In yesterday's post, I talked about the difference between just getting something done and providing quality work. My preference is to spend a little more time to do job right, instead of focusing on cutting corners and saving money. Again, saving money where possible is important, but is it more important than quality?
In today's post, I wanted to give you a glimpse of some of the brands that I rely on heavily for my daily, weekly, monthly, etc workflow. These are more than logos or brands. These are companies that provide quality products that I can rely on. Do they cost more upfront? In some cases, yes. But there's more to cost than just the upfront price tag. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is how much it cost you to own that piece of hardware or software for its lifetime, not just to walk out of the store with it in your hand.
Apple is the perfect cade study when it comes to analyzing TCO. I can purchase a 13" MacBook Pro for about $1,500. I can purchase a "similar" HP or Dell laptop for much less than that. However, are they really the same thing? I argue absolutely not. There's a clear difference in build quality, for example. But it goes much deeper than that (I could literally spend hours pleading my case in favor of Apple). Suffice it to say, they are different. When you consider what it will cost you to add the necessary hardware and software to the "cheap" HP or Dell to bring it to the level of the MacBook Pro, it can no longer be considered cheap. And don't forget the intangibles like downtime and frustration when the less-than-desired hardware fails over time. Again, this is one simple case study to illustrate my point.
Below is a list of some of the brands that I use in my office and the types of products I use them for:
Apple: Computers, wireless networking and software
Adobe: Creative software
Epson: Photo-quality printing & scanning
HP: Business printing
Bose: Audio equipment (speakers/headphones)
Cisco: Network switches/routers
Behringer: Audio equipment (mixers, speakers)
Mitsubishi: Video equipment
Drobo: Network Attached Storage (NAS) equipment
Citrix: Remote control/support systems
