The Penn Manor School District was featured in the local paper today for its decision to switch from Apple to Lenovo, saving it a few hundred thousand dollars. The notebooks use the Ubuntu Linux operating system, Google Docs, etc.
And they’re likely to choose an Android tablet over the iPad.
Today, Fred blogged about the new line of Samsung phones, which are pretty sweet (though I still think too pricey). And I thought, well, my iPhone 3Gs is good enough for what I need.
We’ve gotten to a point in the tech world where you can get decent design, great performance, and good enough for a pretty cheap price. I’m considering a free Android phone to replace my broken iPhone. But I’m also thinking about simply fixing it.
The fact is that hardware and software have finally reached a point where the incremental increases in performance and usability no longer have a dramatic impact. The speed increases are no longer perceptible to humans in most cases.
We’ve reached the performance plateau, where it no longer makes a lot of sense to buy the latest and greatest, because last year’s model–or the year before that, or the year before that–is good enough.
Which is an interesting and dangerous place for the industry to be in. So what’s next?