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Obsolescence and
translators
Occasionally, a customer expresses a concern of
obsolescence about the translator they are about to buy.
While this concern is well-founded in the world
of computers, it is really not significant in the world of electronic
translators. The reasons:
- Long development cycles. It takes a long time
to develop a given translator model. That means whatever is the
latest model today is likely to be the latest model a year from
now.
- Long ROI times. It takes a very long time to
recapture the investment in R&D and product development for
any given model. Thus, once it's introduced, it stays on the
market for a long time.
- Long usage life. Computers become obsolete
because it takes ever more power to run third party applications.
The translators, however, are self-contained. If they work fine
today, they will work fine ten years from now. They don't become
obsolete in the sense computers do--by being unable to do basic
functions reasonably fast. They become obsolete only because a
more powerful or more user-friendly model is available. But, that
doesn't diminish the utility of the model you bought.
If you buy an Ectaco
TL-2 or
800 series translator, you will be buying not only the best
available device for the intended function, but one you can upgrade
with inexpensive
Multimedia Cards (MMCs). |
