companies are so addicted to the massive profits from the 90’s era boom that they don’t want to scale back and rethink their approach.  It’s always “you must upgrade.  You have no other choice.  Your software is obsolete.”  I understand upgrading because there’s a need, such as a security update to patch a hole in the software or new features not available in an older version.  But being forced to upgrade without being given a choice for no reason other than the company is desperate for profits is just wrong.  Customer’s should never have to suffer through that experience, ever.  Companies, no matter the reason, should leave it up to the customer to decide if they should upgrade since it’s their money, and not the company’s, that’s at stake here.  Companies can still entice people to upgrade by offering them features and perks that are worth having, but they should never *force* their customers to upgrade for any reason other than security related issues.  I understand that security is a big reason for anything to be upgraded, but improving software company profits is not.  
But if security is the issue, the company should have to foot that bill for the upgrade by giving away free patches or full upgrades unless the transfer between versions is too great.  For example.  If a customer has version 2.5 and 2.6 is out, they shouldn’t have to pay to get 2.6 just because of a security issue that is the fault of the software company.  Now if they have 2.0 and 3.0 or 4.0 is out, then yes, the customer waited long enough that the company has every right to charge them for the new version because they’re getting more than just a security update.  They’re also getting a whole slew of new features.  Even if for example 2.6 has a bunch more features than 2.5, the jump is small enough that customers shouldn’t have to pay for the upgrade due to a few security issues which forced the upgrade.  But if the new features or changes are significant enough to warrant charging a fee, then a small upgrade fee would be applicable.  But certainly not the full upgrade or full version price.  Some software companies already do this as part of their support cycle, but there are a lot more who don’t.  I also hate faked obsolescence.  IE, providing supposedly new software that is nothing more than the old software in new clothing.  For example, I’ve looked at some programs that were supposedly full upgrades of the previous version and struggled to find what was new about them aside from a cool new UI and some eye candy.  The upgrade wasn’t required for any reason other than the company said you “had to have it or else.”  I’d like to know what that “or else” was, because it certainly couldn’t have been worth spending all that money for a pointless upgrade that did nothing more than the original.

And not just to point fingers at the software companies for forced obsolescence, bloatware and forced upgrades, I want to look at the hardware companies too.  I have a few things to say to the hardware OEM.  First, to the PC chip makers.  The Mhz wars are over.  Stop trying to outdo each other on the speed frontier.  By this point in history it’s pointless and childish to continue it.  Instead of trying to make faster chips, try making more power friendly ones.  Make them cooler.  Make them smaller.  Iron all the bugs out of the current design before you push for your next mhz boost.  Two cores is fine.  Four cores is a bit much.  Eight is excessive.  And eighty??  Now that’s just absurd and unnecessary.  Just stick with two cores and stick to making the chips smaller, cooler, and WAY more power efficient than they currently are while maintaining the currently achieved speeds.  And to the video card makers, I have a few things to say.  A power requirement of 250w for a video card is ridiculous!!  Video cards should not be required to have two or three power plugs just to satisfy their appetite for power!  The PCIe or AGP bus should provide everything needed.  And who needs three to four cards in their system to get everything they need??  Video cards should be no bigger than what the ATI 9800 was and everything needed should be able to fit onto a circuit board no bigger than the 9800 used.  There’s no way you should need to take up two expansion slots on your PC just fit in a video card.  Everything should be able to fit onto one card that runs cool, is power efficient with a low profit and is space conscious in the case.  Anything that takes up two expansion slots is just hardware bloat.

Now, if anyone needs any example of why such continued hard driving tactics of hardware expansion is destined to fail, they need look no farther than WW2.  While WW2 really doesn’t have anything to do with modern technology, the examples are just as applicable.  There are many cases during the war where generals pushed forward relentlessly, moving with all speed and available resources to achieve their targets.  Sure, they pushed the enemy into a corner in the process, but the problem came when the enemy counter attacked.  Since they had pushed so far, so fast, they were stretched too thin, their supply lines were too long, and they were vulnerable on all sides.  Rommel is a great example of this.  Using his brilliant tactical skills, he pushed through Africa several times, conquering the northern part of the continent with lightning speed only to come to the end of his resources and be thrown back just as quickly which cost him dearly in lives, men, equipment, and most importantly, land.  You can see the same thing in the tech industry.  There are too many companies who are over committed and the casualties are already mounting.  Sony is another great example of this with the PS3.  Sure, it’s a state of the art bleeding edge gaming console with a lot of technology that holds a lot of promise.  The problem is that it’s too much, too soon at too great a cost and ultimately it failed before ever really getting started.  Yet the Nintendo Wii came onto the scene with slightly above average technology and has sold like hotcakes.  Proof again that having the latest and greatest technology is not always a win all formula for success.
But there is still a way for companies to succeed while providing what customers really want. Here’s four things I’d like to see appear in the near future that will both give customers what they want and the sales companies want.

Hardware Companies:

1. A low power war. AKA, a war where the winner is whoever can make hardware that requires the absolute least amount of power. I’d like to see video cards that draw 25w. CPU’s that draw less than 30w. Printers that draw less than 1w. Etc, etc. The catch is, they can’t sacrifice any current performance while gaining that extremely low power requirement.
   
2. A size war. AKA, a war where the winner is whoever can pack the most horsepower into the smallest footprint possible. For example, put the power of an x1900 graphics card into the footprint of a low profile ATI9800.
   
3. A cooling war. AKA, a war where the winner is whoever can create the coolest running chip, card or device while not sacrificing any current performance.

Software Companies:

1. An anti-bloat war. AKA, a war where the winner is any software company that can create high performance, state of the art software with quality features, and maintain the lowest memory and hard drive footprint possible. An example of this would be in games. Being able to shrink down games that are 4.7 megs in size to just under 300 megs without sacrificing any quality or gameplay. And don’t say that’s impossible, because it’s been done already.

Now being that these wars are about conservation rather than performance, hardware companies don’t need to worry about increasing their performance during this time. Now as for the software companies, performance is everything during this time. They need to do everything they can to make their applications run as absolutely fast and stable as possible. The rest can just concentrate on the requirements I stated for each war I listed above. Then from there on out they should continue to try and adhere to these standards and maintain these wars whenever the next big mhz or framerate wars come around. But at this point, I think that those two wars should be put on the shelves again until at least 2012. That will probably draw a lot of boos and hisses from the ultimate performance groups, but so what? Money is where the majority is, and right now that money comes not from the ultimate performance groups, but from the average users. So, if you’re a software or hardware company, who do you want to cater to? The 7% who make up a fringe group, or the 93% who are the mainstream users. If you said the first one, you just failed business 101. I understand it’s fringe groups that drive the market for new products, but isn’t it time for the market to stop, step back, regroup and start focusing on the group that ultimately pays the bills? I am hoping they will.