If you would have told me three weeks ago that I'd be even suggesting someone buy a Mac, I probably would have told you that while the world holds and infinite amount of possibilities, I can't see that one happening.
Well, the world holds an infinite amount of possibilities. Here we are.
A colleague of mine that is familiar with current Dell battle (my inspiron 6000 died after 15 months of use, I was less than impressed with the commitment to quality, service, etc. that Dell showed me and looked elsewhere for new gear) sent me a few links to peruse.
One link that I found particularly interesting was: http://www.apple.com/getamac/
While I've always found this particular advertising campaign particularly annoying (Mac's PC vs. Mac Campaign) as I feel it grossly oversimplifies issues that companies that support 84% of the computing world face, I found this article on why a single OS maybe the way to go.
A Mac link on my blog. I thought I'd never see the day.
Just a quick update on where I got with Dell as I know some of you out there are waiting.
The representative explained to me yesterday that Dell would not help me because "Doing so would be unfair to those customers that have purchased extended warranties."
Having spent several thousand dollars last year on Dell products alone, I feel it will be FAIR for me to find a new provider of technology that I may feel comfortable about suggesting to others. Stay Tuned.....
Friday, May 11, 2007
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2 comments:
I’m concerned that I might have been quoted out of context here. Your initial contact indicated you might have to “warn people” about our product if we would not fix it for you outside of its warranty. When I refused to comply with that you sent an email questioning the quality of our product and this was my reply:
Luke:
It was never my intention to waste your time and I do apologize if that’s what you see this as. Despite the fact that we seem to be unable to come to a solution that we both can agree is fair; I still see this dialog as a valuable experience for both of us. As someone who’s very familiar with this industry, I take exception to some of the statements you make in your last message.
The first thing I’d like to clarify is the assertion that we know when our products will fail and choose not to support them. All electronic devices have what is known as a “mean time between failures (MTBF)” rating. All have this rating and most have a warranty of some sort. In some industries it’s customary for an item to come with a fixed amount of warranty and in others; like the computer industry, it’s left up to the consumer how much they choose to purchase. In either case there is always a cost associated with warranty coverage and you’re paying it whether it you realize this or not. With most devices, the MTBF will be a reasonably long time but it’s important to remember that a “mean” is an average so a portion of them will fail earlier just as a portion will last beyond MTBF. Most of the components inside of our laptops have MTBF ratings very similar to those in other manufacturers’ systems for two simple reasons: we use the same vendors and even across vendors, most of the components that all use have similar ratings.
That said, whether you have a system made by Dell or another manufacturer, there is a chance that you will have a hardware failure within one year, just as there is a chance that the system will not have a failure after five years. There is no perfect system that has zero chance of failure. This is the reason why companies offer warranties and service contracts: to give customers the peace of mind that their product will be repaired or replaced for an agreed upon time period. With this in mind, you will generally find options to purchase warranties that range from 1 to 5 years across the industry. This range allows the customer to determine the amount they are willing to invest balanced with the amount of time they want the manufacturer to guarantee the functionality of that system.
I agree with what you wrote about statements that end with “they will take care of you”, sounding more positive then “buy a warranty because it probably won’t last”, but the latter is simply not true. Regardless of whether it’s Dell, HP, Lenovo, or Apple that you’re buying, the truth is that it probably will last, (see MTBF above), but if whether or not they will “take care of you” will depend entirely on the warranty period you purchased. Anytime a salesperson asks you what length of warranty you would like to pay for, it should be abundantly clear that regardless of the MTBF, yours might not make it that far and without a warranty you will have to bear the repair or replacement cost. For business critical machines, you will find that organizations will pay for a warranty to cover the time frame that they expect to use that machine, or they will purchase additional machines for redundancy. Using equipment that is not under warranty or contract is not a risk that most businesses will take with any systems, regardless of manufacturer.
I realize that you may be frustrated and feel that I am simply "reiterating company policy" and not moving forward with a solution, but the only solution that you have implied as acceptable to you is for Dell to ignore the status of your service contract and repair a failed piece of hardware. Doing so would be unfair to those customers that have purchased extended warranties. If you feel that there is a better compromise that can be made, I would be happy to discuss it with you. If, however, the only solution that you see as equitable is the one I mention above, then I am afraid we are at an impasse.
Neil
Dell, Inc.
neil@dell.com
Along the lines of being misquoted, I have this to respond to without including paragraph of paragraph of search engine friendly content. I told Dell I would feel obligated to "warn people" because when things went wrong with my Inspiron 6000 Dell, this is what happened:
* I found out that my conversation allowance was gone and I had to pay to talk to them to tell me what part I would need to fix my 15 month old unusable laptop pc. It felt a little raw.
* I escalated to use their free options at the Dell Community website (testing out their claims that this was viable) and NOONE could even comment on a solution for over 2 weeks. So even though that website is hosted by Dell, there didn't seem to be anyone really keeping an eye on it. Take a look at the original post. You can still to this day hear an echo.....
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