Leader: Is new kit a waste of money?

With hardware vendors continually hounding IT chiefs, it's no wonder they cave in and purchase a bit of new kit from time to time.

Why not? Who doesn't want the latest and greatest gear? And it's worth it because the speediest equipment makes everyone more productive, right?

Not quite. We've heard from IT chiefs and a wider audience of all our readers that quite often older hardware does the job just fine, thank you very much.

Do you have any 'antique' kit in your IT department?

Then post a Reader Comment below telling us what it is and what it does - or even better why not take a photo of it and email it to us. We'll publish the best ones.

Our reader poll showed nearly two-thirds still use hardware that's more than five years old - and only two per cent claim all their IT equipment is less than two years old.

IT chiefs argue older modems are fine for certain low-speed tasks and old servers are great for testing. One IT director said it's compatibility and support - not the device's ability to do its job - that usually forces him to upgrade, meaning it's the vendors who get tired of the antique kit, not the users.

So is new hardware entirely overrated?

Not always. There's the 'green' angle, for one. Newer IT equipment tends to be more energy efficient than legacy hardware, which can be a major concern in light of rising energy costs and the threat of climate change.

Even the Queen made environmental issues a priority in her speech yesterday - a move which caused the hardware vendors, already so eager to please on environmental issues, jump out of their seats and start sending us press releases.

On the other hand, the other great 'green IT' concern besides energy consumption is hardware recycling - so the more kit you throw away, the more pollution you create.

You can't win, can you?

What's the oldest piece of functioning hardware in your IT department? Post a Reader Comment below telling us what it is and what it does - or even better, take a photo of it and email it to us. We'll publish the best ones.