[ale] OT vision computers etal

[James P. Kinney III]

On Thu, 2006-02-23 at 11:16 -0500, Jeff Hubbs wrote:
> Wouldn't you rather have machines that have commodity parts that are 
> field-replaceable by pretty much anybody with the know-how?  I've seen 
> so many situations where operations halted for a day or so just to get 
> Dell parts even for machines that were under warranty, all due to the 
> use of proprietary parts.

Even with commodity parts, a system on warranty repair from a non-local
company is often subject to an annoying downtime delay due to shipping
of replacement parts. The new parts _must_ go through "the process".

1. A local client had a nice Dell server (no. that's not an oxymoron)
that had a CPU fail. It was under warranty. The CPU was readily
available at several local vendors but we had to wait a day for the new
part to get FedEx'ed over. Meanwhile, the entire office was offline and
with no access to the common file storage area. Total cash out of
pocket: $0. Actual cost of downtime: $10,000 (20 people doing NOTHING
for one full day). Cost of new CPU: $400. Intelligent Management:
Priceless.

2. Another local client had a hard drive fail on a 3 month old machine
built by a local vendor (they advertise in LJ. Nice system). Gory
details of this client not having/using backups aside (He knew better.
We had spoken the day before the failure. I have been vindicated), the
drive had to be sent for data recovery. This meant scrapping the
warranty replacement on the drive since the dead one could not be
returned at the time the new one was acquired. New hard drive: $165.
Drive recovery: $0 (no charge due to no data recovered). Cost to
recreate lost data: $6,000. Cost of new backup system: $2500. Piece of
mind: $Priceless!

Moral: Warranties are crap. Use the manufacturers warranty as their best
guestimate of the anticipated lifetime of their product. Don't plan on
using the warranty option on a hard drive. By the time a device is
nearing the end of it's warranty period, it's replacement will no longer
be available anyway so why bother.

Unless it's a really crappy hard drive with a 90 day warranty.

> 
> Nathan wrote:
> 
> >I concur, especially for this type of (I'm assuming here, but..) 
> >non-geek environment.  The folks that will be using these computers just 
> >want them to work when they turn them on, and they want a number to call 
> >when that isn't the case.  As long as the computers are fast enough to 
> >be (comfortably) usable and are relatively user friendly (this is code 
> >for 'running Windows'), the needs are met.  In most cases, Dell will fit 
> >this bill.  They can then hire a local 'computer guy' type (or possibly 
> >find someone in the Church with adequate experience / know how) to get 
> >things setup and user-proofed and to step in when they need more support 
> >than the Dell phone guys can provide.
> ></nathan's 2 cents worth>
> >
> >Jim wrote:
> >  
> >
> >>I know there are a number of people on here who don't much like Dell, 
> >>but I would be sure to investigate them too.
> >>
> >>Jim.
> >>jtholmes wrote:
> >>
> >>  
> >>    
> >>
> >>>My son in law is wanting to engage a company like Vision Computers
> >>>to handle the needs of a medium size church.
> >>>He has seen their ads and is going to visit them soon.
> >>>
> >>>Questions are:
> >>>Who else provides this sort of service locally, he would like
> >>>to talk to a few that provide the same cradle to grave svcs.
> >>>
> >>>The hardware is about 7-8 windows machines and One linux
> >>>machine.
> >>>
> >>>They want to look at leasing  the equipment and having a
> >>>person come on site when problems exist, if the problem
> >>>cannot be fixed over the phone.
> >>>
> >>>thanks in advance for all replys
> >>>jt
> >>>
> >>>_______________________________________________
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> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> 
> >>>
> >>>    
> >>>      
> >>>
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> >>
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-- 
James P. Kinney III          \Changing the mobile computing world/
CEO & Director of Engineering \          one Linux user         /
Local Net Solutions,LLC        \           at a time.          /
770-493-8244                    \.___________________________./
http://www.localnetsolutions.com

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7
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