Just thought I would share my experience with Apple over the last week.
Firstly a bit of background. I am the CIO of a mid sized company, we are a Dell house with about 50 servers and 300 workstations. In addition we have many sales people on the road.
I was tasked with evaluating the conversion of our approx 100 laptops (Dell Latitudes of varies marks) to MacBook.
I took delivery on Friday late afternoon after a UPS ground delivery to PA from CA.
I was very impressed with the packaging, but did think it was a little small for such a journey by road.
The unit is a MacBook Pro 2.16, 15.4 screen 1gb ram and 100gb HD serial number W86251GTVWX (dont understand that serial number but would love to)
Friday evening I took it from the box, set up the power supply etc and started it. It went through the new setup routine which was very entertaining compared to the XP setups I have done.
I was set on installing quite a number of programs I have acquired, starting with MS Office.
As the wireless network came up I decided to try a little Safari surfing, but when I started to type I kept getting the URL wrong so I kept on editing the text until I got it right.. Good everything looks OK.
I then started to type in another of my usual sites and the same thing happened, mistyping the URL. I thought I must be tired or something, it was then I realised that the keyboard was not accepting all the keys I was typing.
I also noticed that I was having trouble controlling the cursor with the trackpad (not a novice).
OK so I was getting a little frustrated, I put in the office CD and began the install but gave up after trying to type my name right a dozen times. I ejected the CD, or at least I tried, it would make a lot of noise but just when I expected it to pop out of the slot, it didn't. After a couple of minutes it reloaded itself onto the desktop.
It took me 6 tries to get it out, including various strange poses holding the machine upside down and sideways to get help from gravity.
So I decided to call Apple. Much as I would do with the 500 or so Dell laptops I hae purchased over the years. Typically a DOA machine is a DOA machine and I am used to a replacement being sent overnight or asap with return documentation for the bad one.
All I got was take it back to the store you got it from for repair (not going ot happen its in CA and I am in PA) or send it back to us for repair. When I asked about replacement I got a NO.
I am an UK Ext Pat, I do not get mad I treat people with respect and courtesy so please dont think I was pissing anyone off here. I even explained the trial nature off my companies purchase to no avail.
Anyway on Saturday I decided that I did not have time to mess with it anymore, I called them back and told them I would send it in, they sent me a DHL box and paperwork and it was picked up yesterday.
I have planned to take it to Europe with me next Wednesday night for a real field trial but I doubt it will be back I time.
So here is my perspective and I think the same will be true of many businesses. If Apple really wishes to expand its market share, coolness is only part of the picture. The people who buy computers in companies are not the users, and only in very rare cases do the users have any say at all.
The rational behind the purchase has to be a painless process of obtaining the machines in relatively short period of time, the handling of returns (e.g. DOA's ) promptly without question and the through life support on the phone when things go wrong.
Dell invented this model and have done well with it. Apple need to get its phone support act together with more knowledgable people used to dealing with us IT crowd.
Anyway I will not hold this against them for now, I assume when the box finally arrives back at my office it will indeed work and I can give it a "fair crack of the whip".
We'll see
Mike
Top
