It took 6 weeks for this request to be emailed around to various people for approval and no one (I saw the email chain) had the balls to make a decision or even give their opinion on the matter. Luckily, it finally hit someone that had both a brain and balls, whose reaction was basically "of course, give it to him immediately, the extra cost is meaningless."
The point of this is, at least to some degree, costs are not what hampers IT, you can offer to pay for something and they will still not let you have it. At mt previous job I got some very suspicious looks from a manager for bringing my own printer to work (to save 5 minutes a day walking to the printer).
I've seen it in many companies.....there's something else going on other than just budget, but I can't put my finger on it.
If you think for yourself and get it wrong then your boss won't be happy. If you just pass the request around then you can't be blamed.
If an entrepreneur sticks his neck out for an opportunity that has high risk but potentially high rewards, he's doing it because he expects to get a large portion of the rewards if he's successful. In a big "enterprise" company, your share of the reward for sticking your neck out is likely to be, if you're lucky, nothing more than a Lucite plaque and a mention in your review. But your share of the risk could be quite a bit larger (loss of your job for example). All the individual incentives in most organizations are tilted toward risk avoidance.
Here's another question: why is it that execs tend to always get the snazziest new gear, not the people doing real computing? Argh.
Where I worked it was very hard to get a new machine because it was a capital expenditure, which affected tax, depreciation and budgeting. Ongoing expenses were easy though, because the tax effect was different.
Take a snapshot of a fresh OS install, with all necessary applications installed, running on the old hardware. Compare that with a snapshot of the old OS (before reinstallation), running on the new hardware. Generally, unless the hardware is really old, reinstalling Windows will get you a snappier system back.
If you're using an old HDD, consider swapping for a SSD.
If a little more performance is needed, consider overclocking the CPU by 15-20% if that's possible (a cpu cooler is much cheaper than a new machine).
Additionally, you should disable all graphic "special effects", Aero and other crap that comes with Windows.
If configuration changes like Aero or an SSD make a decent difference then the IT department are best placed to make them. They know all of the possible side effects, and when they get it right the benefit will reach everyone in the company.
Rather, those 7.5 hours are less interrupted by waits, lag, pauses and compiles. Switching from IDE to reference is more seamless, and so the preservation of flow is much more likely.
But then companies are seldom that aware of what's going on. Back in my Consulting Engineer days, I spent plenty of time trying to explain the simple math: "since you're billing me out at a 3.5 multiplier, it actually makes you more money to give me a raise". It never flew. So eventually I did.
Personally, I'm all in favor of big companies behaving this way. Less efficiency in other shops is a competitive advantage for mine.
I once worked with a guy who used a 10 year old blurry "CRT" monitor. Repeatedly, I told to at least switch to LCD, but he wouldn't do it, citing that it would require a "business justification". If I were him, that monitor would have met with an unfortunate accident.
In such an environment, asking for a workstation that goes beyond "secretary grade" specs paints one as a gear-dandy.
Well there's your first mistake. This could just as easily be an argument to stop using crappy MS products.
(yhea yhea, i know, never going to happen).
ha. mail > /dev/managment_blackhole
