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To: Jim McMannis who wrote (73921)	2/18/1999 12:19:00 AM
From: carl a. mehr	Respond to of 186894

Jim, Thanks for your detailed response on EMachines Inc //humblcarl

To: Jim McMannis who wrote (73921)	2/18/1999 11:16:00 AM
From: Tony Viola	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 186894

Jim, at the risk of forever being typecast as a reliability bigot <g>, I have some comments on these E machines. >>>They use small, closeout HDs. 2-3 gig. Probably less than $50. We have found a severe reliability problem with closeout (aka grey market) hard drives. Sometimes they don't read or write, that's all! Samo samo with cheap RAM, undoubtedly SIMMS vs. the much more reliably newer DIMMs. Same again with grey mobos being unreliable. All these work kind of like, make that worse than, rebuilt auto parts. In the industry, the old saw is sweep the floor, including behind the benches, for parts, and use'm all for these cheapos. Now, I have been ridiculed for my reliability and RAS posts, some saying these things don't matter. Maybe they don't matter in cheap "toy" PCs, strictly for home use, and, in this country, these are probably a second or third PC in the home. Still, to me, even one outage that requires tearing the box apart, troubleshooting and at least one trip back to the store, would make these things unacceptable, totally. Did you know that the failure rate of PCs, even for ones built from new components and selling for reasonable prices, ranges two or three to one from best to worst? Dell sits up on top as the best in every poll I've seen. Won't mention worst. If it's 2 or 3 to 1 for new, tested parts, what will it be for these things? Maybe the failure occurs when your teenager is finishing up that homework at ten at night and all his/her work is lost. It's all statistics. Much less probability of occurring on a PC for which you spend just a few hundred more. There, didn't even mention Intel/AMD/Cyrix. Conclusion, wouldn't touch one of those el cheapos with a ten foot pole, or two five foot ... Tony

To: Jim McMannis who wrote (73921)	2/18/1999 5:05:00 PM
From: Amy J	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 186894

Re: "EMachines." Jim, do you know their phone number? I want to call them. I tried Fremont's directory assistance but they said the company isn't listed. I also called Duns & Bradstreet, but they don't have any information on the company. He said it's not even listed as a Calif company in their files yet. Is this division wishing to go IPO under E-Machine or under a different entity? I'm not familiar with the parent company. I called the number (800-566-4726) listed on the website of www.emachines.com. The rep who picked up the phone said there are two Emachine companies: one for the mac and one for IBM. She said www.emachines.com is not related to the Emachine which was mentioned in the press article. I wanted to reach the Emachine company mentioned in the article. I noticed they don't seem to have any VC money from Silicon Valley. Probably because no margins and no IP. Amy J