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Short-change

[ 2010-04-28 10:31]

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Reader’s question:

Pinching pennies when building a cloud infrastructure will short-change a company, not only by delivering cloud systems with performance that doesn't match end-user expectations, but also by restricting the potential of an extraordinarily flexible technology, Song says. Could you explain “short-change”?

My comments:

To short-change someone is literally to give less than the correct change to them for a product or service.

Say you pay a vendor a dollar for a drink that costs 50 cents. The vendor gives you the drink with a quarter back as change. The vendor gets the arithmetic wrong. He should’ve given you 50 cents, or two quarters back instead of one. In other words, he comes short on the change. Or, putting it another way, you’ve got short-changed on the drink.

Similarly, people can get shortchanged on a service. That means they’re unfairly treated when they get less service than what they pay for or deserve.

In the above example, companies are urged not to pinch pennies (be unwilling to spend as much money as needed) when building a cloud infrastructure because inadequate investment might lead to an inadequate system being built – which fails to realize the full potential of an extraordinarily flexible technology and which eventually fails to meet customer (end-user) expectations.

In the end, it’s the penny-pinching companies that get shortchanged – failing to get their money’s worth in return.

Alright?

Go to Zhang Xin's column

本文僅代表作者本人觀點，與本網立場無關。歡迎大家討論學術問題，尊重他人，禁止人身攻擊和發布一切違反國家現行法律法規的內容。

About the author:

Zhang Xin has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.

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