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The Ignominious Fall of Dell
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Bill Snyder discusses the ignominious decline of Dell, one akin to that of Computer Associates, leaving the company forever tainted by scandal and a 'shocking breach of faith with customers.' Dell's pioneering business model and supply chain helped make desktop computing ubiquitous, affordable, and secure. But years of awful quality control and customer service have finally caught up to the company in a very public way that will do irreparable damage to the company for years to come. 'What we've learned about Dell recently doesn't qualify as an understandable mistake. Only a rotten company sells defective computers and lies about it.'"
"Only a rotten company sells defective computers and lies about it."
Maybe the users are holding them wrong?
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
I'm all for Dell bashing, but what happened to America where the accused are presumed innocent until proven guilty. It seems like every lawsuit implies some guilt on the part of the accused? Really?
believing the big bang requires a certain amount of supernatural faith
I think it might be a bit early for "Dell is the Devil".
The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is what punches workers in the nuts.
Really is there any PC maker that is 100% great and excellent? I'm sure that Dell's faults aren't any worse than HP, Toshiba's, Gateway's, or any other major maker of PCs.
About the only way you can make sure you get decent PC hardware is to build it yourself or have enough knowledge to sub in and out parts if need be.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Does anyone here care to name a PC manufacturer with a spotless record of turning out nothing but quality, or who has always been 100% up front about dealing with legitimate manufacturing problems?
They've all turned out crap and they've all reliably concerned themselves with their own bottom lines first and foremost. It doesn't excuse Dell, but I can't really see why they need to be singled out either.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
Defective phones and lies about it?
I've been a corporate customer of Dell for ages and I've never had a problem with any of my systems. Their laptops have been some of the best I've used. Why all the doom and gloom? What's the problem? Has their CEO been indicted for baby-eating or something?
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
"We got greedy."
End of the story. No, seriously. Most companies in this industry have sunk not because their product or brand sucked, or the economy went bad, etc.; Most die because of bad management. Anyone remember Northgate computer systems? Very promising company. If it had maintained its profile it would be bigger than Dell today, but corporate mismanagement torpedoed it during the 90s -- during a period of economic growth and a huge upswing in computer sales.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
hardware reliability or quality, arguably. I just filled out a Purchase order for ~1mil. in dell hardware. all our megacorp cares about is how good is the corporate support, how fast to return parts arrive, how big is the discount.
uptime and scalability are all our concerns. for us to care about dell lying would be calling the kettle black.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Let's face it, all corporations are deceitful sacks of s**t. That's the norm for business these days. Presumably it wasn't always like this, but nowadays it's the way it is. Lie, cheat, spin, whatever it takes. If that doesn't work, pretend ignorance and innocence going into the lawsuit. This is modern capitalism.
I've been telling my customers for years about how wonderful the hardware that dell uses is. And by wonderful I mean you buy one, hope you get a year out of it, then buy another. I have a stack of Dell/HP/All other junk machine motherboards all with puffed caps. Kind of Makes my job much easier. Customer calls and says thier pc is crashing or wont start. I ask what brand, they say dell, and I know right away what to look for. 2 seconds to open the machine. 2 more seconds to see the puffed caps. 2 minutes explaining why and what happened. 5 minutes later I have a check to build them a new pc. You know. I guess I love dell.
There cultural values fell by the wayside years ago. The bottom line became the end all and be all of everything. They outsourced everything they could, getting rid of every non-Indian employee they could. Does it come as any surprise that a company that would sell out it's own employees would also sell out their customers?
They got rid of their greatest asset, their people, and with it also got rid of the ethic that made them what they were. Dell was a very hard working hungry company, full of hard working people. Get rid of the hardworking people and you get rid of the hardworking ethos.
You can't outsource ethics. When damage control becomes more important that quality control your company has lost it's way.
of course there is desktop support (our IT, not dell) to remove and replace burned out bits, and we replace them all every two years.
In this case, cheaper is better.
I actually use a couple of older ones at home, they are pretty much peices of garbage that fail to work with common pci boards or third party video cards.
Can anybody remind my why somebody would pay for a dell to use at home?
Wherever You Go, There You Are
In fact, I recommend Dell computer to all my friends. Their next day onsite warranty is fantastic. I'll admit, customer service is hit and miss, and we all have to put up with phone monkeys to get our PCs repaired, but I haven't found a company where this isn't the case. I've NEVER had a problem with a warranty fix with Dell. Which is more then I can say about other companies.
The worst thing is that HP, which is pretty much the only other big option is no better. They all treat consumers like crap, unless you are a really BIG account for them.
So, does that mean only a rotten company would sell defective phones and lie about it claiming that the customers are "just holding it wrong"?
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
just redefined them. Or, as they say in business school, "it is the ethical duty of a business owner to return maximum profit to the shareholder, as reported in quarterly statements"
So, there you go... no duty to employees, community, or even customers. Just make certain that we turn a profit this quarter, and everything else if a-ok
Wherever You Go, There You Are
The fact is, the consumer doesn't buy reliability. The consumer buys emotional factors, and brand perception, and a good marketer can make the consumer buy any garbage whatsoever.
This is not the end of Dell. Nobody will remember this in a few months, any more than they remember HP and "pretexting" when they buy a printer or a PC.
Bruce Perens.
Can anybody remind my why somebody would pay for a dell to use at home?
Potheads in tv advertisements maybe?
Duuuuude, you're gettin a.... hey, are those CHEETOS?
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
at "Secure"
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
They've been declining for years, and been selling defective parts for years. I work at a local small privately owned workbench, and for years Dell's computer's motherboards BIOS, by default, has SMART error reporting turned off. If you turn it on, and go to "restore defaults" it will also reset it to off. I turn it on in every case in hope that it will save someone's important data, which I have seen SMART do, so that they can backup their data before the drive completely fails. I discovered this when someone brought us a maybe 4 month old Dell desktop system who's filesystem, and this windows, was ripped to pieces. Running a diagnostic tool, in this case SeaTools for DOS on it, revealed SMART was tripped, and it fail read element tests, so bad sectors. Seeing SMART was tripped, I wondered why the BIOS did not report it, as most modern BIOS have it and it is enabled by default. I looked, and found the above results.
Not sure about dell but I've always had good dealings with HP and IBM.
Seriously? Dell was born making bad computer for stupid people. They barely have a PC lineup out in the wild that didn't have huge flaws or was just plain shit.
Dell is doing what Dell does best, finally the reality bubble has burst for them.
No manufacturer is any different. As long as you don't have a problem under control, you sweep it under the rug. What's the alternative? A stop ship? You only do that if the costs down the line are expected to be higher than the loss from not shipping anything.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
It happens. It eventually gets fixed, everyone moves on with their lives, then 5 years later, it gets spammed all over. As a receiver of a $500 settlement check from a lawsuit against Toshiba (re: Toshiba Satellite 5005-S507 Laptop), I'm getting a kick out of these posts...and currently looking forward to getting a Dell Streak.
I work in higher ed in the state of Wisconsin. We, of course, have a purchasing contract (a mandatory one no less). Because of this, I've been working with Dell (ordering PCs and doing warranty replacements) for a long time now.
In the past, even just 3 years ago, Dell would bend over backwards for us. We got waived on the fees and got waived through the "exams" for warranty parts replacement certification. We could also could get spare parts on hand for PCs. Lastly, we got huge discounts for the UW System and for personal purchasing. Now, however, our sales rep is forcing us to take these stupid, 2 hour exams for replacing parts. We are, of course, overworked and understaffed and I have no time in my week to sit down and "learn" how to replace RAM or swap a power supply. Yet Dell will not budge. When I questioned our sales rep on this he became irate and downright pissy with me.
But, that point is moot really when one looks at the atrocity that is the DOSD (Dell Online Self Dispatch) that replaced the Warranty Parts Direct site. Before my certs expired I needed to get a new DVD R/W drive. I had to scroll through lists and lists of parts, many of which were printer parts, server parts, plastic bezel pieces, etc...things that had nothing to do with the service tag of a standard desktop system.
Dell has hit bottom. Their customer service is shit, their tech support is horrible, and the issues with the bad caps was pretty much the last straw (it's OK to have bad components; the bad part is how they tried to cover it up). I'm done with Dell. I won't recommend them to anyone now.
"This food is problematic."
Sure, their service isn't as good as the old Gateway (who replaced a motherboard, free, more than a year after the warranty expired), and their customer service sucks for software problems (they try to blame _everything_ on a virus. Even if you _just_ reformatted, and haven't even connected the internet yet). But when the motherboard on my Vostro 1000 died a couple months ago, it took less than 20 minutes on the phone to get them to mail me a box to mail it back, all paid for, and I had it back in about a week. Quite possibly the easiest RMA I've ever had to deal with.
I still remember some 15 years ago what the PC marketplace looked like. There were dozens of these little PC shops that filled the pages of the gargantuan Computer Shopper magazine. They all wanted to undercut each other.
Dell stood out because they formalized a real manufacturing process, setup good quality controls, made it brain dead simple to order, and *still* had prices that were just about the best you could get. They had a refined image with organized, glossy ads, which helped a lot.
Where they fell was when they started becoming the expensive guys again. HP has been undercutting them for years, and have established an image even more refined in the eyes of consumers. HP recognized that, sadly enough, if you sell for $100 cheaper and slap some shiny plastic on, you can dominate.
Dell needs to out-HP by figuring out how to be $100 cheaper again, and revamping their image.
Also, it will be interesting to see how their recent tablet/handheld plays pan out. Streak vs WebOS. Will HP's WebOS fizzle out like Kin, or will Streak get lost in a sea of Android devices? Or both.
Anyone who outsources manufacturing of any kind has faced this problem. Component suppliers provide defective parts to factories, and when the first parts that contain a defect not seen before arrive, incoming QC hasn't seen the defect yet and so might not test for it. The parts are then used, and if the defect allows the product to pass inspections and burn in, you now have your supply chain infected with product containing the bad part. The consequences of the bad part range from outright consumer danger (e.g. exploding batteries), to shortened product life resulting in expensive warranty repairs and a damaged brand reputation, to very little impact resulting in just a few consumers experiencing annoying problems.
Once you learn of the bad part and the consequences, you're like the CDC (center for disease control). You have to find out how bad the outbreak is, what the return rate is, how much of the supply chain is infected, what the consequences of the failure are, and then decide what should be done about it.
If the failure rate is below, say, 10% and the consequences non-life-threatening, you will likely do nothing and deal with it in the repair channels, and make a running change to your incoming QC processes and manufacturing lines. If there is extreme personal risk you might have to do a recall, and you probably have to suspend your entire supply chain until the root cause is found and everything from raw materials to subassemblies to product in transit to store inventories to consumer's products is fixed.
In this case, Michael Dell was more than likely in the CDC meeting, and data was probably presented that pointed to the fact that a recall wasn't necessary. However, it looks worse than that, and Dell is being painted as a greedy tyrant who shipped bad parts knowing full well he did so.
I guarantee this is NOT the whole story, and there was some serious gray area involved at Dell as to what to do about this issue. More than likely, this was a calculated risk that the problem would not turn out as big as it is.
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
The first thing that did it for me was when they started polluting computers with bloatware.
Being the family computer nerd I would just wipe out any new Dell coming into the family with a fresh copy of the OS.
The second thing that did it for me was the quality reduction of support. 10 years ago Dell would go that extra mile and they were my standard recommendation for a PC. But then they went Indian with their support and calling in would start with a market survey and eventually end with a big negatory.
The first two were enough for me but the third was a bizarre drop in quality. Their machines were burning out and other oddities.
They might try and defend themselves saying that they needed to cut support costs and that without the additional revenue of the Norton AV subscriptions that they couldn't compete. But the reality is that their initial reputation was that buying a Dell was a safe bet. But as a nerd I have a reputation to manage and recommending Dells became a bad idea. Now I recommend a local computer shop that rocks.
I've had lemons come from high end brands before. They were always promptly replaced, but doesn't change the fact that they were faulty.
Or, in the case of the whole capacitor deal which is what I imagine what this is about, ASUS and others like that got hit too. You could buy a top of the line motherboard and have the caps blow up. Again, they replaced it under warranty but I seem to recall Dell doing the same.
Products have problems, deal with it. If you own a line of products that have never had problems the reason is NOT the that products are perfect, but that you've been lucky. Shit happens. So long as the manufacturer replaces the broken part, what more do you want?
Dude, you're getting a dud!
Never bought one. My brother (non-nerd) did and it had RAM errors manifesting as BSODs within weeks of delivery.
The laptops were always cheap. They "check all the boxes": i.e. they have all the on-paper credentials to compete with other manufacturers, on paper. But the build quality is crap.
Also I had one loaned to me for work and the keyboard's enter key stopped working, so I carried an enormous USB keyboard around with it for 3 months. ;-)
Never. Buy. Dell.
He should just dismantle the company and give the proceeds back to the shareholders.
Shortly after Mr. Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 as part of the company's acquisition of NeXT, Dell's founder and chairman, Michael Dell, was asked at a technology conference what might be done to fix Apple, then deeply troubled financially.
"What would I do?" Mr. Dell said to an audience of several thousand information technology managers. "I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders."
InfoWorld's Bill Snyder is feeling lonely, so he wrote a vitriolic puff piece titled "the ignominious decline of Dell"
FTFY, you self-righteous he-cunt.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
A good example of some of the things going on at Dell go like this.
I was hired as Basic Server Support tech.
I was given extra training to take over the graveyard shift from headquarters in round rock.
It was moved to Oklahoma City.
After several months we had done well as a team and were offered Gold level support,
but we would need to apply for that job.
I did apply and I got the position and the night crew became gold level support.
After just a few weeks the platinum crew was so swamped they started dumping
their calls on us and we were required to take them.
We got a few days training and were thrown to the sharks
taking calls way over our heads with little to no prior experience
in the advanced server software arena.
The customers were guaranteed MCSE trained technicians.
Needless to say that is not what they were getting.
Customers were furious and launched into a tirade over the idiocy,
and I did not blame them a bit.
To me this was breech of contract and fraud.
I brought this up in a meeting and was shouted down.
I decided at that point to leave the company.
At the end of the one year I had been there, over
half the ppl working for server support had quit.
1 year after I left my team of 26 only had 3 original members.
The upper management at Dell was THAT bad.
Michael Dell came off his long term vacation and
tried to correct the course of the company, but
the damage had been done and he was lied to as well.
It took him time to work thru all the lies and he fired
a lot of ppl for various reasons.
Some of the low to middle management were actually
good ppl, such as my eventual manager.
He didn't like what they were doing, but he had left
his prior job and had to make this work or lose his
house, his car, and likely his wife.
Fun times...
I keep in touch with some of the ppl still working there,
and after I quit things got better once Mr. Dell could
cut through some of the lies.
I do not think the company will fully recover and it
cannot compete with Asian companies that do not
have all the government regulations, fees, taxes,
and red tape to deal with.
That and they can get workers to work for below minimum wage.
Like most US businesses it is hard to compete on uneven ground.
Good Luck to you all !
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
A whole new generation gets to learn how business works. A company starts and is nothing, why should people buy from it? So the company focuses on quality, low prices and customer satisfaction. People like the company so much they swarm to it. Over the years the company grows larger and larger. Eventually they have capped out their market share, they can grow no more. This is a problem in our growth driven society. We believe that any company that is not growing is failing. So the owners of the company have to grow in other ways, they have to give less to the market they already have... and try to get the market to pay more despite getting less. First the sacrifice from within... departments are cut, benefits are cut, employees are given quotas that grow daily until they are doing so much work they can barely focus on any one thing at a time. Eventually the company realizes it can't cut anymore from within and still function, so it starts looking for cheaper suppliers. Bonuses are given on a yearly basis so an executive can come it, buy tons of faulty components, get his bonus and be gone before the shit hits the fan. Eventually the company is so distrusted by the public they are relegated to a brand name sticker wall-mart sticks on junk it bought from some 3rd party. But the big wigs at the company walk away with their wallets over flowing, open a new start up... rinse and repeat. It's the same with nearly every American business.
It was 1500 years ago, and yet the lesson has never been learned by many.
Manage by overextending, with long chains of command and a reliance on slave labor, and your empire will collapse.
Outsource, and you are simply counting the days until your business fails / is taken over.
I've bought hundreds of Dells, really. Maybe a thousand altogether, but probably no more than that. I'd buy them ten or twenty at a time. I'm actually a guy who likes doing it. I love taking a new computer out of the box to smell those wafting polymers in the air. Out of the box failure rate = 0. Three year failure rate = maybe 1 per 100, too low to really need to track. I actually usually pushed the boxes to five years. Customer Service? I don't believe I've ever called them. I simply didn't need it. If I have to call customer service, I figure I'm the one who failed. They were reasonably priced, reasonably well powered, network ready, and easy to work on. I used them for rack mount servers as well. I bought between forty and fifty of those. I had one drive go out.
Maybe different model and all, but certainly in my own case, I simply don't have any problems at all with Dell.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
I've had a couple of Dells.
I was going to relate some of my bad tech support experiences, but I'll jump straight to this one:
The tower was making a lot of noise. I had researched the issue and discovered that badly-fitting card readers on certain Dell models (including mine) were causing vibration noise.
Called tech support, got through to a guy at an Indian call centre. Told him what the problem was, and that I knew why it was happening.
He wanted me to disconnect _everything_ from the motherboard, take the memory out, unplug every cable, etc. He said this was policy: They have to try plugging everything back in separately to diagnose what is making the noise.
Eventually I had to be bluntly honest and very carefully say: "I'm sorry, but throughout this call we haven't been able to understand each other because, with respect, you don't speak good English. I'm not comfortable with the idea of disconnecting everything because I don't believe you could explain to me how to re-conect everything."
And that was how Dell got out of helping another customer. Without me disconnecting every single component in my computer, they would class the noise fault as "unresolved" and wouldn't replace the card reader.
Dell's machines are pretty good. Most people who have had a Dell would recommend them to their friends and family. But people who have had to use Dell tech support will tell you the same thing: If you do buy a Dell, do so with the knowledge that you are effectively buying a computer without a warranty because you will never get any fault fixed.
We have 2 dozen Optiplex GX240-270 PCs from that time period that were used in extreme conditions (construction jobsite trailers where it would take a FULL can of air to blow the gunk of out them, per machine) and not a single one ever had cap related motherboard problems (One did blow a power supply twice...) We still have them (however not in service) and just fired up 6 or so to give away as donations to employees (for their little kids) and every single one fired up... I have complaints about Dell (posting drivers for the BCOM embedded quad NICs that leak memory - well bleed like an amputation - and crash R710 servers - that was a fun one to figure out) , but I've never had any workmanship quality issues.....
If Dell is junk, what do people recommend? I already have a Macbook Pro, but in the future I want to purchase a non-Apple computer, what brand is most trusted? Lenovo? HP?
Some time in the nineties, it was reported that IBM ran an unusually high problem rate on a line of Thinkpads. The media attacked IBM for refusing to make any detailed remarks about the problem, or to establish a formal action plan. IBM's only comment was something to the effect, "IBM Thinkpad users have a high degree of satisfaction with their Thinkpad products. We remain committed, as always, to assuring that high degree of satisfaction."
Product failures, particularly computer failures, are a routine part of the landscape. All this hubbub about people losing data because of Dell's unreliable computers is dubious...responsible computer owners assure their own data protection. Only the irresponsible or ignorant rely on the manufacturer to do so, and always at their own peril.
A good computer company stands behind its products. When you have a problem, you call them and they promptly restore your satisfaction. The methods, economics and logistics of doing so may sometimes turn to the dark arts, but in the end, SATISFACTION best describes what a customer wants most.
Over the years, I've dealt with a lot of Dells, a lot of Dell problems, and a lot of Dell. And as ugly as this capacitor story now plays, I am still faced with the fact of my continued satisfaction with Dell as a company that has provided me with good value and satisfaction. I'm not lucky. Dell has done a good job of standing behind its products, and in my experience, continues to do so.
P.S. My only relationship to Dell is as a customer.
People on this site should know that if you buy from Dell, you get it from their Small / Medium Business site.
US tech support & they come to your house to fix the computer within a day or two.
The bonus is that I think the computers are cheaper. If you try to get a powerful PC from Dell, their home models usually force an overpriced under powered video card on you. Good video cards are very expensive from Dell. The Business site allows more choices. It lets you get a good PC with no video card. If you don't need one, use on-board video. If you do need one, get it from newegg.
Note: I do build and overclock PCs, but sometimes if you need something simple it is hard to beat Dell's < $300 computers. I also go with them for the very small form factor PCs and sometimes check out their Refurb Site for Previously Ordered New (returned - not refurb) PCs to see if they have exactly what I am looking for.
From: michael@dell.com
To: xxxx@utexas.edu
Re: Hardware failures running Matlab
You're exceeding the floating-point unit's recommended duty cycle. Turn it off for awhile.
Sent from my iPhone
The very worst part about Dell is the are not a channel friendly company. Say you are a reseller of their product and you uncover a great opportunity for a hundred or so machines. You register the deal with Dell, get your reseller price, put your markup and make the customer, YOUR customer, an offer. Out of curiosity, the customer calls Dell direct, speaks to an inside sales person who conveniently DOES NOT look to see that it's be registered by an authorized reseller, and offers the customer a better price than you can offer them, and they scoop the business out from under you.
They are notorious for doing this, and I see plenty of resellers complaining about it. Personally, I'd recommend Lenovo or HP, or any other channel friendly partner. When you're out there competing against your suppliers, it's only a matter of time before you're squeezed out of the market altogether.
I've had a dell xps 420 system for a good 3-5 years now (yea, I know its time for a new one). Not a single issue with it. It even has vista and I never had an issue with that either.
Now my mac book pro, 2 years old, the last generation before they got gay. Thats been in and out of the shop constantly to have its logic board replaced, battery frying, various other issues. Had to reinstall mac os x about 3 times now.
Can anybody remind me why I should listen to the ap?
Dell went through a rough patch where you'd be insane to buy from them. Now they're an appropriate quality for their price point. There are higher quality options out there for a bit higher cost, but they're price-appropriate now. If you demand stringent quality standards, then, as usual, you have to open your wallet a bit wider.
I have one semester, out of four, left on my MBA. I have never heard anyone say, "it is the ethical duty of a business owner to return maximum profit to the shareholder, as reported in quarterly statements."
If it were said, and it were not being said as an example to be torn apart, I would expect any of the instructors, or fellow students, to tear such a position to shreds. It may fit your notion of what is taught in Business School; but, it is not what is actually taught in Business School.
If you read the full text of the issue, notice the complainant was misusing the equipment: desktops as servers. For those who need a car analogy: AIT was using passenger cars to haul cargo instead of purchasing trucks. Also, AIT stopped paying for product shipped to them even though AIT admits Dell fulfilled their warranty agreement. Looks like AIT needs a good bitch slapping; and, sent back to the boardroom without any catering.
Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.
The computers, that is. They are cheap and easy to fix.
I have my company running on refurbished GX260, GX270 and GX280 models. I have the occasional fan failure, but no motherboard failures with PCs that are on 24x5, and some 24x7 out on the factory floor. If it fails, I put the HD into another one. We paid $200 each, or less. I got 'em stacked up in the corner like cord wood. Easy to fix, easy to swap parts. I can put a HD into any of the 3 models since they share a common chipset and XP runs just fine.
P4-2.4GHz or faster, 2GB RAM...pretty much all a normal business user needs.
Bearded Dragon
Not that this is some kind of deep insight only apparent to me, but it's no coincidence that Dell's reputation as a supplier of a quality product has faded as they've moved more and more of their R&D work overseas (and I use the term R&D loosely here). Back in the 90s when Dell was a quality machine, they had quality people designing them. It was a good job, and everyone I went to school with was excited about the prospect of working there. So, they could pick the best and the brightest. Today, they just pick the cheapest. They know their engineers overseas aren't as good. They just don't care. Dell doesn't even do a lot of their own R&D. They contract a lot of it out to Foxconn. A friend of mine was "sold" to Foxconn when he was due for a promotion. He sits in the exact same cube, but doesn't have access to the Dell gym. He went without software for several weeks because Foxconn didn't get him licenses right away. Turns out the last Dell laptop I bought (Inspiron 1720) wasn't designed by Dell. Someone else did the R&D work (I assume Foxconn), and Dell slapped their name on it. And yes, that model has a quality issue with the GPU detaching from the motherboard. Contrast that with Apple... Yeah, they manufacture stuff overseas. But, as far as I can tell, they still do their R&D work in the US. Most engineers I know would love to work for them. They make a good product. They charge more for it, but people pay it. Maybe Dell should think about that. Bring your R&D back here and start caring about quality from the beginning. If that makes your stuff more expensive, I'd like to think people will be receptive when they know you make a good product. Heck, I even wonder if it would be economical to put manufacturing in a less affluent part of the US (West Texas, deep South, etc). You'd get to market your stuff as made/assembled in the US, you'd save on freight, and you wouldn't have to pay the workers that much (in US terms) to give them a decent standard of living. I'm no bean counter, but I've got to think the tradeoffs there aren't all that crazy.
"AIT was using the OptiPlex systems as servers, a use for which they weren't designed." - Dell spokeshole.
Time for Dell to stop digging and take their own advice to Apple; fold and give the money back to the investors.
I've purchased two Dell laptops, and both of them have had issues.
However, they have both been relatively low-end models, and the issues have been minor. I suspect they take a lot of shortcuts to get the price down, so I'm not really outraged about it ... the lesson is just not to buy cheap crap :)
My tower at work is a Dell Optiplex running Vista - *VISTA* - and it hasn't had any issues at all.
I have no idea why anyone is surprised that Dell makes bad computers. They are the ultimate commoditizer. Adding Linux to a Dell made it *more* expensive. Botnet-free? Costs extra.
In probably 2002 I had a late-night call on a SCSI controller for our DB server. The support alone was probably $3K. I called Platinum Support and immediately got Randy (yes, I still remember the name) who was a down home Texas boy. He was really knowledgeable, funny, and did the entire call with a dip in his mouth (so I naturally joined him). I had to call back a few more times for other stuff on the same support contract over the next few months and got Randy 4/5 times. I miss those days.
I bought a "PC's Limited" machine (80286 / 8MHz) from Mr. Dell back in mid 80's. That machine served me well for quite a while - I learned a great deal from it. I wonder if Dell wishes he were back in the good ol' days putting his machines together personally and without all of the problems that come from going corporate. Sad to see it come to this.
[looks at slashdot user ID] Yeah, you're new here.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Now you're assuming Apple cares about any product more than 2 years old.
What other cell platforms are getting significant updates after two years?
The original iPhone got all the way up to 3.1.3, which is pretty good still and will run most applications for a while.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Then I guess they're all rotten.
Dell: Numerous examples. I have one of them, the otherwise excellent XPS M1330 that has a defective nVidia 8400M GPU.
Apple: Numerous examples (including right now - iphone). The various iBook motherboard defects also come to mind.
nVidia: The afore-mentioned 8400M remained in production long after nVidia discovered the defect. They kept the defect secret for as long as possible, then when forced to admit it continued selling the faulty part without any warning for users and refused to talk about any arrangements they might've made with individual OEMs for RMA/warranty.
Acer: Frequently sells shoddy hardware and yells "la la la la" loudly when told about it. I have one of those, too, an Acer laptop with a fairly powerful GPU and a cooling subsystem for a basic one, so if you actually use it the GPU overheats and the machine crashes.
Hell, the list is basically endless. Everyone does it, because the consequences are small compared to the profits. Unless that changes, it'll keep on happening, too.
None of their products work correctly. Have you ever tried to use an HP printer?
You guys are getting this all wrong, according to Dell,
"The AIT lawsuit does not involve any current Dell products. Dell is responsive to customer issues and we continue to remain focused on our customers, their needs, and our growing record of superior customer service," Frink wrote.
Ref.: http://www.infoworld.com/d/the-industry-standard/dell-knowingly-sold-faulty-pcs-711 The bold emphasis is mine, of course.
In fact, just a few months ago (in December) I ordered (online) a computer from Dell that was supposed to come with a free promotional external hard drive. After I ordered it I noticed that the invoice appeared to have a charge on it for a HDD, so I phoned customer service who told me that I shouldn't worry because my HDD was already shipped. After calling again I was told that Dell is not giving away HDD's (though their Web site said otherwise). I called Dell customer service a few more times, most of the time the customer service representative said she would phone me back with more information, but they never did. I finally asked one customer representative that I wanted to talk to her manager, but I was told that I was not allowed to talk to a manager or a supervisor, so then I sent various emails stating that I would sue the company and tell the Better Business Bureau about them (the BBB already had lots of complaints about Dell when I checked their Web site, after the problems occurred). At least one time a Dell representative hung up on me (I was not be rude or aggressive, but just asked a question that they refused to answer, which was "When would I get my refund back?". [I had already canceled my order by this time [the day after I ordered it], but they said they would still ship the product anyways]). The credit card company also stated that they wouldn't give me a charge back because they could be sued by Dell. The CC company claimed that because they don't have any proof of wrong-doing on Dell's part (it was just my word versus Dell's word), they would side with Dell.
So after a few days and lots of (legal) threats, Dell finally canceled my order with no processing fees. This goes to show you that you can deal with Dell, and get what you want. Like that say, "Dell is responsive to customer issues...". Which is true, Dell did respond to me as a customer, for which I thank them.
If I was the CEO of Dell I would sell it off and give the money back to the shareholders.
Sincerely
Steve Jobs
After years of working with PC's all company's have there flaws but Apple seemed pretty stable my next computer I was thinking Imac but after hearing about the Iphone I am worried about Apples quality control now.
http://www.thetechnologygeek.org
Let's face it, all corporations are deceitful sacks of s**t.
/me looks into future and see's that sgage.inc has made millions with it's new slogan, "I'm better than they are".
Don't almost all these PCs come with MS windows installed on them? Come on.. /. I can't believe you're not all over that thing! (Posted from my trusty Dell, running windows XP instead of Linux, 'cause I didn't reboot after playing some game that still won't work on Linux, given the amount of time I'm willing to spend on making it work.
In other news, I'm now the proud owner of two free ex-corporate GX270's. Turns out lots of people sell refurb kits for about $20USD that include all the bad caps. They're very obvious: they're the ones that are all puffed up and bleeding brown snot out of the tops. There are two that are hard to replace because of soldering iron clearance issues with a heatsink that's basically riveted to the board, but a 60W soldering iron will solve that problem if you're careful.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
But somehow, when it comes to management, Dell is Teflon coated. I wish this was the death knell for Dell, but it just isn't going to be.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague
This sounds a lot like the xbox 360 mess and coverup at first.
Only a rotten company sells defective computers and lies about it.
And, likewise, only a rotten company sells RAM upgrades with a lifetime warranty, then lies about the warranty, then lies about the replacement inventory, then lies about the refund. True story--and I don't need to post anonymously because I have the recordings to prove it all ;-)
i agree..Dell wouldn't be as big as it is now if they sell defective products..they should also consider on how the customer handled their products after they bought it..
Want to get that interview for your dream job with good benefits and nice salary. This will get it for you.
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> Now my mac book pro, 2 years old, the last generation before they got gay.
Uh... hate to break it to you, slick, but just like soccer... macs have always been gay.
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
I hate to say I told you so, but for the better part of a decade I've been saying how people should stay as far away from Dell as humanly possible.
...and return the money to the stockholders."
Said Steve Jobs today, barely able to keep a straight face at the plight of Michael Dell and Dell, Inc.
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
HP did the same thing with tons of laptops with defective motherboard melting graphics cards built in. Yeah it was Nvidia's fault originally but every laptop manufacturer offered an extended warranty for the thing except HP. Dell even replaced those affected for free. HP tried to pass off a firmware upgrade that increased the fan speed as a fix, when all this did was keep the laptop running long enough to go out of warranty. They replaced some but mostly, if you're not in the US, you're SOL. I'm typing this from a TX2000 that has its wifi burned out and is probably going to be destroyed completely by this fault eventually. HP won't replace it. They knew this was an issue and continued to sell it too.
I work for a very large American computer company and while everyone thinks we build machines we don't. We don't even really design it. We goto the ODM(Original design manufacturer) with an idea, spec out the parts, help design the case and they put the thing together. Their the ones that really control the quality of the board and most of the parts. Even when we do come to them with certain parts we want(CPU, GPU, etc) they end up making the decision on everything else(SATA controller, audio card, etc). There are a number of ODMs(Foxcon, Miatec, and a bunch more I forgot the names of) their all competing for the lowest price so the company(Dell, HP, Apple) can sell it to you at the best price. The part that always amuses me is that the ODMs are the ones building the machines for everyone. So a Dell, HP, Apple, all can be built by the came company with the same parts the only difference is the case. That being said the company can control the quality of the parts but that means price goes but which makes customers goto cheaper competitors.
Might have 'fallen' in the US - in India, Dell is still the most popular and largest selling brand, although HP is catching up. Dell hardware is moderately priced, of good quality and has excellent on-site warranty.
I see a lot of people claiming that companies didn't used to operate this way, that we're witnessing the decline of corporate American and capitalism in general. When hasn't business been conducted this way? There have been guys selling radioactive tonics as panaceas. Automakers have covered up the fact that their cars exploded in an accident. I'm sure at some point in history some unscrupulous individual has tried passing off sickly cattle as healthy. This is not a failing of capitalism. This is a failing of humanity. There have always been and probably will always be people trying to take advantage of other people. I'm not making excuses, simply pointing out reality.
Dell must have saw this coming, so it's not really a mistake on their part. They're just serving the investors who want short-term profit, and giving the shaft to any investor that hoped to make long-term gains with Dell.
Um, soccer is perceived as gay in the US?
Yeah, to think of it, compared to a game full of guys in kinky garb emphasizing their muscular prowess and tight shorts, making intense physical contact with each other...
My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
what 'fall' is this article talking about? seriously?
we're using Dells at our SME, and we don't really have problems with them. in 4.5 years, there was only one PC that had an minor issue, and that was fixed in our office by the Dell support technician, within a few days. all the machines still run, despite some of them being 4+ years old.
this article just doesn't make sense..
Yeah, 95% of the world (6 billion - 300 million americans) is gay (talking about soccer).
Read the following threads and petition about their stance on upgrading early SSD customers to TRIM:
http://en.community.dell.com/forums/t/19310219.aspx
(one of the most active threads on their forums - and totally ignored by DELL)
http://www.petitiononline.com/dellssd/
(170 signers to date - that's a lot of unhappy users)
http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3514/t/19332633.aspx
(a truly jaw dropping example of DELL's arrogance and ignorance where they try and justify not providing TRIM support to SSD users)
It's hard to fathom that a supposed IT company can blindly ignore the importance of a major feature like SSD Trim to people who ordered early. By definition, SSD buyers are the top end of their customers, so it's not smart to ignore their needs.
I know of several companies (ours included) who took DELL off the supplier list because of this. If you check the petition you'll see Boeing on there too. I doubt any company can afford to lose them as a customer. I'll personally never buy or recommend DELL again after this either. -- Rob
...it's also their responsability.
Is 'gay' a synonym for 'good' now then? I'd prefer that. It sits better with me than all this juvenile homophobia.
It's interesting that more people moderated this insightful than moderated it funny.
Are you familiar with the website "Google"? It's really kind of neat. For instance, watch this:
Google: "Money confiscated"
Very first result:
Isn't that awesome the way that works? You just type in the thing you want a reference for, and there it is. Tech is cool, eh? Also, I assure you that the other matters I referred to... references are just as easily located.
So... if you really wanted those answers, they're right there to be found. Or, you could have asked politely (or even tersely, such as "Cite?") Instead, you wasted time calling me names. Interesting approach. Not likely to get you want you ask for in the general case, just so you know. I just did it to show what an idiot you are, considering that you took the time to call me unjustified names.
Next time think first, type second. Like "Why would he write that..." google... "oh." Or just ask politely. Then you won't have your butt handed to you so neatly packaged.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Insightful? More like funny.
"What would I do? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders". Michael Dell, 1997, on what he'd do to maximise Apple shareholder value.
http://www.tuaw.com/2007/10/08/flashback-10-years-ago-michael-dells-throwdown/
Effectively true. It's not the 5-year old optiplex problem that currently affects Dell, its the (apparent) fact that the mindset that caused the problem persists that currently affects Dell.
True. Unfortunately, Dell has now gone 3 years without resolving the issue with their (former) customer.
True, true and ... well, true. On the last of those three points, some OptiPlex customers got good results and others got the runaround. As he said, "On a case-by-case basis.".
OK. I'll believe that -- but Dell didn't announce the fact, they probably just hoped that customers would junk their dead machines and buy new ones (hopefully Dells).
Again, true.
Plausible... Probably true... Note that this is actually the first new information in the entire statement. Everything else that he said is information available from the original Infoworld article. Even the inference that the Capicitor problem is long past.
But, in any event this is (once again) useless information. Server boxes are (usually) designed to be more robust because it tends to be much more traumatic when they fail in their designed lifetime -- but the truth of the matter is that its not uncommon to see situations where the Desktops have a more robust service (especially in terms of CPU usage) than servers do. If you don't mind the occasional failute, then there's really no big problem using a 'desktop' for 'server' applications. There are two big differences between servers and desktops:
(OK: Maybe just one).
Thing is, even though the OptiPlex isn't designed as a server, stats say that they were almost certain to die no matter what AIT did with it. I don't care what use a machine is designed for, a 97% death rate is still unacceptable.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Back in 2003, the company I was working for bought 20 Dell Optiplexes. Of those 3 were DoA. It took Unisys, the company that Dell outsources support to here in Switzerland, 3 months to finally get the last one working. If Switzerland had laws like in the states where law suits can be the number 2 in 1)Buy Dell, 2)???, 3)Profit, we would have made a killing. The quality of the machines was truly terrible and even the German speaking support (Dell had/has a German speaking support center in Ireland) were just the usual read-the-support-script kind of people. Never again.
In my experience, Dell is trying to minimize their service costs in very peculiar way. (I am talking about enterprise level support)
When service call is made to HP, some brief questions are asked and service person arrives soon to investigate the situation further. Usually he has the most likely spare parts with him already, and the server is back up and running with only small downtime. If further components are needed, the service person orders them and makes another visit when the parts have arrived.
Dell, on other hand, uses the customer to make part of the diagnosis. They haven't ever checked if I am aware about ESD protection or if I can tell CPU apart from PSU - they are risking more damage here. Service persons apparently have to order parts one by one, and all "advanced" diagnosis is done on "high level specialists" somewhere up in the support organization. So far this has meant long downtimes, large number of support visits and many unneeded spare part deliveries. When the effect of long downtime is counted as lost work hours, slightly cheaper Dell hardware seems suddenly very expensive in comparison to other suppliers.
How do other big manufacturers deal with their service calls? (IBM, Sun^H^H^HOracle, etc?)
Dude! You're getting a Dell!
"The views expressed here are mine and do not reflect the official opinion of my employer or the organization through which the Internet was accessed."
Is this why the "E" in a Dell logo is at a 45 degree angle, like the "E" in the Enron logo?
Tracy Johnson
Old fashioned text games hosted below:
http://empire.openmpe.com/
BT
I'm a part of a world wide organization that uses Dell machines exclusively. On the whole most of there machines we have very few problems with but there are series of machines that have major issues. Take the Precision 380 and 390 desktop machines. They have corrosion issues due to the motherboards not being coated like in past revs. This has been corrected in the T series machines, but that doesn't stop the fact we have had a ton of these machines die on a regular basis due to this known issue. Also, we have also seen a trend in the PowerEdge 28xx machines that have sticks of memory being reported as bad. I can count 7 servers at one location alone we service that has had at least one stick of memory replaced and several have had two or more replaced. The old PE 26xx and the newer 29xx series haven't had the same issues.
The next think that really pisses me off is Dell's Warranty Parts Direct now called Dell Online Self Dispatch. We pay dell for each tech that works on machines. This last month when we renewed they had upped the price of the program by $20 per tech and they have removed all phone numbers for us to call them. This includes administrative work like renewals and account issues. Now you can chat with a person, which takes forever, or you can put a request for them to call you back. This also stinks, because as soon as I get up from my desk to leave for a customer site they are going to call.
So while I don't totally agree with the quality issues, while they are there, it really irks me that I can no longer call and talk to a person on the phone. There are times when chat just doesn't cut it. If Dell doesn't start taking there customers, home and business, they are going to go the way of so many other companies that thought they could treat there customers like crap and they would take it.
If I'm not mistaken, they are charging all owners of iPo touches for those critical security updates.
You are mistaken, since Apple dropped the accounting rules that required them to charge for updates. 4.0 for free for Touch users.
Classic Apple Hater syndrome, more than a year behind reality.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Dell is not going away, and no, sorry, this isn't going to 'ruin' them. They are just as rotten as any other capitalist and what's going to happen is Dell will reinforce their warranty strategy and it will be biz as usual. nobody in business really cares if you're a crook or not as long as they are getting their money.
A while back I excitedly jumped on the LGA1366 bandwagon. I bought a motherboard from MSI that was close to $300 because I had good experiences with MSI boards in the past. This particular board turned out to have a manufacturing flaw that resulted in one of the motherboard chips overheating due to a bad choice in either what thermal grease was used or in how it was applied. MSI's response to the resulting outcry? "It's fine because the temps are still below 100 degrees C." Then they mysteriously pulled the product from the shelves.
We have had NUMEROUS Inspiron 9300 and E1705's that have had the video card fail due to overheating. I have called Dell on all of them and they have REFUSED to admit there is any known problem with them, I told each rep I spoke with to google 'Dell laptop video card defect problem', and even after that they still refused to admit any problem. We had another 9300 go out this week, and now Dell admits that they recognize a problem with the nVidia video cards. We have an ATI card in this system (and other systems have had ATI's as well) and ALL experience the problem. On top of this, they stated without a warranty, even with a known defect, they will not replace the part. They completely LIE about a defect they full-well know about, and every level of support and even customer care refuses to do anything about it. When I explained that the phone call is recorded and will be promptly posted on Youtube to become the next Dell Viral Video, they magically changed their mind and overnighted a box to us to send the laptop back to them for a 'one time courtesy out-of-warranty repair'. UNBELIEVABLE!!! I can't even imagine how many people out there have suffered this problem and were ignored by Dell, causing thousands of dollars in loss to each customer who purchased these laptops. Widespread defects like these should be exempt from the system needing to be under warranty. Selling defective equipment and then refusing to fix it (regardless of warranty) is outright FRAUD and they should be held accountable for each one of them. They should be fixing each laptop and reimbursing every customer that was pushed away when they called about these problems. Who's ready to jump on board with a class action suit and force Dell to take responsibility for their actions??? I am 100% serious; let's do this!
It's ignominous #corrections
Sure it's a bit down - but considering the economy, it's not so much a "FALL" as a need to spend a few bucks on marketing.
Remember, the *vast majority* don't read computer news. Mom and Pop will still buy Dells for their sons and daughters when they go off to uni. CTOs of fortune 500's will still buy DELL because of their price for volume... a few broken bits here and there won't matter because, as opposed to you and me, fortune 500's actually get pretty good service.
Don't kid yourself. Dell will be fine.
my beef with dell is that they are not channel friendly, having signed up as a re-seller of their product i seem to be in a battle with their inside sales team. dell inside sales often quote prices to end user as deeply discounted as they offer me and that leaves me no room for a margin and still remain competitive.
that along with the fact that they turned down my deal registration by stating that a deal of that size / volume is meant for inside sales and not a re-seller to handle.
since then i have decided to boycott the company and their products.
Dell had a culture that only cared about short-term stock price. Only. No decisions were ever made in the long term, and they rocketed to the bottom in a blaze of corruption. Every company meeting was like an ad for the lottery. If we can just make this number, you'll be rich like the cleaning lady who's actually a millionaire! It's no surprise that they often did things that were ridiculously short-sighted. They were only ever hoping to beat out a quarter. The quarter after that was never a concern. Replace defective motherboards with defective motherboards? That's a great solution as long as they won't blow up again until next quarter.
I worked there in 1996, and I'm just shocked it took as long as it did.
I used to be a steadfast Windows platform supporter. What better gaming platform is there? :p Before Dell acquired AlienWare I purchased one of their systems that worked extremely well for a good long time. After Dell acquired them I purchased another system. It had issues from day one and the quality of AlienWare's support managed to match the quality of the system. When you purchase a desktop replacement system to specifically run games you expect it will actually run games... Not the case this time I'm afraid.
Feel free to read here for my trials and tribulations regarding Dell/AlienWare: http://notasaintinca.blogspot.com/2007/06/review-alienware-aurora-m9700.html
As far as Apple comparisons go, I have to say that I am a big time fan of the engineering that goes into their systems. The MacBook Pro that I purchased after dealing with the AlienWare issues has been amazing at running both my MacOS as well as Windows XP under my Bootcamp partition. My games run smoother and faster than ever and Windows has been more stable than on any other machine I've ever owned...and that's been a LOT. So, am I an Apple Fanboy? You betcha!! "F" Dell/AlienWare!!
DELL: a one product company, while the desktop computer is rapidly going out of fashion, while the rest of the world move to other devices. After all, they're just Microsoft's delivery people.
"take the wsj for example. you ship via delivery people, they are your oems. you have dominant share of the daily news market. what if the delivery people could substitute someone's else's front page for your own and further more what if it was not even clear that it wasn't the wsj?"
When I worked for 2 different companies, they had nothing but dells. One of these companies was in the 2003-2005 era, the other was still using P4 systems in 2008 era.
Did they fail? Yes. Sometimes. However much of it can be attributed to the crapware/spyware the business loaded onto it (oh god when Norton Antivirus started running, these things slowed to a god damned crawl.)
Now on the other hand, a company that I provide service for, owns half a dozen identical Dell's in a data center, P3 era. These machines were pre-owned too, so that puts them around 1998-1999 when purchased, but they only started seriously failing in 2009-2010. The hard drives started suffering mechanical failure. 18GB SCSI drives. 10+ years is a long time. However the onboard IDE controllers on these are are useless (ATA33) and getting replacement SCSI drives are hopeless (hundreds of dollars for replacement 18GB's fuck no.)
Despite that we ordered 2 pre-owned dells again (from 2008+ era) to twin a set of machines that were from a local mom+pop. They're working just fine.
The moral of the story is that you can buy good equipment that lasts a long time, or you can buy cheap equipment you have to replace more frequently. When you put those numbers on paper you'll discover that the cheapest strategy isn't always the best one (more downtime, more repairs, more customer service.)
The bad caps issue is one of those non-issues now, but a big deal then because ALL the companies were using the cheapest caps they can find. Sony, Apple, Dell, Asus, MSI, Biostar, Gigabyte, Foxconn, etc, all of them. It affected everyone. It seems that Dell's serious failure was trying to hide the fact that these systems were defective. Asus and Gigabyte just revised all their boards and now advertise "solid state caps" on the boxes. What the hell did Dell do? It seems like they kept using the boards once known as defective.
The bad caps were because of counterfeit caps being made from IP theft and corporate espionage on a part of the company who made the caps electrolyte.
...and give the money back to the shareholders"
- Michael Dell
When I was in grad school, we purchased a big lot of those Optiplexes at one point. Several years later, we had mysterious lockups and reboots. Opening the cases revealed pretty much all of the capacitors leaking. They were out of warranty (fair) and Dell informed us there was no way to get replacement motherboards (proprietary, yay). Of course, this also happened to me on an otherwise-nice ASUS motherboard. I'm glad solid-state capacitors were used on my current motherboard.
Error 404 - Sig Not Found
Having worked inside Dell's system, I can tell you why their quality tanked...
First off let me say that I was the Global Quality Assurance Manager for 12 years for a major supplier to Dell.
I rode the quality rollercoaster up and then down.
In the late 90's Dell worked pretty hard on quality then once they made their name, they cared more about squeezing pennies out.
The Problem stems from the fact that when a issue comes up, it was/is(?) Dell's policy to blame the supplier outright, start hammering the supplier and lie about the issue regarding other suppliers and then continue to push for price cuts. MANY times we would have an issue and Dell's QA people would beat us up in meetings screaming that the issue was our fault and we were the only supplier affected and we had better fix it now, only to later find out that it was a motherboard issue and it affected ALL suppliers of this component. The QA people wouldn't raise a finger to help solve the problem, just blame us and put pressure on us to fix it without giving us enough information. Heck, the main QA guy I dealt with for years was a technical dunce but had been put there by favoritism.
Then when ol Mikey decided to shave some more pennies off by sending EVERYTHING to China (e.g. the design) quality took another nose-dive. Here's a fact: THE CHINESE DON'T CARE!!!!! They will run a company, produce crap then shut it down only to reopen later with a new name and the same crap. THEY DON'T CARE!!!!
I could go on but let me say this, Dell is getting what it deserves.
Tomato/tomahto.
Surely you mean Tomayto/tomato. :-P
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
ha! ... if only I had mod points
I'm not a bird, I'm a super-advanced flying stealth dinosaur!
Talk about paranoid! Just walk around any college campus and stop to talk with 1 out of 10 people using a laptop (that WILL BE an apple). They are all fanatical. How else could you rationalize buying an apple? Any one of those 1/10 people I mentioned would go out of their way to irrationally defend apple products.
Several years ago (around 2006 or 2007 seems like) I was working in a Dell warehouse in the western USA. (Yes, I'm being vague. I was security there, and don't really want the lawsuit if this can be traced back to me. Bear with me.) Now, all we dealt with were laptops, and "portable electronics", and printers and monitors. Never made sense to me that the same place an order would come in for a laptop would have a monitor too, but who am I to say anything? ANYHOW, the laptops would come in on large sheets. Now a normal semi trailer would have up to 5 of these sheets in them, loaded to the ceiling, and wrapped in layers of blue and clear plastic. ALL of the Dell laptops at the time came from Malaysia, period. No where else. So, we get a load in one day, and the workers start peeling these layers of plastic like usual. The laptops were packed in the Styrofoam shells, but no other packaging, all that was done there at the warehouse. When the last layer came off, it was discovered that all of these Styrofoam shells (which yes, were just packaging, and in no way were waterproof) were SOAKED. Seems like there was a rainstorm, or monsoon or some such over there while they were loading these on the boat, and they were wrapped during the storm. I SAW a laptop Styrofoam shell picked up off the stack, and tipped over and watched water POUR out of it. Know what Dell did? First thing was to call the bigwigs. It was decided to drain one, and let it dry for a few hours. After it appeared to be dry, they would turn it on. If it booted, they were to ship the lot. Early that afternoon, they turned on the "test" laptop, it fired up, and they shut it down, packed it up, and processed that flat of laptops like they had a conscious. By Dell? HELL NO, at least not the laptops...
Stone
excellent on-site warranty.
Let me guess, phone support is probably local too. Must be nice to be able to understand what the hell they are saying.
"Must be nice to be able to understand what the hell they are saying"
Yeah, we have no problems with understanding what they say. So we have the best of both worlds. Time you got used to it too - you'll need it.
Good point. I'll go down to the Kwik-e-mart and practice.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
I found that over the years the product quality was poorer as time went on with Dell comps, my last dell was an inspiron in 2000 for my studies, and it was a great machine, and yet still outperforms today's pcs. I doubt that a real laptop for today could be beaten by one from 10 years ago, but put a new dell laptop beside mine...and mine is just as fast (P3 with 512 mb ram and 60gb 7200 rpm drive) ...I am just glad that with that laptop, I realized I never would buy brand names again, they are too easy to build yourself, pc or laptop....you waste too much money for being able to call someone to have them run you through diagnostics you can do yourself when something breaks....
go figure,