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Aucbvax.1903 fa.works utzoo!duke!decvax!ucbvax!DPR@MIT-XX Wed Jun 24 05:07:41 1981 Productivity gains without using workstations Kirsch has an extremely valid point. The fundamental question is what leverage does computerization provide in doing a function. However, let's not be miserly--even Xerox STAR's are incredibly cheap as an investment, so the amount of leverage they must provide is small.

Personally, I think companies with cash to invest ought to invest it in ecnomic sectors of maximum productivity gain--however, there are immense barriers to this. Most companies restrict themselves to internal reinvestment of their funds. Since our largest and least productive companies have the higher percentages of funds to invest, and since they are largely white-collar offices, there is a great move toward office automation, even though productivity gains are slim in most office applications.

The sterling exception to this observation about the utility of workstations lies in tools of high leverage like VisiCalc--which make order of magnitude changes in labor required to do a task. The Star seems to be able to do this with the production of business graphics--but I am not sure that they will be largely used in this domain, or if the graphics thus produced would have been produced had there not been a Star.

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