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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.'"
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.
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?
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.
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
None of these companies hire rocket scientists for tech support. You couldn't afford the machines if they did.
I'd be willing to pay a bit more for access to a clueful support staff of native English speakers that don't insist on following a script, but actually listen to what troubleshooting I've already done and go from there.
That's why I buy Macs. The last time I had to call Apple support a couple years ago, the tech I spoke to was in Texas. He listened to what I had done to isolate the problem, agreed with my conclusion, and arranged a repair with no BS.
~Philly
The biggest problem is that consumers don't read tech sites before purchasing, which means they are beholden to the whims of the tech company they are buying from. If they choose to deceive customers it will only become apparent when it's reported by large media organisations.
I think a bigger problem than that is information overload.
I work for a small business. I used to build custom computers in the 90s but haven't felt it's been worth it in a long time.
So what do I buy today for desktops? Dell? Lenovo? HP? Acer? something else?
If I settle on Dell, which models? Inspiron? Dimension? Vostro? Studio? etc. Each of those branches has DOZENS of configurations and differences.
Annoying.
Say what you will about Apple, but their products lines are much easier to grok.
Yeah, and DO NOT under any circumstances buy after Dell bought them. I was into PC gaming for a while and wanted a decent notebook so I decided to get an Alienware, of course I didn't realize that Dell had bought them... the computer was excellent, the fact that the motherboard got fried twice... wasn't. The fact that the power cord would break every 6 months... wasn't. The fact that near the end they sold me a replacement cable which melted in the laptop... was not. Really, I should have saved $200 and went with a cheaper system.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Wait a second. It isn't like these iphone users chose knock off hardware and are now paying the price. The hardware was dictated by Apple and now the customers aren't getting critical security patches because Apple only wants to deal with their most current hardware configs? I would never buy Apple again if they did this to me... No fanboyism necessary.