New Software, Old Hardware

The life cycle of PCs is now three to four and a half years, says Yankee Group analyst Laura DiDio. Operating system upgrades also must wait until hardware is refreshed -- though many organizations are installing new operating systems on existing equipment rather than buying new hardware for the new software.

According to a June survey by UBS Investment Research, when Microsoft Corp.'s Vista debuts, companies will be more likely to install it on existing hardware than they would have been with previous operating systems. Indeed, 40 percent of the 60 respondents indicated that they would upgrade existing PCs rather than replace them.

From a durability perspective, computers can go even longer than current refresh cycles, says Howard Locker, chief architect for mobile and desktop development at Lenovo. "A desktop can last seven years easy," he says. Laptops are less durable because of the abuse they undergo. Despite sturdier case designs and innovations such as hard disk drives that park read heads as soon as motion is detected, most laptops won't last more than three years without breaking, Locker says.

"Most of our failures are related to the hard drive," says Jim O'Grady, director of high-performance file system technology value solutions at Hewlett-Packard Co.