The company will give you a credit for those old 486s and up, and it will set up an upgrade plan where your monthly costs are fixed but the computer is refreshed. It will even send you a box in which to ship those old clunkers back. Any manager who has stared at a closet full of old systems that have been transformed from productivity tools to hazardous waste will appreciate the thought put in to the graceful exit from one product generation to the next. Often, it is a combination of local service and the promise that its expertise can save you transitional pain as you move from one platform to the next. Micron, which is closely tying its future to continued NT penetration, aims to build an unmatched NT knowledge database.
Systems integrators are only as knowledgeable as the number of projects they've completed.
It is simply easier to configure, order and maintain inventory via the Web from a direct vendor. If that same simplicity and availability can be applied to easing a transition to NT, the channel will have to deal with the cost efficiencies that the direct vendors enjoy. No matter how you connect to the Internet, it's never fast enough. You've got files to download, pages to see. So don't just wait there.