[ale] Monarch Computer

[Vernard Martin]

The skinny on Monarch Computer is that they were purchased/merged with
another company. I believe it is StarMax. That is the build/parts
division of the same company that owns TigerDirect by the way.

In the last couple of months, the company effectively has laid off most
if not all of its employees with them given the option of going to work
for the new company. They are over 40 days behind their standard holiday
load and customers that are trying to get warranty help have basically
been ignored. They removed their phone numbers from their web site
recently if that is any indication.

I used Monarch computer equipment to build a high performance cluster
for the Rollins School of public health. Each node costs about $15K with
the head node coming in at around $29K. We had a motherboard go out and
it took us over two weeks to get it resolved and that was only with us
physically driving the unit over to them and with me physically standing
there helping them solve the problem.

It is obvious from what I observed that the company is going through a
transition that has effectively killed all of their credibility. I pity
the company that tries to use their name in the future. My personal and
professional experience with them is that they are no longer worth the
effort to try to do business with them. If you have some equipment from
them, then you are most likely never going to get any service on it in a
timely fashion.

Its sad since they used to be a fantastic company. Alas, all good things
come to an end.

If you want more info, then drop me a private email :-)

V