"Dell's halo is fading"

[George Macdonald]

Quoted from PCWorld's latest Reliability & Service survey:
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,123409,pg,1,00.asp. I hadn't
realized how far things had gone here: e.g. on its low-end systems, they
have a 90-day warranty and for ~$25. you can get it extended to 1-year....
is that nuts or what? Makes ya wonder how many bad capacitors it'd take to
sink the company; when you stretch the elastic that far, the snap-back can
be vicious.

 

[Keith]

Quoted from PCWorld's latest Reliability & Service survey:
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,123409,pg,1,00.asp. I hadn't
realized how far things had gone here: e.g. on its low-end systems, they
have a 90-day warranty and for ~$25. you can get it extended to 1-year....
is that nuts or what? Makes ya wonder how many bad capacitors it'd take to
sink the company; when you stretch the elastic that far, the snap-back can
be vicious.

Hmm, why did your last sentence give me a mental image of Mikey
getting a wedgie? ;-)

 

[George Macdonald]

Hmm, why did your last sentence give me a mental image of Mikey
getting a wedgie? ;-)

Do ya think.... Mikey wears a thong?

 

[Keith]

Do ya think.... Mikey wears a thong?

Now you've gone and done it. I'll never be able to sleep!

 

[nobody]

Quoted from PCWorld's latest Reliability & Service survey:
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,123409,pg,1,00.asp. I hadn't
realized how far things had gone here: e.g. on its low-end systems, they
have a 90-day warranty and for ~$25. you can get it extended to 1-year....
is that nuts or what? Makes ya wonder how many bad capacitors it'd take to
sink the company; when you stretch the elastic that far, the snap-back can
be vicious.

What a news - Dull Computer sucked for long, long time. I thought
that at least their business line was OK. But after being issued with
brand spanking new Latitude D610 (? - can't look at it - don't work
there anymore) it came on me right away that I like my wife's old T22
much better. Everything from style (hated that grayish-silvery paint
job) to screen (same size, same res, but old IBM looks much crispier)
to docking (IBM is a snap, and with Dell you need to actively search
for that position to push it down) to weight (you can feel these few
extra oz when you carry it on your shoulder a noticeable distance).
IBM even feels more responsive even though it's only P3M 900, and the
Dell had something like PM 1.4(or was it 1.6?). The only good thing
about Dell was Centrino wireless - worked much faster than PC card
WI-FI a-b-g in the same spot in my house. To sum it up, Dell lost the
last drop of my respect with that lappy, and I was almost happy
returning it back to the employer when the project was over. That's
what happend when they sent production to China, support to India, and
R&D, that always was cut to the bone, someplace in Asia (India?
Taiwan? doesn't matter - outsourced to 3rd party anyway). Now they
are purely consumer brand and marketing company. Even at that, they
seem to do everything to make the brand lose its premium luster. No
wonder Mickey is about to lose his #1 preferred customer spot at INTC
to Steve.

NNN

As a side note - I suspect Lenovo Thinkpad is not, or soon will be not
of the same league as IBM Thinkpad. So what will remain when one
needs to buy a laptop say a year from now? Just please don't say HP -
after Carly's tenure they are not any better than Dell.

 

[Alan Walpool]

no> On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 05:08:56 -0500, George Macdonald

Bottom line here, and dell works for the shareholders and not the
users . Some of those other brands you can't even get any support even
though you have a one year warranty.

no> What a news - Dull Computer sucked for long, long time. I thought
no> that at least their business line was OK. But after being issued
no> with brand spanking new Latitude D610 (? - can't look at it -
no> don't work there anymore) it came on me right away that I like my
no> wife's old T22 much better. Everything from style (hated that
no> grayish-silvery paint job) to screen (same size, same res, but
no> old IBM looks much crispier) to docking (IBM is a snap, and with
no> Dell you need to actively search for that position to push it
no> down) to weight (you can feel these few extra oz when you carry
no> it on your shoulder a noticeable distance). IBM even feels more
no> responsive even though it's only P3M 900, and the Dell had
no> something like PM 1.4(or was it 1.6?). The only good thing about
no> Dell was Centrino wireless - worked much faster than PC card
no> WI-FI a-b-g in the same spot in my house. To sum it up, Dell lost
no> the last drop of my respect with that lappy, and I was almost
no> happy returning it back to the employer when the project was
no> over. That's what happend when they sent production to China,
no> support to India, and R&D, that always was cut to the bone,
no> someplace in Asia (India? Taiwan? doesn't matter - outsourced to
no> 3rd party anyway). Now they are purely consumer brand and
no> marketing company. Even at that, they seem to do everything to
no> make the brand lose its premium luster. No wonder Mickey is about
no> to lose his #1 preferred customer spot at INTC to Steve.

no> NNN

Another point with the new laptops and xp. The last several laptops I
have seen running this XP had some type of CPU speed reduction to
increase battery life. So one reason they are less responsive is
because of this. Turn it off and the laptop is much quicker, but
battery life goes away rapidly. I think you can disable this when
connected to AC.

All dells don't suck. Some of them are actually good. The cost
cutting is having an impact on the whole industry. Buyer beware. I
have been lucky with the two dell laptops I have recently purchased
the 600m and 700m. Both have done very well so far, but time will
tell.


True. However, someone will have to make a high end (durable laptop)
because there is a market for such a laptop. I suspect the main
drivers of the laptop market today are college students and even high
school students. Doubt if Mom/Pop will want to pay too much and 500
bucks looks about the right price point. Hay all they are doing is
wordprocessing and hooking up the ipod. That's about it.

Whatever.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

WI-FI a-b-g in the same spot in my house. To sum it up, Dell lost the
last drop of my respect with that lappy, and I was almost happy
returning it back to the employer when the project was over. That's
what happend when they sent production to China, support to India, and
R&D, that always was cut to the bone, someplace in Asia (India?
Taiwan? doesn't matter - outsourced to 3rd party anyway). Now they
are purely consumer brand and marketing company. Even at that, they
seem to do everything to make the brand lose its premium luster. No
wonder Mickey is about to lose his #1 preferred customer spot at INTC
to Steve.

The Dells and IBMs were always produced in China as far back as I can
remember. Prior to that they may have been produced in Taiwan, which is
not that far from China anyways.

As for support, I think a lot of Dell's support is actually coming from
Canada. My younger brother might be getting a job at Dell pretty soon.
Dell has taken over an old building previously owned by DEC->Compaq->HP
in Ottawa, so it looks like they are outsourcing that to Canada these
days.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Gary L.]

The Dells and IBMs were always produced in China as far back as I can
remember. Prior to that they may have been produced in Taiwan, which is
not that far from China anyways.

Most IBM ThinkPads for the North American market were assembled in
Mexico until a few years ago. IBM build that plant specifically for
ThinkPad assembly. Production switched to China maybe 3-4 years ago.
IBM/Lenovo still has the R&D center in Raleigh, N.C., the call center
in Atlanta, and the corporate headquarters in N.Y.

Dell has at least one desktop assembly plant in the U.S., in North
Carolina:

http://www1.us.dell.com/content/top...ce/en/2004/2004_12_22_rr_000?c=us&l=en&s=corp

As for support, I think a lot of Dell's support is actually coming from
Canada. My younger brother might be getting a job at Dell pretty soon.
Dell has taken over an old building previously owned by DEC->Compaq->HP
in Ottawa, so it looks like they are outsourcing that to Canada these
days.

According to the article referenced above, Dell also has a call center
in Oklahoma. And they have other operations in the U.S., including the
corporate headquarters in Texas. I'm not defending Dell, but they do
seem to have as least some of their operations in the U.S.

 

[George Macdonald]

What a news - Dull Computer sucked for long, long time. I thought
that at least their business line was OK. But after being issued with
brand spanking new Latitude D610 (? - can't look at it - don't work
there anymore) it came on me right away that I like my wife's old T22
much better. Everything from style (hated that grayish-silvery paint
job) to screen (same size, same res, but old IBM looks much crispier)
to docking (IBM is a snap, and with Dell you need to actively search
for that position to push it down) to weight (you can feel these few
extra oz when you carry it on your shoulder a noticeable distance).
IBM even feels more responsive even though it's only P3M 900, and the
Dell had something like PM 1.4(or was it 1.6?). The only good thing
about Dell was Centrino wireless - worked much faster than PC card
WI-FI a-b-g in the same spot in my house. To sum it up, Dell lost the
last drop of my respect with that lappy, and I was almost happy
returning it back to the employer when the project was over. That's
what happend when they sent production to China, support to India, and
R&D, that always was cut to the bone, someplace in Asia (India?
Taiwan? doesn't matter - outsourced to 3rd party anyway). Now they
are purely consumer brand and marketing company. Even at that, they
seem to do everything to make the brand lose its premium luster. No
wonder Mickey is about to lose his #1 preferred customer spot at INTC
to Steve.

That's a kinda big leap for Apple - from 5%(?) market share to the same
league as Dell. What would all the Apple-weenies think if they see their
"premium brand" assigned to dumping Celerons?

As for Dell I don't want one of those things -- laptop or desktop -- near
our office network - someone from one of our offices brought a Dell laptop
in and hooked up for a few days and every time he powered it off, it hung
the hub, i.e. the entire network. He also had trouble with the notorious
drifting cursor - embarrassing when doing a demo for a client and you can't
seem to control your system. Dell could not correct the problem.

NNN

As a side note - I suspect Lenovo Thinkpad is not, or soon will be not
of the same league as IBM Thinkpad. So what will remain when one
needs to buy a laptop say a year from now? Just please don't say HP -
after Carly's tenure they are not any better than Dell.

I'm somewhat hopeful for Lenovo keeping the IBM quality - it's early yet
but the initial signs are good though they still seem to have the IBM
logo... which IIRC Lenovo has the right to use for a year or two.

Toshiba used to do a business quality laptop a few years ago but they
seemed to drop the ball when they brought out those cheap-looking shiney
black plastic cases - really looks consumer-grade stuff. They've said they
want to attack the business market again but I haven't seen any signs yet.

 

[nobody]

On Fri, 09 Dec 2005 19:49:48 -0500, George Macdonald

....snip...

That's a kinda big leap for Apple - from 5%(?) market share to the same
league as Dell. What would all the Apple-weenies think if they see their
"premium brand" assigned to dumping Celerons?

....more snip...

As for the volume, yes, AAPL will never use up as much Celery, but
Dull will continue consuming them by truckloads, preferred status or
not. But from marketing standpoint Apple brand has as much, if not
more, cachet. So expect that after traditional Intel's paper launch
of new latest and greatest chips, that symbolic quantity that went to
Mickey first for years, will be redirected to Steve. Not sure about
Xeons though - I don't see Apple making a lot of use of these, or even
a lot of noise, except maybe the noise of oversized jet engine-shaped
coolers the latest Intel chips need to avoid melting down.
;-)
NNN

 

[nobody]

Dell has at least one desktop assembly plant in the U.S., in North
Carolina:

http://www1.us.dell.com/content/top...ce/en/2004/2004_12_22_rr_000?c=us&l=en&s=corp


According to the article referenced above, Dell also has a call center
in Oklahoma. And they have other operations in the U.S., including the
corporate headquarters in Texas. I'm not defending Dell, but they do
seem to have as least some of their operations in the U.S.

The key word is "at least some" - what part of the total volume they
build in NC? 10%? or even less? And the HQ in TX is the last thing
they will offshore. Even when - and if - they decided to do so, my
bet is they will not set up the new HQ in Bangalore or some Chinese
industrial park. Contrary to that, it will be most likely moved to
someplace in the Caribbean, with pleasant climate, ever blue sky,
turquoise sea, and very relaxed taxation policies. And a short hop by
corporate jet back to the good old US of A when they need to see some
big customer or key supplier (think Intel) face to face, or gather a
press conference for another marketing trick.

NNN

 

[George Macdonald]

The Dells and IBMs were always produced in China as far back as I can
remember. Prior to that they may have been produced in Taiwan, which is
not that far from China anyways.

As for support, I think a lot of Dell's support is actually coming from
Canada. My younger brother might be getting a job at Dell pretty soon.
Dell has taken over an old building previously owned by DEC->Compaq->HP
in Ottawa, so it looks like they are outsourcing that to Canada these
days.

When they moved the corporate support to India(?) the hue and cry was
sufficient to get them to reverse that move and bring it back to N.
America. I haven't heard anything about moving consumer sakes back. BTW
did you read the comments in the article about Toshiba's Toronto call
center? Apparently some callers believe they're being routed to India
because the area has a large Indian population and some of the reps are of
Indian origins.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

The key word is "at least some" - what part of the total volume they
build in NC? 10%? or even less? And the HQ in TX is the last thing
they will offshore.

Well, obviously since it's a *call* centre, it's a safe bet that the
total build there is 0%.

Even when - and if - they decided to do so, my
bet is they will not set up the new HQ in Bangalore or some Chinese
industrial park. Contrary to that, it will be most likely moved to
someplace in the Caribbean, with pleasant climate, ever blue sky,
turquoise sea, and very relaxed taxation policies. And a short hop by
corporate jet back to the good old US of A when they need to see some
big customer or key supplier (think Intel) face to face, or gather a
press conference for another marketing trick.

I doubt any headquarters would be ever moved to India or China, just
branch offices. The only HQs in India would be local indigenous
companies. I can see the Caribean thing happening though. A lot of
corporations have already done so -- their hq's are in the Caymans or
something. However, their HQs are in the caribean only in name, for tax
purposes. Their US "branch" offices are really their main offices still.

Another possibility I can see is that with Michael Dell being Jewish, he
could move his HQ to Israel. Would gain him some points with his parents
and grandparents at the very least.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Gary L.]

On Fri, 09 Dec 2005 19:49:48 -0500, George Macdonald

I'm somewhat hopeful for Lenovo keeping the IBM quality - it's early yet
but the initial signs are good though they still seem to have the IBM
logo... which IIRC Lenovo has the right to use for a year or two.

Actually 5 years from the date of sale for Lenovo to use the IBM names
and logos. The only problem I've experienced since the sale is slow
shipping on the direct-to-consumer sales. It took about 2 months to
receive 9 ThinkCentre desktop systems for my son's school. I gave up
on ordering a ThinkPad direct from Lenovo since after two weeks they
couldn't give me a reliable ship date. I ended up buying the same
machine from Newegg and received it in two days.

Toshiba used to do a business quality laptop a few years ago but they
seemed to drop the ball when they brought out those cheap-looking shiney
black plastic cases - really looks consumer-grade stuff. They've said they
want to attack the business market again but I haven't seen any signs yet.

Certainly all of the notebook manufacturers are trying to capitalize
on the IBM-Lenovo deal to increase their market share of notebooks.
Even Sony is pitching to this market now (with ads that look comical
to me with the inappropriate models used to portray business people).

I don't like any of the current Toshiba, Dell or HP-Compaq notebooks.
Of all the ThinkPad alternatives, I think Fujitsu might be the best
choice. Their thin and light business class machines seems to be of
decent build quality, and they do well on the non-scientific reader
reliability surveys. The main drawbacks are a poor keyboard feel (as
compared to most ThinkPads) and pre-loading of junk software you don't
want (AOL, MS Works, etc.). At present, I still think that the
ThinkPad offers the best deal on business class notebooks when all
factors are considered (including warranty service). Of course, things
may or may not be different a year from now.

Apple is the other alternative: I like some of the PowerBooks,
especially the 12". But that is opening a whole new can of worms. Not
only are the PowerBooks more expensive to buy, but they only come with
3 months of phone support and a 1 year parts warranty, and it costs
$350 to get a 3 year warranty. Plus, you have to replace all of your
software, and then replace it *again* when Apple goes to the Intel
processor. Plus, there is the whole Apple proprietary way of doing
things, which some people may have strong feelings about.

 

[Tony Hill]

The Dells and IBMs were always produced in China as far back as I can
remember. Prior to that they may have been produced in Taiwan, which is
not that far from China anyways.

As for support, I think a lot of Dell's support is actually coming from
Canada. My younger brother might be getting a job at Dell pretty soon.
Dell has taken over an old building previously owned by DEC->Compaq->HP
in Ottawa, so it looks like they are outsourcing that to Canada these
days.

FWIW Dell already has one call center in the Ottawa area, about 500
people, and they are just in the process of opening up the second one
(initially about 500 people but possibly growing as large as 2,000
people). HP currently operates 3 call centers (that I know of) in
Ottawa of varying size, though I wouldn't be surprised to see one of
them close shop in the very near future. I think IBM has a call
center here as well and there are a couple centers for major ISPs
(both Canadian and US).

And it's not just Ottawa, this is common throughout a lot of Canada.
In fact, Canada is the #2 country (after India) for outsourced call
center jobs of US companies.

It's interesting that this trend has continued despite the stronger
Canadian dollar. Initially support was moved to Canada due to the
lower cost of labor. Not nearly as cheap as India, but still a lot
cheaper than the US. When call centers really started moving North
(late 90's), the Canadian dollar was at ~$0.65 US. But now its at
$0.8644 (as of Dec. 9th) and the cost of labor is actually slightly
more expensive in Canada than in the US (the standard price-parity
point that gets tossed around is $0.83). Despite the lack of
employment cost advantage, new call centers keep opening up here.

This should be a bit of a wake up call to the US call center industry.

 

[George Macdonald]

On Fri, 09 Dec 2005 19:49:48 -0500, George Macdonald


Actually 5 years from the date of sale for Lenovo to use the IBM names
and logos. The only problem I've experienced since the sale is slow
shipping on the direct-to-consumer sales. It took about 2 months to
receive 9 ThinkCentre desktop systems for my son's school. I gave up
on ordering a ThinkPad direct from Lenovo since after two weeks they
couldn't give me a reliable ship date. I ended up buying the same
machine from Newegg and received it in two days.

I never liked the IBM direct - lethargic at S&H as you say, the Web site
was often incorrect on inventory situation... and confusing "invoices".
I've used NewEgg and CDW - the last Thinkpad I ordered at 7:00pm and had it
at 10:30am the next day, from CDW.

Certainly all of the notebook manufacturers are trying to capitalize
on the IBM-Lenovo deal to increase their market share of notebooks.
Even Sony is pitching to this market now (with ads that look comical
to me with the inappropriate models used to portray business people).

Sony is really a joke in the computer business - worst service & support
reputation by far. Now with the DRM rootkit issue they've become a hate
target; by their reluctance to put things right there they don't seem to
have a clue as to how much damage they've done to themselves.

I don't like any of the current Toshiba, Dell or HP-Compaq notebooks.
Of all the ThinkPad alternatives, I think Fujitsu might be the best
choice. Their thin and light business class machines seems to be of
decent build quality, and they do well on the non-scientific reader
reliability surveys. The main drawbacks are a poor keyboard feel (as
compared to most ThinkPads) and pre-loading of junk software you don't
want (AOL, MS Works, etc.). At present, I still think that the
ThinkPad offers the best deal on business class notebooks when all
factors are considered (including warranty service). Of course, things
may or may not be different a year from now.

Yep. Let's hope Lenovo doesn't bugger it all up; it would be nice if they
cleaned up on all the resident program crap I've seen on recent Thinkpads.
I still can't quite figure how or when but there's a Python script which
runs on startup sometimes which takes ages to complete. I've toyed with
the idea of Fujitsu but never looked at their recent systems, though they
do apparently have a couple of AMD-based systems. I'd also like to get a
close look at a Pansonic Toughbook, since one of the reasons we went
Thinkpad a while back was because of the superior case design, which stands
up well to minor knocks.

 

[Tony Hill]

Well, obviously since it's a *call* centre, it's a safe bet that the
total build there is 0%.

I think he was referring to the assembly plant that Dell recently
opened in NC, not the call center in OK! Dell made quite a big deal
about how they were opening up a new computer assembly plant in the US
instead of shipping production off overseas. I have no idea what
percentage of their products are being assembled there, though my
guess is that it's fairly small. The bulk of stuff for all the major
computer vendors seems to be going through a fairly small handful of
companies in China and Malaysia. Even Taiwan seems to be getting
cut-out on a lot of these days.

 

[Tony Hill]

When they moved the corporate support to India(?) the hue and cry was
sufficient to get them to reverse that move and bring it back to N.
America. I haven't heard anything about moving consumer sakes back. BTW
did you read the comments in the article about Toshiba's Toronto call
center? Apparently some callers believe they're being routed to India
because the area has a large Indian population and some of the reps are of
Indian origins.

MANY times people think that ANYONE with any sort of (non-North
American) accent must be in India when they call a call center.
Actually I've even heard of cases where people though that French
Canadian accents were actually from people in India! Certainly anyone
with an African or Middle Eastern accent working in a call center will
*often* be thought of as someone in India.

So it's not JUST the people who actually are of Indian origins that
cause this perception.

 

[nobody]

Another possibility I can see is that with Michael Dell being Jewish, he
could move his HQ to Israel. Would gain him some points with his parents
and grandparents at the very least.

Yousuf Khan

Oh, come on. Mickey might be Zionist (all Jews are to lesser or
greater extent), but not enough Zionist to move his HQ to the place
with near-Communist political system and mindset, unions trampling the
corporations, taxes so pinching that US corporate tax rate would seem
light tickling in comparison. On top of that, real estate prices and
taxes are multiples of US ones. Add to that unrelenting terror -
proportionally to the numbers of population, Israel suffers 9/11 every
year. And don't discount ever-present threat to wipe Israel off the
map - it will be not much consolation that all surrounding Arab
countries will go up in a puff of nuclear smoke in the process of
eliminating the "illegal Zionist entity" as they always regarded the
state of Israel.

 

[Gary L.]

I never liked the IBM direct - lethargic at S&H as you say, the Web site
was often incorrect on inventory situation... and confusing "invoices".
I've used NewEgg and CDW - the last Thinkpad I ordered at 7:00pm and had it
at 10:30am the next day, from CDW.

I had good luck with them in the past (prior to the sale) but it has
always been hit or miss. It just seems to be more miss than hit these
days. But I did order a hard drive carrier for my Dock II Ultrabay
2000 recently and the part arrived the very next day (with just the
regular free shipping).

Sony is really a joke in the computer business - worst service & support
reputation by far. Now with the DRM rootkit issue they've become a hate
target; by their reluctance to put things right there they don't seem to
have a clue as to how much damage they've done to themselves.

I agree that Sony is a minor player in the computer market: overpriced
products and terrible support. Forget about updated driver support for
a Sony system. The DRM fiasco may blow over in time, but they could
see a real hit this Christmas shopping season.

Yep. Let's hope Lenovo doesn't bugger it all up; it would be nice if they
cleaned up on all the resident program crap I've seen on recent Thinkpads.
I still can't quite figure how or when but there's a Python script which
runs on startup sometimes which takes ages to complete.

As far as I can tell, the Python script has to do with the "Rapid
Restore" utility. Rapid Restore loads as a service by default and that
may run the Python script. You can do a clean install using the OS
packaged with the recovery disks (read the thread on thinkpads.com),
but it is a real PITA. I simply used an OEM XP disk I have from
another system and the product code on the ThinkPad's sticker to get a
clean install.

I've toyed with
the idea of Fujitsu but never looked at their recent systems, though they
do apparently have a couple of AMD-based systems.

About 6 months ago, I owned one for about a week before I returned it
and bought a ThinkPad instead. It came with a good recovery disk that
installed just the OS and the drivers and none of the "value-added"
software (that was on a separate restore disk), so it was possible to
get a fairly clean system without buying another license. It had a 13"
screen and the Centrino package with a 1.6 GHz 725 Pentium M and the
855 chip set. The main performance bottleneck was the 4200 RPM hard
drive, but performance was pretty decent and it was very lightweight
for a system with an integrated DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive. The mushy
keyboard and the lack of a TrackPoint bothered me, and for $200 less I
got a ThinkPad with similar specs plus a 14" screen, a 5400 RPM hard
drive, and a real graphics chip (ATI 9000 with 64 MB RAM) rather than
the Intel integrated graphics. The difference in price was due mostly
to the attractive pricing on the 3 year warranty from IBM. If the
ThinkPad was not available, I would have stuck with the Fujitsu.

I'd also like to get a
close look at a Pansonic Toughbook, since one of the reasons we went
Thinkpad a while back was because of the superior case design, which stands
up well to minor knocks.

They do look interesting and quite lightweight but also rather pricey:
the 14" model has a list price of $2,400. I would love to see one in
the flesh.