By Chua Hian Hou

COST-CUTTING companies are putting off replacing office computers in a move that could dampen staff productivity and morale if workers have to tangle with plodding machines.

Sales of desktop computers to companies slumped 8.9 per cent in the last quarter of last year, compared to figures in the last quarter of 2007. Notebook sales fell by slightly less - 5.5 per cent.

Technology analysis firm IDC, which collated the numbers, said cost-cutting was one major reason for the dip.

Its Asia-Pacific director for personal systems research, Mr Bryan Ma, said companies here were hanging on to their ageing machines. It used to be the norm to replace them every four to six years.

Nowadays, companies will buy new machines only when the old ones have been run into the ground, or when it is more expensive to replace a broken part than to buy a new computer, he said.

This is the first dip in sales since 2001. In the run-up to the expected bite by the Y2K bug in 2000, many companies upgraded their machines and so did not need to buy new equipment for a few years after that.

Mr David Ang, executive director of the Singapore Human Resources Institute, said it was understandable for companies to go on using still-working computers for another year or two.

However, in a still-profitable engineering firm, for example, holding back can be a bad idea, he added. The lowered productivity from forcing staff to work on old and sluggish machines can hurt the bottom line more than if money had been put into buying new machines.

Machines slow down as users load them with more software programs.

The result: 'Everything you do takes longer,' said Mr Ma. He added that using outmoded equipment can 'degrade morale and frustrate employees'.

Mr Simon Tan, for instance, is getting frustrated with his six-year-old desktop computer, which takes 20 minutes to boot up and shut down every day.

However, he understands why his company, a small local trading firm, has to put off replacing it. He realises it is better to have a slow machine than to have to take a pay cut.

Not all employees are this understanding, especially when slow computers hit them where it hurts.

In the United States, companies like telecommunications giant AT&T have been sued by disgruntled hourly-rated employees, angry that their companies were refusing to pay them for the half-hour it took for their computers to start up and shut down daily.

A National Law Journal article last November noted a rise in such lawsuits in the US. No such suits have been reported in Singapore.

In some companies like HBO, though, forgoing the replacement of computers is not an option - downturn or not. The pay TV content company upgrades its employees' computers every three years, said its spokesman Karen Lai, and will continue to do so when necessary.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.