[ale] OT vision computers etal

[Nathan]

I don't believe (searching back through my earlier messages) that I've 
used the term 'wonderful support' when referring to Dell's technical 
support.  The point that I have been trying to make though is that 
organizations looking to pay a one time fee for hardware + extended 
support (i.e. 3 years), it's difficult to find that in a small Mom and 
Pop shop.  To hopefully illustrate my point, in the situation that Paul 
mentioned.  If User 1 had bought the part from Local Computer Store A, 
and had had it for 366 days (just outside of a year).  User 1 is a 
novice user and wants to use the computer as a tool to help him do his 
job, he doesn't care to know what a motherboard or IDE cable is, or the 
differences between IDE, SATA, SCSI, etc.  He just wants to use the 
computer.  User 1 finds, all of a sudden, that the burner doesn't work.  
User 1 calls the Computer Store A and they likely say 'we're sorry, but 
it sounds like you have a bad drive, you'll need to buy another one 
since it's out of warranty'.  User 1 takes their word for it, goes to 
buy the replacement drive, and then hires Tech Guy 1 to install it.  At 
this point, User 1 is out 1) the time it took to troubleshoot, go get 
the drive, get back, and wait for Tech Guy 1 to come and replace it 
(likely the next day day, if you figure that User 1 noticed the error at 
9:00am, talked to the store at 10:00am, went to the store and arrived by 
11:00am, got back to his office by 12:00pm, called computer guy to do 
the replacement at this time) and 2) the expense of the replacement 
drive and the price for Tech Guy 1's time.  In the Dell scenario, 
downtime is the same, but the cost of the replacement drive and Tech Guy 
1's time was covered in the original cost of the machine. 

Now, to relate this to the original post, computer equipment for a 
Church.  If the Church doesn't have someone on staff / local that has 
the 'know how'  to provide tech support, they could easily be User 1 in 
the example above.  If they're looking to control costs (as most 
non-profits are, understandably), the Dell option is a better option.  
Downtime is the same, cost is lower.  If they want to pay more, they can 
get more.  Step one would be to buy the 'Gold', 'Premium', 'Elevated', 
or whatever 'superior' support package and have it's cost applied as an 
additional up front cost, easy to budget.  The next step is to hire 
someone to 1) build the computers and 2) provide long term technical 
support.  This is by far the best option for quality of equipment and 
quality of support, but it is considerably more expensive than either of 
the other options if things break.  How long would it take for your time 
(Paul, James, me, etc.) to exceed the cost of that 'elevated' warranty 
on a tier one box?



Paul Cartwright wrote:
> On Thu February 23 2006 12:23 pm, Geoffrey wrote:
>   
>> My personal experience with Dell is there support is virtually
>> non-existent.  They've sent it over seas as well and you get nothing
>> but a script reading bot on the other end.  The smaller you are, the
>> worse it gets.  Big customers get priority.
>>     
>
> I had a problem with my Dell desktop not long after I bought it. The 
> CDWriter stopped writing. The Bot on the other end couldn't get it to 
> work so he dispatched ( next day) a tech to replace it. Before that 
> tech got there, I figured out that there was an update patch to the 
> CDWriting program ( Roxio?) and once I installed the patch, it worked. 
> Wonderful tech support didn't know about that patch...
> Tech replaced a working drive, just because he was already out there..
>
>