Computer Solutions: Seven Steps to Buying Software

As the price of computer hardware continues to plummet, more and more contractors are giving in and buying new machines and software to help them run their businesses. Worn down by the media blitz and ad campaigns, and by the increasing appearance of “dot com” in the logo of brand name construction products, even staunch holdouts have been dragged, kicking and screaming, into the Computer Age. They figure that with a couple of cheap computers and some software from the trade show, all of their problems will be solved. In no time at all, they’ll be doing their own structural engineering, printing out income statements, designing in 3-D photo-realism, and teaching their secretaries to do all those estimates they’ve been