I think a really sad thing about our technology is that name brands don't necessarily mean the system will be all that good. For every pissed off Compaq customer I've found a pissed off Dell customer. That goes for most of the vendors out there. They mostly provide support from the same third party call centers. I was working with a Dell box a few nights ago and tried to call them to ask a question. After being on hold on my cell phone for 10 minutes I hung up and figured out a workaround on my own. I can't think of one brand name computer that I haven't also run into a disgruntled customer. A big part of the problem is that the customer's expectations are too high for what any company doing end-user support can afford to supply. Commercial customers expect a high level of service and pay for it. Retail customers expect that same level of service but have purchases hardware with what is often a 10% margin. Recently this has been less - like maybe 6-7%. The first support call wipes out the company's profit margin on that box. No wonder the companies try to off-shore their support...
-Alex ----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Greater NH Linux User Group" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 12:41 PM Subject: Re: Wireless weirdness (was: NT Stuff) On Wed, 15 Jan 2003, at 12:16pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Thing is though Ben, the machine I had the most trouble with was > manufactured by a now merged PC company called Compaq. That's nice. Was it on the HCL? :-) > With the original factory installation the machine wouldn't run more than > an hour or so without crashing or blue screening. I would have had some strong words for the vendor in that case. Actually, *I* wouldn't, because I wouldn't buy a Compaq if someone else paid for it. But that's another issue. ;-) > In fact I don't remember ever seeing a stable AMD K6 based system. I have. I have also seen plenty that are *not* stable. There is one infamous motherboard, the FIC VA-503, which I have *never* seen run Windows successfully (sample = four units, three vendors, two different sites). It does run Linux well, but as near as I can tell, Windows simply will not run. The same processors worked fine in other motherboards, but not that one. Come to think of it, I have also seen motherboards for Intel chips which never ran right, either. Point being: You're quick to point the finger at the CPU, but I suspect the problem lies elsewhere. There *are* a disproportionately higher number of crap motherboards (and core logic chipsets) for AMD's chips, because AMD is a much bigger presence in the "low end" sector of the market. -- Ben Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | The opinions expressed in this message are those of the author and do not | | necessarily represent the views or policy of any other person, entity or | | organization. All information is provided without warranty of any kind. | _______________________________________________ gnhlug-discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss _______________________________________________ gnhlug-discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
