Posts Tagged ‘Dell’

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Dell to Sell PC’s through Currys, Dixons & PC World

Thursday, December 13th, 2007

Dell, famous for it’s direct selling model, have signed a deal with DSGi to sell Dell PC’s through their various chains – Currys, Dixons & PC World. As well as selling Dell PC’s, DSGi will also provide technical support for the machines.

Customers will now have the option of visiting their local PC store and buying a new Dell computer straight off the shelf. Given that Dell will continue to sell direct, I can’t see them offering any discounts through the DSGi outlets. So on the downside, Dell PC’s bought in-store will probably be slightly more expensive and depending on stock levels, could be more “out of date” than a machine bought direct.

As a side note, I see that the .ie sites for Currys, Dixons and PC World are still not available. The last time I checked a few weeks ago, all three sites had a message that the site was being updated. Now, all three sites require a username and password. So despite the fact that all three outlets trade in this country, they still don’t have an online presence for their Irish customers.

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Dell Arrive in the Retail Market

Friday, May 25th, 2007

Dell are renowned as a direct sales company, their entire business is built on the fact that they only sell direct to the customer. No middleman to push up prices or to “soil” the customer experience of buying a Dell. That’s about to change because Dell have agreed to sell their wares through Walmart in the US.

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Dell Could be Coming to a Retail Shop Near You

Monday, April 30th, 2007

Anyone that has read this blog will know how I feel about Dell – handy if you want to buy a cheap computer, but crap at providing an actual service. In others words, you get what you pay for. Now comes word that Dell may be about to move on from their direct sales model.

Michael Dell recently sent a memo to the 80,000 Dell employees stating that while the Dell Direct Model has worked well for them, “It’s not a religion”. It looks like Dell are considering other methods of selling their computers. To do so, they have two options: they can go away and start building their own stores which would sell Dell equipment only, or they can sell their products through already established chains. The first option is really a non-starter. It would involve too much of a capital investment, and require Dell to take on a lot of new employees. The second option would be far better, as they would not be required to invest in buying/ building stores or taking on new employees.

While Dell have not explicitly announced that they are to sell their products through third parties, it does make some sense for them to do so. The computer market has recently seen a move away from desktop machines to laptops. Laptops are a lot less customisable, and generally speaking, the technology contained in a laptop does not evolve as fast as the technology contained in a desktop. With these in mind, putting laptops in a shop and letting them sit on a shelf for a couple of months is neither going to affect their selling price, nor will they become obsolete in that time.

At the moment, if you want to buy a new Dell PC, you could do so either by calling them or going to their website. Either way, you don’t get to see your new computer until it’s delivered. Sometimes it’s nice to be able to play around with a demo model and get a feel for it. Build quality, usability, and responsiveness can only be judged when you have a physical computer in front of you.

One thing I would say, is that regardless of how you buy your Dell machine, if it’s a desktop don’t buy an extended warranty. If anything goes wrong with a desktop, it’s cheaper and far easier to fix it yourself. However, if you’re getting a laptop, then the extended warranty is worth the cost, because when it does break, it’s not so easy to fix.

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Open Letter to Dell Technical Support

Wednesday, April 18th, 2007

Dear Technical Support,

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your fantastic support. After being transferred 8 times during one ten minute phone call, I could hardly contain my excitement, but being a glutton for punishment, I just had to use your email support. And boy, was I glad that I did.

Even though I had to wait 24 hours for a response, when it did come, my hands were trembling in anticipation as I opened that first email. The rush was amazing as I read the completely scripted response. My endorphins went through the roof as I realised that the respondent hadn’t read my original email, and was asking me to repeat the same information contained in my original request. I knew that this correspondence was going to be good, but I had no idea how great it was going to be.

After a bit of “to and fro”, that was delicious in it’s building anticipation, I couldn’t wait for the climax. Then it happened, you gave me a solution. You wanted to send a courier out to me with the CD’s I needed. There I was, holding out for more redundant requests for information, and then the rug was pulled from under my feet. I was flabbergasted. This couldn’t be happening to me. No, I cried, I need more, don’t leave me like this.

5 – 8 working days was the promised time frame for the courier call. I was hoping for longer. But after being so dramatically let down previously, you had lost my trust. It would take a lot of work to regain my confidence.

Things were looking up, when nearly a week later, there was no sign of the courier. Then you went and seemingly made it worse. You contacted me, out of the blue, without being asked. Being proactive. It’s not what I expected. It’s not what I wanted. As I opened the mail, my blood was beginning to boil. There it was, you wanted to know if I had received my CD’s. Were you trying to ruin this experience for me? Why would you do it? It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. But then I saw there might be some hope.

You wanted to know if I could confirm the address for the courier. Here was my glimmer of hope. Once I gave you my address, and waited. I didn’t want to be disappointed again, so I tried not to get my hopes up. It was hard, but I tried to put the whole thing out of my mind.

Remember I said that I thought that this was going to be good, and it turned out to be great? Well this is where my experience became truly wonderful. I received your response and I have to admit that my heart skipped a beat. The address given to the courier was wrong! Not just wrong in it’s minor details, but completely wrong. In my wildest dreams I couldn’t have imagined this. It was then that I realised that up until now, you were just toying with me.

In the interests of keeping the game going, I gave you the correct address. I was looking forward to seeing what you would do to add a twist to the tale. I waited and waited, but I can’t wait any longer. No courier has called, and you haven’t emailed me. I can’t wait to see how this ends. So please, please let me know. The suspense is killing me.

Yours sincerely,
Paul McCarthy.

P.S. After giving the matter some thought, and after talking with friends in the support business, I have just come to the realisation that this wasn’t a game. I feel humiliated and exasperated. I also wanted you to know, I’m tired of waiting for your courier to show up. Luckily one of my friends works for Dell, and was able to get me a copy of the CD’s I needed within 24 hours – the same length of time that it took you to respond to one of my emails.

P.P.S. I would also like to make it abundantly clear that I do not want a response to this post. Life goes on. For me, for you. I kindly suggest that you accept it and move on. Accept that you have lost a customer. Accept the fact that you have lost my business and the business of my clients. It will hardly affect your bottom line, but I consider it my stand against the faceless corporation that you have become.

Once again,
Yours faithfully,
Paul McCarthy.

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Dell Giving Away Free Computers

Sunday, April 1st, 2007

As you may have heard, Dell Computers recently announced that they had discovered some accounting irregularities. Dell are now due to undergo a full audit, and in order to assist with the audit, Dell have decided to clear their entire back catalogue of machines.

You can order your free Dell from the Dell website by going to www.dell.com/iwantmyfreedell.

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Linux on the Desktop

Thursday, March 29th, 2007

For the past few years there has been growing support for Linux. And now Dell have announced that they are going to offer Linux pre-installed on select desktops and laptops.They haven’t said when this will happen, or what distribution they’ll use.

Does this mean that Linux is about to hit the mainstream?

I’ve been installing and trying to use Linux for at least the last 7 years, but I’ve always given up in the end. Why? The main reason is that with Linux, the hardware support is basically rubbish. I’ve tried to install 5 different distro’s on at least half a dozen computers over the years, and not once have I been able to get all my hardware to work. I spent countless hours on Google looking for drivers, only to discover that there is no driver available. Happily this has improved with newer Linux distributions, but hardware support is still far from perfect.

Then there’s also the community surrounding Linux. Don’t get me wrong, the vast majority of people who donate their time and energy to Linux do so with the best will in the world. Nonetheless there’s always a few that look down on anyone who has the temerity to pose a simple question. In one case where I posted a request for help locating a driver for my video card, all I got back were standard “RTFM” replies along with someone who kindly told me that there was no driver available, and that if I wanted to use Linux that the least I go do was contribute by writing one. I neither have the ability, time or interest to do something like that. With that kind of attitude, Linux is never going to become a mainstream home OS. Home users want to spend their time working on their computer, not spend time getting their computer to work.

With Dells announcement, that may be about to change. By offering Linux to the average home user, Dell are committing themselves to providing the required drivers and technical support. Your new Linux computer may work out of the box but don’t be lulled into thinking that all your peripherals will work with your new machine. In my experience, there’s a good chance that at least one of them won’t.

When all is said and done, this is still great news for Linux. Despite all my previous problems, and experiences, I remain a fan of Linux. I like it’s security, I like the ability to use the command line to interact with practically any part of the OS, I like the sheer robustness of the OS. And I keep trying it out. I may not be able to get it to work with all my peripherals, and with all my hardware, but I still love the challenge of trying to get it to do so – why else do you think I keep coming back to it!

I may not be able to run Linux full time, but I do have my Mac for when I want to forgt about Windows for a while!

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Laptops to Overtake PC’s by 2011

Sunday, March 25th, 2007

According to a forecast from the IDC, consumers are buying more laptops than desktops. While laptop ownership is currently not as high as PC ownership, it’s not going to take too long for it to catch up.

Within the next 5 years, more people will be using laptops than desktops. As the owner, and regular user, of two laptops I can understand why. For me, it boils down to a combination of the following:

Computing Power:
Since Intel and AMD decided that the race for more GHz was no longer the be-all and end-all, the switch to mobile, multiple core processors has meant that for normal day-to-day operations there is no longer any reason to prefer a desktop machine.

Price:
Yes, laptops are slightly more expensive than desktops, but the price difference is as much as you think. If you check the prices on the Dell website, a basic home laptop will set you back €469 and a basic desktop will set you back €475. That’s a difference of €6 in favour of the laptop. But for a real shock, check out the specifications: (Both machines were specifically selected as basic home use machines, with the cheapest options picked, apart from the optical drive on the desktop, which was upgraded from a CD-RW drive to a DVD-RW drive.)

  • Inspiron 1501:
  • Processor: AMD Semperon 3500+
  • OS: Vista Home Basic
  • Screen: 14.1 Wide Screen WXGA (1200 x 800)
  • Memory: 512MB DDR2 SDRAM
  • Hard Drive: 60GB 5400RPM
  • Optical Drive: 8x DVD+/-RW Drive
  • Graphics: ATI Radeon Xpress 256MB
  • Power: 4 Cell Battery (The 6 Cell Battery costs an extra €18.15)
  • Wireless Networking: Dell Wireless 802.11b/g Mini-PCI
  •  
  • Cost: €469 inc. VAT and delivery.
  • Dimension C521:
  • Processor: AMD Semperon 3400+
  • OS: Vista Home Basic
  • Screen: 15″ Flat Panel
  • Memory: 512MB DDR2
  • Hard Drive: 160GB SATA HDD
  • Optical Drive: 16x DVD+/-RW Drive
  • Graphics: Integrated nVidia Geforce 6150 LE
  • Dell Keyboard
  • Dell Mouse
  • Sound Card: Integrated 7.1 Audio (No Speakers)
  • No Wireless Networking
  •  
  • Cost: €475 inc. VAT and delivery.

From the laptop perspective, you’re getting a better processor, better graphics, and better networking options, and it’s still costing you less. Granted, the screen is slightly smaller, and the hard drive is a lot smaller, but from a performance point of view, the laptop still wins hands down. Even better deals are available on the Dell Outlet site.

Portability:
While desktop systems are getting smaller and lighter, no-one in their right mind would consider them to be portable. There’s a lot to be said for taking out a laptop and getting straight to work, no matter where you are.

Wireless Connectivity:
I remember when wireless networking first started to become mainstream. It was flaky, difficult to set up, difficult to troubleshoot, and compatibility problems were rife. Not so anymore. It’s simple to connect to a wireless network, and wireless speeds have increased substantially since the days of 802.11b. For me, this is the killer “application” for laptops. Wireless connectivity allows me to move anywhere in the house, and still be connected to the Internet. There’s no retreating to another room just to check my email, or write an article for my blog. I just open the lid of my MacBook, and I’m online straight away.

As I said, I own two laptops, I also own two desktop machines, and while I use all four on a regular basis, I find that my most productive work is done on my laptop(s). For the money I spent on these machines, it’s been worth every penny.

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Dell Support

Thursday, March 22nd, 2007

Despite my recent whining about Dell Support, I got a bit of a surprise yesterday. I received an email from a gentleman called Richard at Dell. Richard had come across my blog and after reading about my problem, he very kindly offered to help resolve the problem, if Support were unable to do so. Fortunately, I had managed to get in contact with Tech Support via email and the CD’s are on the way. So a big thank you to Richard for taking an interest in my plight, and especially for taking the time to contact me.

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Dell Support Redux

Wednesday, March 21st, 2007

After my previous experience with Dell Support, I decided to get on to their website and use their online support to see if I could get anywhere. I sent off an email, and eventually got a response. They’ve graciously agreed to send me a set of recovery CD’s by courier in the next 5 – 8 working days.

It’s taken a while, but now, hopefully, I’ll be able to get this system repaired and back to the owner. Frustrating as telephone support was, their email support is slightly better, just don’t expect to get an instant response. I first contacted them on Monday and received confirmation today that the CD’s are being sent.

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Calling Dell Sales and Support

Monday, March 19th, 2007

I’ve been messing around with reinstalling XP on a Dimension 2400 for the last couple of days. I can get XP installed no problem, but because the key I have is an OEM key, it won’t activate for me. I could use a crack, but as this is not my machine, I don’t want to put the owner in a legally and ethically dubious position.

I’ve tried installing using the setup files in the i386 directory, but no matter what type of disk I boot from, I just get error messages that either Windows cannot find a place to put the swap file (when booting from a Win98 disk with NTFS support), or that winnt.exe is not a recognised command (when trying to run the installer from the recovery console).

In the last couple of days I’ve burned several boot and utility CD’s all to no avail. The only thing that is left for me to do is fdisk the hard-drive, reformat as FAT32, boot from a Win98 disk and try to install from the i386 directory that way. Seems like a lot of effort, for very little gain I thought, so hence my reason for contacting Dell.

I started off my calling the Lo-Call number in their website for Sales. I ended up talking to someone in India, who told me that they would transfer me to the right department. That person then transferred me to another department, who then transferred me back to the first person I was talking to. I eventually got through to someone in the UK who told me that I would have to contact Technical Support. He very kindly gave me a number for Tech Support in the UK. This is despite the fact that when I first rang, I went through the automated system clearing picking the choice for Ireland. I also informed every person that I spoke to that I was in Ireland, yet I still managed to be put through to someone in the UK, who could only give me a number for UK Support. I thanked them for their time and hung up.

I did a quick search myself and found the number for Technical Support and called again. Yet again I got through to India, and after giving all my details again, I was put on hold and I was told that I was being transferred to Part Sales. And this rigmarole continued for another 3 transfers, until I got to someone who took my details, yet again, and after explaining for the umpteenth time that all I wanted was a set of restore cd’s, I was told I would have to talk to Part Sales.

Now I’m fairly sure that I had been told at least twice already that I was being put through to Part Sales, but apparently not.
Once more I was put on hold while I was transferred. This time after a couple of minutes the agent came back on the phone to tell me that the queue waiting to speak with Part Sales was a long one and did I want to wait. No I said, I’ll try again later. Chances are that all those people trying to get through to Part Sales are probably looking for Dell Printer Support. Best of luck to them.

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