Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : TA- Advanced GET -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sean W. Smith who wrote (1038)	5/24/1998 5:00:00 PM
From: John K	Respond to of 1551

Sean, Great overview of the PC service field, from a professional! John K.

To: Sean W. Smith who wrote (1038)	5/26/1998 3:10:00 AM
From: Bruce A. Bowman	Respond to of 1551

Hi Sean- This pretty well sums up and confirms what I think I was seeing. I understand completely about the difficulty of making a profit in the competitive home-computer market. My experience with HP is from the corporate world and it was exemplary. Same for IBM. In both cases these were large mini- and main frame computers and unrelated to what we're dealing with. My one experience with IBM recently was with a laptop and it couldn't have been more positive. The only difference between Gateway and IBM was that IBM did the repair either at their Tennessee facility or at a local service center. Btw... IBM has the contract for on-site repair for Gateway here in the SF Bay Area. re: Gateway h/w... I find nothing at all to complain about. I like what I have. The only real issue with Gateway was been getting orders translated into the configuration I want, plus their high error rate in getting their configuration database to agree with who actually received the h/w. As far as support is concerned, they do as well as can be expected given the half-life of service techs. Any that are worth a damn are training themselves to be certified in NT, etc. so they can get off the service desk. One advantage of buying a system from Gateway that has NT installed is that you go to a different (corporate) service desk than an owner that buys a system with W95. Btw... I've been experiencing that errosion problem you describe that comes with loading a lot of s/w onto a system. NT was looking very solid, but at some vague point things started getting soft and now I am having some problems with instability... some things happen that don't have reasonable explanations. They seem to go away (for awhile) when I reinstall NT. Still, NT is far more solid than W95. Bruce