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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 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!"
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
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.
They ARE presumed innocent. They aren't shut down and sitting in jail right now, you know. Court of public opinion is a whole other animal, though.
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.
at "Secure"
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
That's despicable. Why would you RTFA?
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Amen. I've bought 'em all since 1980, one vendor or another, and Dell is STILL my preferred choice. I agree: This story is WA-A-AY old, and the problems of the Dell Latitude D6xx series is another old one that still gets flogged by lazy journalists. Remember, Michael Dell stepped down as CEO (in favor of Rollins) in March, 2004. From that date, Dell deteriorated: Support was outsourced to India, Purchasing bought cheap crap from mainland China, and Development was cut back to the bare bone. A deteriorating Dell reputation was the result, and Michael Dell stepped back into the CEO role in January, 2007, to arrest the slide. It's taken him a long time, but Customer Service still is VASTLY better than HP or Lenovo or Gateway, they offer Next Day On-Site Repair, and they stand by the extended warranties they had to issue after the crap Rollins bought started failing in customer sites. I still rate Dell as better than 94% on a scale of Perfect, with the nearest competitor below 85%. HP, for instance, has taken the same route: They hired Carly Fiorina who trashed the place (e.g., killing the Customer Service Operation, recognized as World Class by the industry), corrupted the brand with Compaq, laid off everybody competent. They then brought in "seat warmer" Mark Hurd, who is barely holding on by his fingernails...and there is STILL no decent Customer Support or Product Quality improvement on the horizon; they're just chasing the Stock Price (mostly with over-priced printer supplies), as that's how Senior Executives get rich. I'll stick with Dell. This story is bad, but it's ancient history, and there's nobody on the horizon who's likely to ever do any better.
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."
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?
Innocent before proven guilty is not an ideology. It is a pragmatic policy implemented because it is considered a lot worse for an innocent man to go to jail than for a guilty man to go free. There are places where the opposite is true: it's a lot less harmful for an employee to be locked out of the office than for a thief to be able to get in, and it's a lot less harmful to lose out on a relationship with a company that is trustworthy than it is to get screwed over by one that is not. In those places, guilty before proven innocent is the norm.
He should just dismantle the company and give the proceeds back to the shareholders.
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"
Well, as someone who had to support these monsters....
I convicted them a long time ago in my personal court of opinion. Also, let's face it - In cases of CYA, greed, and lying in the business world, there's a pretty high chance of guilt.
Over the course of a couple years, almost a quarter of my billable time was spent on the partner support line with Dell calling in service tags of machines that had a bad motherboard because of these capacitors. Another quarter was performing the in-field switch. It really hurt my credibility and I felt that it hurt my company's credibility with our customers. I constantly had to call in systems, and it resulted in a lot of time explaining what was happening and why "our recommendation" had so many problems.
I was glad that I didn't have to call up the customer support number because my few experiences with them were maddening at best. It quickly became obvious (based on the frequency and the models involved) that there was something wrong with the Optiplex 260s, 270s and the early 280s. I asked about what to do with all the other systems we had out there that were clearly waiting to die. I was informed that I must've just been unlucky with the orders. We started selling IBM/Lenovo products at that point. To this day I won't spend a dime on Dell, and I actively discourage people from purchasing Dell products. Had they issued a recall, I'd feel completely different... But they didn't, so screw them.
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 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."
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 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.
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.
[looks at slashdot user ID] Yeah, you're new here.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
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.
I guess you didn't get the memo. Warrants are passe, especially within a few hundred miles of the nation's border; you can be arrested (anywhere in the country) for carrying large amounts of money (and they'll confiscate it, and you won't get it back); and of course, once convicted of anything at all, you're a permanent member of the new underclass. Not to mention that "innocence" is highly correlated with how much the defendant spends on lawyers.
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 difference is that Apple just posted 65 critical patches to iOS, half of which allow arbitrary code execution. So you're not getting those now-published and officially acknowledged holes.
And Apple holds your actions illegal if you attempt to fix them yourself.
So it's not just the open publishing of security patches that won't be fixed for old phones, but legally prohibiting the owner from fixing those patches on their own.
Yeah, they won't support it, and legally restrict you from supporting yourself!
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.
> 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
My experience has been the opposite. As the hardware dude for the local user group, I vet all the donated systems. Dells are nearly always sick or dead; the only brand with a worse track record in our slushpile is Micron (which looked to me like it used a lot of parts from the same sources, only further down the 2nds chain). It's to where I just assume a donated Dell is an unrepairable organ donor until proven otherwise.
HP desktops are much more likely to be alive and not need work, and Gateways/eMachines are usually alive but in need of work. But the Dells have been almost entirely goners.
And the clones are nearly always alive, healthy, and outlive any namebrand PC by 3 to 1.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Nope, nothin' proprietary here boss.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
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.
The difference is that until the iPhone came out no phones were supporting easily applied updates for the users. My HTC TyTn was delivered with buggy software that would let the phone radio crash without any kind of notice for the user, and a bluetooth stack that couldn't deliver what was promised.
If it weren't for a group of dedicated hackers at xda-developers and jumping through a lot of hoops I would have been stuck with that system until my provider decided to push through an upgrade. Something that never happened.
Sony Ericson phones used to require a special cable to change the firmware, and none of the other phones I have had allowed any kind of user software upgrade. The high expectations you have for support only exist because apple changed the way things were done.
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.
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.
Tomato/tomahto.
Surely you mean Tomayto/tomato. :-P
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