jawfish

Help Yourself
john posted in technologies on June 23rd, 2005

Somebody Start This Business

Discussing the downslide of quality in Dell PCs with a colleague, we came up with two frameworks that would suit us as customers. We agreed that Dell has started to deliver junk components, and that The HP/Compaq camelopard is worse.

(caveat: I have owned HP and Dell machines, and used both for several years. My desk at work currently has one Dell, one G4, and two no-name boxes.)

Well if the convenience and reliablity of the old Dell system is gone, then we are thrown back on building our own PCs again. The problem in this hyper-competitive market is that a lot of hardware is second rate, and often manufacturers produce both good and bad products. Life and work are way too short to test and study this commodity stuff, so we rely on the collective Internet-enabled wisdom of the discussion forum. Well and good, but that still means shopping around and getting various parts here and there, spending way too much money on shipping, and too much time managing orders. Dell used to be a reliable source that, in effect, performed this task for us, and packaged it conveniently. It was a good model for the company, but oh well.

What to do?

Idea # 1:
A company that researches and bulk-buys a small list of well-known parts, and allows the customer to select a compatible set, and order from one source. The customer gives up the warranty on the whole box, and has to assemble it himself. But, the customer would regain one shipping cost and one trusted supplier to deal with. The supplier would intentionally limit itself to a few choices, in order to simplify management and get the maximum bulk order pricing.

Idea #2:
Local buyers of substantial numbers of PCs get together and form a buyer’s coop. The coop makes bulk orders of a few well-known parts, and maintains a small stock for emergency repairs. This would be a natural outgrowth of a user group. Customers would assemble their own machines.

In the end, I’d prefer the old Dell system, and if a few Texas MBAs had to be put to work at real jobs in order to get it back, so much the better. A company like New Egg could easily start the first business, having all the manufacturer connections, warehousing, and Internet profile. For a newcomer it would take considerable capital.

Neither of these notions helps me with folks who can’t assemble their own PC. I don’t know how to answer their question, “What kind of PC should I buy?”