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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.'"
Ok, actually RTFA'd and you know what? This article is shit - its premise is shit. The faulty cap story was news in 2005; people got their systems replaced. It was a blip. And you know what? 5 years later Dell is still with us. Snyder is running a beat-up here and I think it's off base.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
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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.
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."
Apple?
Nope. Even Apple has had problems with bad power supply caps--on the G5 towers and possibly others (iMac G4?). All computer manufacturers have had batches of faulty machines from time to time
And, BTW, lest you think I'm an Apple basher, I'm typing this on a MacBook Pro.
This ain't rocket surgery.
First gen iPhones are just about 3 years old. I picked up my iPhone 3G in August 2008.
That's nothing.
Microsoft killed Kin in a month.
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"
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.
The USAF surplused MANY pallets of Dells that died from bad caps, as it wasn't worth getting them fixed and having a questionable machine.
We had numerous machines fail at our base that I knew of.
I'm delighted to see Dell take a hit. I particularly despise their proprietary form-factors which amount to vendor lock. Fuck 'em.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
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.
You are assuming failure of the capacitors did not cause damage to other components. Faulty caps caused failures randomly in other components for some of the Dell's I repaired: HDD, power supply, video card, etc. Best just to swap out the entire motherboard under the assumption the re-manufactured boards were [marginally] tested; and bad caps could have damaged other motherboard components. Last thing I want to deal with is marginal voltage to the CPU or other devices.
Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.
The problem is that, back then, Dell lied to their customers about the problem. Then when Dell found out the truth about the problem, they just kept on lying. Lots of those computer actually did not get fixed or replaced. At least half didn't, and apparently most didn't. Dell NEVER did a recall. They should have. People lost money, lost data, lost business, all for Dell's bottom line. Some people never have even found out. Dell told them it was some other problem, that was in the "customer caused" category. People bought some other computer (maybe from Dell, maybe elsewhere), and just didn't deal with it anymore, at a loss.
Once Dell sends every one of those customers a whole new computer that doesn't have any problems for 3 years, then I'll change my tune about Dell.
Disclosure: my employer bought me a Dell laptop in November 2009. It died in April 2010. I got a new one, now. It's been 3 months and it is still working. I have no idea for how long. I don't trust it.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
...but what happened to America where the accused are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
Lawsuits are civil matters, not criminal. "Innocent until proven guilty" is the standard in criminal cases but, for civil suits, the standard is "the preponderance of evidence."
I get what you're saying about people rushing to judgment of Dell without having all the facts that would be presented at trial, but then you'd want to ask, "What happened to America where the accused has a right to a jury trial?" rather than asking about Dell's rights in a criminal matter.
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.
I worked as Dell telephone tech support, I can honestly say they DO know about the issues. Nice big red screen pops up when you call them that says "Do not read this to the customer" it contains a full description of the issue your having 99% of the time. (The E6400's where funny as hell.... and no your not crazy and yes Dell knows about the issue.) Oh did I mention this screen pops up right after we ask "Can I have your service tag number".
Hmmm, my calendar math is a little rusty, but August 2008 would be nearly 2 years ago, not 3 (2008 to 2009, 2009 to 2010)...;)
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
FWIW, both civil and criminal operate under "innocent until proven guilty". The difference you're thinking of is the difference in what constitutes "proven guilty". The burden of proof in civil is "preponderance of the evidence" and criminal is "beyond a reasonable doubt".
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Nope, nothin' proprietary here boss.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
I work at a software company. We had weekly conference calls about a slow response time issue that went on for months. Funny thing was it wasn't even our software per se, but our interface with Microsoft Word. Anyway, after extensive analysis, I concluded that the issue was the performance of the client machines, not the software. Customer didn't believe me. They wanted perfmons to prove it. Perfmons didn't show anything unusual. Memory upgrades didn't help. In unusual fashion, we just gave up and suggest that the customer run Citrix, because the Citrix users were fine.
Two months later I get a note in the ticket saying something to the effect of "we have been informed that these PC's had bad capacitors. PC's have been replaced and the issue went away."
Freaking Dell, they owe me days of my life for not informing their customers about this problem sooner.
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.
Start looking for another job. Soon, your company will be replaced by a brand from India or China. Take a look at these laptops from Hanbo. US$100 to $288, delivered to the US. Order 500, and they'll put your logo on them. You too can be a "computer manufacturer". Who needs a US false front?
FTFA (emphasis mine):
Capacitors [...] are not meant to pop and leak fluid, but that is exactly what was happening earlier this decade, causing computers made by Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Apple and others to break.
Of course, Apple fixed the machines without making a big deal out of it...
Name specific security holes that exist in the older ones that they have said "we aren't releasing patches".
link
If they do decide to release a separate security update for older devices, then we can say they haven't dropped support for them.
Again, there haven't been new FEATURE upgrades, but it still works as well as it did when you bought it. If the phone service (on an iPhone) were no longer available, I would consider that "no support".
You misunderstand what "support" means. Apple doesn't provide phone service for the iPhone -- AT&T does, so the scenario you describe is one in which AT&T stops supporting the iPhone.
The support Apple provides is in the form of software patches. If they stop providing those patches, they stop supporting the device.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Sorry, but I believe that's the way the laws (bureaucratic edicts?) read. He didn't assert anything I haven't seen declared at true in other contexts.
I notice that he *didn't* mention that any large airport is considered a part of the border, but that one's true also.
And I really *wish* it were just paranoia.
Some of these have been declared true by bureaucratic edict rather than by legislative action, but they've been affirmed by court cases. (And no, I won't chase them down for you. If you're interested enough, look them up yourself, just like I'd need to.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Except he was complaining that Apple's support for releasing new, free, significant upgrades have stopped after ONLY 3 years, when for the rest of the industry, you are more likely to be struck by lightning than you are to get any sort of update for your handset.
Apple not only kicked the industry in the balls with industrial, software and UI design with the iPhone [as witnessed by everybody trying to jump on Apple's bandwagon], but they also kicked it in the balls with support.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Re our club's donated slushpile, I found that in namebrand PCs, there are two components most likely to be dead:
1) motherboard (even with good caps)
2) power supply (which is usually a dead-minimum capacity, cheaply-made unit)
I soon became suspicious that the high percentage of dead mobos (even with good caps) was secondary to the shit PSUs, maybe producing wobbly voltage or not enough juice, at any rate my speculation was that having to barely scrape by on a shit PSU was damaging and eventually killing the mobos, and possibly other components too. Low voltage is hard on motors; what does it do to a HD motor over time? would that partly explain why the optical drives in namebranders fail so much more often than those in clone units??
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?