Comments on: Study: People with home offices want laptops

Buyers prefer thin and light notebooks, research company IDC says. They also like Dells, and they're not too worried about price.

[the Otter]

Sorry, Dell.

A few years ago, my job included supporting my employer?s
network of about 25 Dells. Based on that experience, I would
NEVER own a Dell, for any reason. Even if I were to get one for
free, I?d probably just sell it on eBay. The amount of problems
inherent in both the software and the hardware is not short of
mind-boggling, and when the time came for me to get a new
computer, I went with the Power Macintosh G5. Not only is it
fast, reliable, and?oh yes?beautiful, it was also about $2,000
less than a comparable Dell (which, ultimately, was the only
reason my boss let me add a Mac to his all-Dell network).

Almost three years later, my home office consists of a Power
Macintosh G3, a Power Macintosh G5, and an iBook G4?and, as
of last Friday, a Dell Dimension that belongs to my wife?s
company. Since she?s now telecommuting, as well, they had to
supply her with something that THEY can control?put whatever
THEY want on it, and nothing else. I can totally understand that,
but I?m not happy to have to take time out of MY schedule to
help her troubleshoot the piece of crap. I can?t say that I?ve
never had any problems with the Macs, but certainly nothing
serious?especially not since upgrading to Mac OS X v.10.2. The
Dell, on the other hand, is already having serious problems. On
day one, it couldn?t see the network. I finally managed to get it
online, but after only three days, my wife can?t even check her
e-mail. (Outlook has crashed twice, in the last five minutes.)

All I can say is that if her employer expects me to support this
thing, they?re going to be paying me for my time. If I?d wanted
to spend all my time fixing computers, I?d have bought a Dell, in
the first place.

Just my 2¢.

[culture_of_one]

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

As a consultant to numerous SMEs, I simply cannot fathom where the author gets his information. His conclusions are pure "bantha pudu".

Everyone I know who has a home office and is the least bit serious about doing business (including my wife and myself) has a desktop as their primary computer. Laptops are considered "supplementary" and are strictly for the road. We certainly do care about the price of things, and no one likes Dell.

The only thing this article has done is got me wondering how long it will be before someone tries to convince me that Hare Krishna is the leading religion in North America.

-JDM

No more Dell for me

I liked ordering what I wanted on line from dell, but one of my dells fried a motherboard and customer service in India wouldn't honor the warranty. They told me it was viruses and I didn't install microsoft patches correctly. I feel sorry for non programmers calling for help. My very expensive new dell lost the hard drive in the first few months, but support for the expensive dells is in the US, unfortunately the guy installing the new computer hard drive had no idea what RAID was and took 3 hours to install the hard drive while I tried not to laugh as their customer support tried to tell him how. I wish I had a video. Then there was the time I helped someone order a dell as a gift for her husband and it didn't work. Her geek friends had to reinstall the software and get it working. Don't bother asking Dell for help. Buy local. I ordered a generic one on line but the warranty is 90 days so forget that method I soon had to replace the processor fan etc, but the one I got from Fry's seems to be the best method. It came fully loaded at a low cost and best of all I can get it fixed there.