Re: ready to use debian or ubuntu laptop reccomendations? - slightly OT
On Fri, 03 Mar 2006 03:10:08 +0100, Paul Johnson wrote:
> On Thursday 02 March 2006 01:20, Star King of the Grape Trees wrote:
>> Andrew Cady wrote:
>> > <snip>
>>
>> I am very certain that Dell does sell servers that optionally have
>> Linux, and even says this on their website.
>
> Nothing but lip service. I tried this week, still no dice. They
advertise it
> on their website, but Dell will not, under any circumstance, sell you
a
> preinstalled Linux box. You can even call them and ask questions,
they'll as
> politely as possible tell you that you're a freaking moron for even
thinking
> they do.
>
> Two years have passed, not one bit has changed:
> http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20040918105850387
>
> --
> Paul Johnson
> Email and IM (XMPP & Google Talk): baloo@ursine.ca
> Jabber: Because it's time to move forward
http://ursine.ca/Ursine:Jabber
It could be that DELL just isn't training their sales and support staff
well enough so they don't know about anything that is not their
mainstream
business.
This of course could also be intentional in the sense that upper
management does not want people on the shop floor to know too much about
longer term strategic decisions and they don't want them to blurt out
'oh
yes we offer linux if you want it' and get them into more trouble
than currently necessary with MS. After all the conglomerate with them
and
Intel has been hugely beneficial for all of them for a long time.
I for one will never ever even consider buying Dell after an experience
in
early 1998 when calling ready to order after they had already sent me
their catalogue and a cost estimate for my chosen machine. I got to
speak
to a different sales rep as the guy I'ld spoken to a few days before was
not in.
When it came to payment I indicated credit card and she asked if it's a
British card or issued abroad. I stated abroad and she told me they were
not accepting foreign issued credit cards, although it was Visa and
issued
by Barclaycard Germany - hardly esoterical you might think. I asked her
why and her tone turned bitchy going 'company policy sir', and that was
the end of it.
I proceeded to purchase a Quantex PC which turned out to be one of the
best decisions ever as it was even closer to what I was looking for and
had first class tech support - with free calls from the UK to the US
where
their support centre was and with knowledgeable, friendly and helpful
people on the other end which was important as I was going to learn how
to
reinstall Windows for the first time and also needed some drivers sent
that were not on the cd. They even sent out regular driver update cd's
every 6 months or so - shame Quantex folded.
As for Dell - as you can tell this is still bugging me and their only
chance in my eyes is to come up with a very good linux offering for me
to
even look at them again.
This is how important the first line of contact is for the customer
experience.
Kind Regards,
B.Hoffmann
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