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Published on 01/22/1996 All articles from this issue

Los Altos Hills switching from Apple computers to an IBM compatible PC system

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By Clyde Noel / Town Crier Staff Writer

The Los Altos Hills City Council unanimously approved switching their computer base from an Apple operating system to a IBM compatible computer system at last Wednesday's council meeting.

In addition to purchasing new computers, Jeff Peterson, Los Altos Hills city manager, asked for approval to purchase the LandTech Parcel Data base system.

According to Peterson, the budget for the transition will be less than $59.000. Projected system cost is $35,000 for hardware, $4,000 for printers and $5,000 each for software, network and service agreements.

The data base system is intended for the primary source of private property information on residents and the street right-of-way information. The city council and staff will likely benefit immediately from the ability to access county assessor information.

"Several computers are 4-5 years old and on the blink, and mine never comes up the first time," Peterson said. "We will have to make the change soon or we are going to lose data. Our recommendation is to have a main data bank and save money. We need to get new computers anyway."

The council action was in no way connected to the Apple's announced decision last week to discontinue production of low-end personal computers that compete with IBM clones.

The change to a PC-based platform was the recommendation by the Technology Improvement Committee.

Council member Sid Hubbard remarked that the memory seems a bit low to do the work. "I can see purchasing a little more memory at this time," Hubbard said. "The nice thing is the internal e-mail that we can use for meetings. When you all have the same system, you tend to use the system more."

"It has been found that the variety of software available for Macintosh computers is very limited, expecially the technical and business related software that is most commonly used by theTown," Peterson said. "So to begin with staff members will receive PCs and the building department will continue with Macs. Information on Macs that will be phased out will be downloaded to tapes."