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From...
Experienced PC users shell out less money than newbies
August 6, 1998
Web posted at: 2:00 PM EDT
by Nancy Weil
(IDG) -- A new study has found that experienced home PC users are spending less than novices for their computers, a finding with implications for business users, said market researcher Inteco Corp.
Inteco surveyed 2,495 home PC users and found that before July of last year, when sub-$1,000 PCs became widely available, experienced computer users spent an average of $2,020 for a PC and a monitor, while first-time buyers spent only $1,880.
Although average spending for first-time buyers has remained consistent since last July, the average spent by experienced PC users has dropped below that figure, Inteco found. The survey results suggest that experienced PC users are buying less-expensive machines rather than replacing existing computers with higher-end models.
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And it's likely that the same trend is occurring in businesses, although applications there often demand more-expensive PCs, said Mark Snowden, an analyst at Inteco, in Norwalk, Conn.
"Except for some applications that always have and always will need the highest spec available, for a lot of people, a cheap PC is adequate," Snowden said. "Conceivably, as intranets become more widely used at work, applications like document sharing or conferencing may push the spec up again. But those are still for fairly high-end users and not for clerical staff."
The growth of the low-end market has not entirely stalled sales among more experienced users, however. It has, in fact, spurred some users to replace older machines and also to buy additional computers for their homes. And Snowden noted a push from the business to the consumer environment, where home networks are beginning to emerge as a hot market. Home users increasingly have multiple PCs and are setting up "simple" networks that share high-speed Internet access and printers, he said.