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1. Comment - HP may trump Dell with a 24-hour battery-powered EliteBook

   (Sep 10, 2008 - 10:14 PM)

   I am well aware of the state of the market, Mr. Obvious, but I still hold accountable these companies and the reporters who advertise these companies' products.

2. Comment - HP may trump Dell with a 24-hour battery-powered EliteBook

   (Sep 10, 2008 - 4:40 AM)

   BetaNews rewards HP, Dell, etc. with plenty of free publicity by publishing stories like this, but if BetaNews performed with the same enthusiasm any pro-customer investigative reporting, each of these product announcements would carry a WARNING LABEL about CONTEMPT-FOR-THE-CUSTOMER support.
   
   So, readers, how fluent are you in Costa-Rican Spanglish and Bangalorean Hinglish?
   
   When your HP product fails under an HP warranty or support contract, you will most likely experience the sheer delight of dealing with multiple low-wage, outsourced foreigners who are not HP employees but, instead, clueless peons of el-cheapo support companies that HP uses, such as Sitel and Convergys:
   
   "Replacing 10- to 20-year [HP] veterans with people who have barely a three-month training course is reprehensible, to the customer that is. HP sees no problem here. To make matters worse, HP then lets go anyone with experience, so the corporate knowledge base and memory is gone for good.
   
   "While you can't get much worse than that from the HP side, you can still rub salt in the customers' wounds. They have already paid for service and support contracts, and from everything I heard, were not consulted or even told this was happening. Same for 'partners.' Surprise, we just saved money on your back, and if your service stinks, call sales, they can help.
   
   "From what a deep insider told us, the plan is simple. If you minimally train people and hire fresh graduates without much experience, they cost less and you save money. When customers howl in protest, you up-sell them on premium support, where they can have the old level of access back with the few remaining clued-in people.
   
   "If you notice, this is the same strategy that ran Dell into the ground. Make support suck and up-sell. When customers complain, ignore it until it hits the bottom line. By then, you have moved on to a different company, and Dell 2.0 -- The Repair, is someone else's problem. It is almost like the same people are running the show at HP. Oh wait, they are."
   
   [Source: http://www.theinquirer.n...sourcing-plans-unveiled]
   
   Be sure to read the confidential HP memo revealed there. Also, click through the links to other related articles.