The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Coimbatore News : Computer dealers express concern

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Mar 04, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore

Computer dealers express concern

By A. A. Michael Raj

COIMBATORE, MARCH 3. From the outside, most computer showrooms have a prosperous look. Futuristic machines glitter upon shelves and stands, with spotlights on the ceiling throwing bright cones of light upon shrink-wHowever, computer dealers in the city say that the outlook is not very bright, mainly because sale prices hover far too low to make enough profit. It was not a subject most dealers were comfortable speaking about; but they admitted that refurbished products from abroad were getting into the Indian market at very low prices.

"Profit levels in the computer hardware trade are just one to two per cent," said one established dealer in the city, displaying the sales figures on his laptop to prove his point.

"Customers think that computers should work without a problem, like TV sets".For desktop computers, the main customers were college students seeking a powerful machine at a price they could afford.

Buyers often would not take into account the price of proprietary software and anti virus programmes, and become upset on finding that they had to spend more than they intended, to keep the computer working properly.

When customers became finicky about the price, dealers sold the computers without `onsite support' for technical problems.

Failure rate

Another hitch that dealers faced were that even the best companies reported a three per cent failure rate. It might take 15 to 20 days for a replacement to arrive and the fault to be rectified. At such times, customers who had paid for preventive maintenance and technical support get priority over others.

However, dealers had a good word for companies and institutions that had bought and installed computers in bulk. Corporate buyers were more likely to pay for technical support and licensed software, besides regularly updating anti virus programmes.

Institutional customers could not afford `downtime' on computers, so they usually had system administrators who were diligent about preventive maintenance. Consequently, there were fewer service problems.

Low costs often meant that customers favoured pirated software that was prone to malfunction because of not being updated, or because it was easy prey for viruses.

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