Gilbert said:
You are too kind, David. Personally, I think that there is no excuse for
posting wrong specs, especially for a company like IBM. Plus, I don't
believe that the people at IBM are "trying to give people tailor made
options". Going through their hundreds of configurations, I spent hours
trying to figure out what they had configured and even after all the time I
wasted I was enable to get what I wanted. In the specs pages on line, the
info is not complete. And their TAbook is a joke. It is messy and instead of
showing precise info for each model, it is full of "some with" features. Is
this confusion the result of poor organization or is it a marketing ploy
where the customers end up buying only what IBM wants to sell? In my
opinion, it's probably the latter.
I didn't say they were doing a good job of it. hehe. I just said it isn't a
trivial thing to accomplish.
Yeah, I may sound 'too kind' but that's because I've been on the other side
of the fence trying to make one of those things work (not that I designed
it, or else it would have <g>) and it can be amazing just how complex even
the seemingly simplest things are once you're the one who has to do it.
As the saying goes, never attribute to malice that which can be just as
easily explained by ignorance, incompetence, stupidity, or any of the other
similar human failings.
Look at the 5400 RPM hard drive example. I presume it costs more and one
would think they probably make more money with that option so it doesn't
make a heck of a lot of sense to imagine that substituting the 4200 RPM
specs for the 5400 RPM drive, leading one to think there's no good reason
to pay more for it, is a 'marketing gimmick'.
Cute story that kinda fits, and I just feel like telling it whether it does
of not. hehe
I'm thinking of buying a case but the specs, and picture, are incomplete so
I emailed tech support asking "please provide details of the cooling fan
mounts provided in your <insert model> case." I get a short reply back
saying "It has an 80mm case fan mount on the front. Thank you."
Now you might think that would suffice but the case looks like some others
that I happen to know what the fan mounts look like, and the email seemed
rather 'rushed' to me, so I emailed back "do you mean it does not have the
two rear 80mm fan mounts like the other cases based on this frame style?"
I just got back "it has the two 80mm rear fan mounts too."
Well, HELL, folks, when I ask for details of the fan mounts I mean ALL of them.
But I doubt not telling me it has three, instead of the one front fan mount
(nor the dismal online specs), was a 'marketing trick'. They just didn't
pay attention.
