Has your business died?????

[britechguy]

Once they all retire it'll be interesting to see where things go from there.

The death of almost any technology is both:

1. Inevitable, eventually.

2. Prematurely reported, pretty consistently.

The death of the keyboard as an input method has been being forecast for a very, very long time now. In reality, I don't see it going away anytime soon where intensive data entry or writing is involved. It's survived, whether on a typewriter or a computer, for as long as it has not for reasons of nostalgia, but utility and ability to control. Even with the vast improvements in voice recognition and speech-to-text, I wouldn't go that route even for doing things like writing these posts.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Desktop isn't going anywhere. Laptops are being replaced by phones.

Desktops are going VIRTUAL! Which is what M365 Business Premium is for... that's WHY it includes a desktop OS license.

 

[britechguy]

Laptops are being replaced by phones.

I truly do not see this, now or in the future, where "serious work involving a lot of data entry" is required. Phones have definitely taken over where "tap, tap, tap," type data entry is all that's needed, and where that's needed keeps expanding.

But I see a lot more replacement of towers with laptops happening, now, because people want the option to "pick up and go" if needed both in business and personal settings.

I don't think that towers, laptops, or phones are going away. There will be a major shift from left to right in that short list, but all are still going to be around over the long term. Tools to tasks . . .

 

[Sky-Knight]

@britechguy data entry is done on desktops, not laptops.

There are of course exceptions... but as you say a solid keyboard is the name of the game here. And you can't really get that on a laptop, it doesn't exist at all on a tablet.

 

[britechguy]

a solid keyboard is the name of the game here. And you can't really get that on a laptop

We're going to have to agree to disagree on that one. For this personal example of one (and it's not limited to that, as I've had plenty of anecdotal evidence) once laptops became practical from a processing power perspective solid keyboards were there, too.

I have no preference in regard to a conventional keyboard versus a laptop keyboard. I can sit down at either and use both with precisely equal facility and precision, and I'm not alone.

And I actually love a mousepad compared to a mouse as I don't have to remove a hand from the keyboard. The laptop is way more "efficient" for me as far as heavy duty data entry goes.

I've even begun using keyboard shortcuts to a much greater extent than is typical among sighted users because of my work with individuals who are blind or significantly visually impaired. A lot of things most of us (and I'll include myself here, too) do via point and click can be done much more quickly with keyboard shortcuts if you happen to know what those are. Most never learn, as GUIs directly discourage that.

 

[sapphirescales]

June & July are my slowest months - always have been. That being said, I've gotten some pretty big tickets this month so it's very close to being a normal month for me profit-wise. I had a past client buy $12,000 worth of refurbished laptops from me and I've gotten a few $4,000+ custom build jobs. That being said, I've seen a lot fewer clients this month so far...only 15 clients in the last 23 days. But that's normal for June/July. But honestly, I'm still working full days. These larger tickets require a lot more work. Getting 11 laptops ready for that client took me almost two full days because he wanted upgraded RAM and larger SSDs in the computers. Mind you I worked on other stuff those days too, but I'd say 80% of those two days was devoted to getting those laptops ready. It was a real pain in the butt juggling all those Windows/Office licenses and getting everything installed and activated.

 

[Appletax]

Doing real good because the local big IT company no longer does residential repairs and they are sending everyone my way. Holy crap I am blessed by this.

 

[Galdorf]

Where i live businesses have been hit hard over a dozen computer stores have closed their doors for good as well as other service industries there are no more electronic repair shops in my area.
As for my business i have never seen it this bad in over 35 years since service industry is shutdown due to covid that was my bread and butter now they just opened last week going to take time for something to break and get service calls.

 

[sapphirescales]

July has been absolutely terrible for me. But like I said in my last post in this thread, June & July are always my worst months. I've only made about $6,000 so far this month and I've only had 8 clients. I have no lack of things to do in my house. I spent all freaking day yesterday re-organizing a single shelving unit. Some of the things I took off the shelf required work, for example I had a WiFi 6 PCI-e card sitting on that shelf that I needed to install in my main download computer, so I went ahead and did that. Of course, my main download computer was dusty as all heck so I had to blow it out. Installing the card and blowing out the computer took 45 minutes alone. The shelf also had my main hard drives on it, so I had to swap out about 12 hard drives in my Dell PowerEdge server. That took another hour. I'm overwhelmed with how much stuff I have in my house. It's all computer equipment and it all requires HOURS of work to even move it, unless of course I just want to pile the mess somewhere else, but I don't like to do that.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

We're going through the roof! Surrounded by about a dozen new computers on the bench getting unbuckled to go out to various clients. And it's starting to get hard to get new laptops and computers.

With businesses adapting to "work from home"...and having seen it works for the past year, and wanting to stay competitive and keep their clients, they're evolving.....I have some clients downsizing their offices, finding office space with lower rent, and setting up staff to work from home with fancier setups. I'm doing orders of Thinkpads with 2x USB-C Gen2 docks with 4x monitors...and a pair of KB/mice. 1x dual monitor setup at the office, 1x dual monitor setup at home. Employee takes laptop back 'n forth.

 

[HFultzjr]

I'm sloooowly crawling back from pre-covid. 2020 was a disaster

 

[callthatgirl]

June was slow this year and in 2020 and 2019. It's now a trend and so next June, I'll focus on marketing.

 

[Blues]

I left IT roughly 5 years ago but maintained a side gig of doing IT work but during the last year I have only done work for friend and family and have not advertised my services at all. I am considering stepping up my side work again now that things are becoming more normal compared to the last year.

 

[Sky-Knight]

It looks like July will close out a record month for me. I've had leads pop up for projects from sources that I thought dried up 10 years ago.

Crap... be weird.

 

[onduck]

We had an absolutely insane March 2020 - May 2021. Busier than we have ever been. June seemed a bit more biz as usual for us and I'd say July was much quieter. I don't think we're complaining though. Last year was exhausting with almost no downtime. Ebbs and flows are our normal.