As a continuation on my blog concerning good enough systems and IT as a commodity, many people are buying IT, be it software, hardware or services from whoever can supply the cheapest price. Boy is this scary.

I understand that everyone wants a bargain but as my mother used to say, pay less costs more. I will never admit that she was right.

I just bought some new fuses for my house, technically Minature Circuit Breakers (MCB), Residual Circuit Breakers (RCD) or RCCD's for the fuse box. I bought from reputable European suppliers as my families life can depend on the ability of one of these to detect a short circuit (residual current to be accurate) and quickly turn off the current. Cheaper ones may not "trip" or switch off fast enough or the mechanism may stick after a while. You can look up all the specs, B, C class etc if you do not believe me.

In the same way I will not buy the cheapest food for my family as this could easily cause short term sickness and a deterioration in long term health. I also will not buy the cheapest wine, even though you get blue teeth free when you drink Lambrusco. I can save a fortune eating the cheapest frozen pizzas, but will this have any positive benefits. Or will a population that ate the cheapest low cost food be a burden on society and future generations.

Will a company in the same way that has fed itself on the cheapest IT, suffer from malaise, unresponsiveness and general bad management because of lowest price infrastructure. Will it take a couple years to show the deterioration in services and extra costs of buying decisions where the cheapest low cost IT was the main criterior.

So why do companies buy the cheapest computers. Why don't we employ the cheapest staff, get the cheapest coffee, have the cheapest food in the company restaurant. We used to call this a false economy.

Computers are now an intrinsic part of societies infrastructure, if we want society and commerce to run smoothly we have to invest wisely.

Who wrote this " A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing".