Slashdot Mirror
Dell Refuses to Sell Ubuntu to Business
An anonymous reader writes "I had a surreal experience with Dell today.
My boss asked me to order a new computer for our small, non-profit business. Wanting to support Dell in their decision to sell computers with Ubuntu installed, I decided to order one.
First, I talked to a small business representative, who informed me that I could not order one of the Ubuntu-based computers through the small business department. I had to go through the "home and home office" department.
I called the Home office department. I asked the representative if I could buy one of the ubuntu computers for my company. She said (and I quote), "these Dell computers are designed for personal use only, as long as you use it for personal use, you can purchase one."
So I lied and said I would....
Next, I tried to buy it on our business credit card. They would have none of that. She told me that I had to buy it through a personal card. Now, as a non-profit, our business does not pay sales tax (10% in Tennessee). Had I bought it with my own card, I would have had to pay tax (~$90), which my company would not have reimbursed me for. So.....no Dell today."
Dell segments its business based on how customers are perceived to use their systems. This is why a consumer can't purchase a Latitude notebook, yet Small Business customers can. Support is also divided along these lines for the most part. You can purchase Gold Support "highly recommended" on business machines but not so on the consumer machines. Ubuntu Linux, as far as I can tell, is being offered as a consumer grade operating system at this time.
I would wager if you talked to the Small Business sales rep again you could still purchase an nSeries system with FreeDOS on it or you can purchase a Precision Workstation with Red Hat Linux. Simply go to www.dell.com/nseries.
I was interested in supporting Dell and it's Ubuntu decision. I'm not traditionally an Ubunutu user. I've SuSE/openSuse on my 3 year old Dell laptop since I got it years (didn't have any hardware compatibility issues and auto-detected everything important) and otherwise use CentOS and Debian but thought it would be worth buying one just to ease hardware selection since laptop hardware changes so much.
I looked at the specs for the Ubuntu laptop. 6 pounds! Holy crap, no way in hell I'm lugging that around. My current Dell laptop is under 3lbs. I brought up the page for Dells smallest laptop and wanted to compare the hardware to their Ubuntu one. I buy under government/higher-ed. Guess what...no mention of Ubuntu as an OS option in that category. Looks like it's only available in the Home section.
Ho hum, back to the old fashioned way. Checked for wifi support before I bought the littlest one, paid the MS tax, and kept my fingers crossed.
Dell's Ubuntu option is a nice idea, but restricting it to a single Laptop isn't all that engaging.
Except that I don't want to pay for OS X if I'm just going to use it for a FOSS OS... another user did point out, quite correctly as I found, that you could just purchase a Dell with FreeDOS for businesses... why, why, why.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
My guess is this probably has a lot to do with tech support. They outsource their support to the lowest bidders, and the lowest bidder then runs their support through a call center in India or some little podunk town in the states. These people then hire anybody able to speak into a headset. Some don't know anything about a computer other than how to play solitaire, others can barely turn one on. Teaching a whole new operating system to them would take years, IF it could be done at all. That's why they dropped the hardware support, and why they can't sell them to businesses. They know they have no way of offering reliable support for them, and they dont want to piss off their business customers with horrible tech support and risk getting a lawsuit against them for lost revenue.
I loath Microsoft, but I understand where Dell is coming from with their lack of support for Ubuntu, it's just not financially viable to train agents to support it. They have to protect the stockholders first and customers come second. I disapprove of this system, but that's a rant for another thread. I see a day in the distant future where Dell will slowly begin expanding it's Ubuntu selection and support. But i think it will be a long long time, and people complaining about how poorly they are doing now is only going to discourage their effort.
No, consumers in general are dumb. If they weren't, they would be customers.
Thus I feel vaguely insulted every time someone calls me a consumer.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Being in a company that has a license so that every computer/server I purchase must be purchased from Dell, I now know that Dell is very anti-Linux in the workplace. I had one server start blowing white smoke out the back just before it burned up and died. I called Dell to try and get it fixed under warranty. They asked for some Windows code. I told them I had RedHat on it. They said that since I put a non-Windows OS on it, I voided the warranty. Later, I had a desktop PC lose a harddrive. I called to see if I could get a replacement drive under warranty. They told me I had to try to run some Windows diagnostic program. I explained that the drive is dead - so I can't run anything - and it was running Fedora anyway. Oops. Since it didn't have Windows, it isn't covered under warranty. Again, I had another desktop with a broken CD tray straight out of the box. I called to complain. This time, I didn't even put Linux on it because I couldn't - the CD tray wouldn't open enough to get the Linux CD in there. They looked at my history and said that they don't warranty my computers because I have a history of installing unsupported operating systems on them.
The previous comment is purposely vague and generalized, but all of the facts are completely true.
Even with the news of Dell having Ubuntu systems (including laptops) I still went with System76 for reason exactly like this story. I have been happy with their service and support and I am glad I bought my laptop from them.
The keyboard on the laptop (Pangolin Value) is not as good as my IBM work laptop, but not bad. The display is great though, which is what I care about most.
>Due to an extremely silly incident involving a support contract a server running an Oracle instance, I've avoided DeLL for years
Did they insist on you shutting down a production server to run their stupid diagnostics tool when you called in a bad disk?
They did this to us a few years ago. They kept on refusing to send a replacement disk, insisting on *proof* that the disk was indeed bad. The diagnostics software they wanted us to use required us to shut down the server, which would have been extremely disruptive. Eventually we just said forget it, called back, and got a different rep who eventually finally caved and sent us the disk.
Granted, this was years ago, and their service has since improved, but that was a pretty brain-dead policy to have even back then.
-Z
I hear *tons* of horror stories about Dell's customer service... My short experience was far from a horror story.
I ordered my laptop without checking the screen resolution (a big no-no, I know, but it just didn't occur to me). So when I got it, I was surprised to find that my max resolution was 1280x960.
I called Dell's customer service to ask if I could return it and purchase a laptop with a higher screen resolution (1680x1050, the highest they offer on a 15" laptop). Obviously, I was expecting to pay the difference in price, or get the first purchase refunded and then pay the second purchase price.
The lady I spoke with said she'd see what she could do and call me back.
She called the next morning saying she arranged an unlike exchange - Not only did she get the laptop exchanged for free (So I got a $100 upgrade for free), I was able to keep the first laptop until I recieved the second one so I didn't have to go a week or so without a computer.
So... Not *all* Dell Customer Service stories are horror.