Dell Slipping?

By James Gaskin, NetworkWorld.com, 09/15/06

After relaying the Dell computer strangeness suffered by my friend LaRee (Dell Ships Skunk), I heard from others with weird Dell problems. I couldn't help but notice the Dallas newspaper had a huge feature story that same day about Dell, telling us how wonderful they are but how they're going to improve. I wish them well, but when people respond to your company name with a groan, as is happening to Dell lately, you better kick that improvement campaign into high gear.

From the local e-mail group LaRee and I are both in came three stories about Dell problems (out of about 20 people total). Alan ordered an internal Zip drive like LaRee but they shipped him an external drive instead. Maybe Alan got a deal because those drives usually cost $10 more.

Two people, Sandi and Janice, reported problems with Dell laptop keyboards. It seems certain keys in combination, or the Y (most often) and U and 7 keys, randomly execute a mouse click instead of the desired letter. Janice, a DJ, would be fined mre than Howard Stern if she said on the air what she wanted to say about Dell's poor performance and their *&%@$@#* technical support (I'm quoting). Since the keys giving her the most trouble are grouped together, I suspect something on the motherboard is influenced by the electrical signals generated by those keys. That would explain why new keyboards haven't fixed her problem – you need a new keyboard and different motherboard. Sounds like a complete new laptop is in order, but they never offered one to Janice.

Sandi started buying Dell computers 17 years ago, but she's joining Janice in the ABD (Anybody But Dell) club. Who knew the ABM (Anybody But Microsoft) club would get competition so quickly?

Of course, much of the recent grief heaped on Dell came because of the Sony batteries used in Dell laptops. I have been a member of the ABS (Anybody But Sony) club since they illegally spread rootkits to over 500,000 computers via their infected music CDs. I'm still disgusted that our federal government didn't arrest a single leader of this global hacker organization (isn't that what you call a group that spreads rootkits?). Is the battery fiasco karma for Sony, or the result of an ethically corrupt corporate culture continuing to self-destruct? Can we tell the difference?

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Comments

It appears Dell is only following the American industries business method. There's a saying that if you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door; however, instead of spending a million dollars to build a better mousetrap, American industry will spend 100 million dollars to convince you they already have the best mousetrap possible. When everyone finds out they've lied, they say "Have you tried a Ford lately." I guess Dell's version of that is we're wonderful but we're going to improve.

Posted by: Win Shields on September 15, 2006 01:04 PM