Cynthetiq

Durable goods orders can can be up many companies no longer purchase some if not many durable goods. Leasing is where it is at since there is no capital expense and no depreciation hits or complicated formulas to lock in for several years.

Many corporates no longer purchase computers, copiers and other imaging tools, and a host of other goods.

Computers are on 3 year leases ensuring that A) it is not a capital expenditure, it is now an operational expense instead of a capital purchase B) since computer lifecycles are less than 3 years it makes retooling sense C) warranty repair on a 3 year old computer costs more for the company providing it than selling a new one. This applies to many of the durable goods you are citing.

In effect, every 3 years our company replaces every single computer in our office. I've been at the company for 4 years now and have had 2 new computers, with no additional benefit since it was Windows XP before on the legacy machine. Windows XP on the first replacement and on the second replacement. Corporate is very leery of changing OS due to interoperability with legacy applications. My application will not work on IE8, and must run on IE6 or IE7. We're moving to Win7 in the next year or two but my app will have to be specially targeted because of that limitation.

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