Making Headlines

With fewer consumer dollars spent on brand-new items of all sorts, recent economic turmoil may actually mean a windfall (or at least an uptick in activity) for Fort Lauderdale computer repair organizations.

It used to be true that a consumer would pay $1,100 in a second if faced with computer repair that cost more than about $300. Why pay the money when you could just upgrade for not that much more, right? That was the rationale.

But in the last several months, the turbulent and often declining U.S. economy is forcing many Floridians (and Americans in general) to rethink this.

So many people rely on their computers, according to one Boca Raton computer repair expert, that such a business is, to certain degrees, recession-resistant.

Customers are not eager to "pay for expensive Band-Aids" on older pieces of machinery. But if said repairs become slightly less expensive, and their disposable income is a little tighter, that formula changes awfully quick.

"Nowadays, everybody lives on their computer. A lot of times you uncover the problem and it's a lot more expensive to fix than the customer thought. The hard drive is about to fail," said one local Ft. Lauderdale computer repair technician.

"Your average computer repair is probably about $200. That's not a small sum of money, but it's far less than replacing the entire machine and starting fresh."

Consumers who are paying $600-$2,000 for a modern PC or laptop are more willing to pay for a repair, area companies have said, because that sum is no longer that easy to come by when and if a replacement is required.

"If I had to rely entirely on new technology," one Fort Lauderdale computer repair technician said, "I'd effectively have to close up shop."