The end is coming

[Mayet]

I can't see how you are all saying that the HP/Compaq Dell PC's are crap...I am here to tell you, you are not seeing the trend I am seeing, and that is that these PC are great PC, and no worse than a clone.

Mayet, you said in the other thread that you saw several name brand PC's come in to the shop, even a few that rusted...well first, environmental conditions will hose any PC, not just the big name brands. And why is it that you think you see more HP's and Compaq's in for repair then Clones that you built? I'll tell you, it's simply the per capita syndrome. If HP sells 5000 PC's in your area, and you sell 50, at 5% failure of at least one part in those system you would see 250 HP's and only 2.5 of yours. Do you see the logic in that? It's not a fair comparison to say "they suck because I see more of them in my shop for repair". it's just not.

a fair comment but more hardware issues do come from the company built ones. Around here at present its still even between the custom and company builds, they are only just breaking the market barrier now.

[geoscomp]

While it is possible that more hardware issues come from the dells, HP's, etc. (I have been seeing a bunch of hardrives go bad in Dells lately) It's also true that no matter what parts you buy in the competitive price points, it is just as possible for your parts to go bad these days. Witness the rash of bad caps, especially around here in the gigabyte boards the white box shop that I was working for at the time was using. There is simply no way around here that a shop can turn any profit at all on building their own computers, regardless of how they are marketed. The only shop still doing so undercuts the prices and takes a loss in order to get networking and service contracts. I, on the other hand, have extremely low overhead, order parts when they are needed, and make a nice profit just servicing and repairing. I have a contract with Dell for on site, and that helps..but there is no way I would ever go to the trouble of maintaining an inventory for the 10-20% profit available and add a 30-40% shelf cost when I can make 60-70% profit on service work.

[TechZ]

I suppose every place has its own type of customer, here people wont go near Branded PC's, simply because the price as compared to a custome built machine is very different, a Branded will cost you much, much more over a custom pc. I guess its down to the cost for most people. I dont have a shop, so no inventory, just buy when I need

Large co's definately get huge discounts when they buy in thousands, basic economy of scale rule.

[arch0nmyc0n]

In my shop, we offer desktops and Acer laptops. I've had people come in and say "can you beat this price?" and show me an MDG advertisement for a system. I don't even bother look at the sheet I just hand it back to them and say no. They usually get curious as to why I didn't even look and ask why not. I've lucked out especially this year so far, they ask me the question and I point to my clearly visible waiting rack and there is usually a system or two from the company they're asking about. Then I say, " I build computers with parts I would use myself, not the parts that cost the least." or something like that.

Besides I like it when they buy other brand name computers. For example, take Future Shop. All my first hand experiences with them show me that they hire the people that are just happy to get a job and MAY know something about computers. I have never met a technician that actually knew what he was doing at that place. Well, that's not quite true there was one guy who knew what he was doing but he wasn't around long (He got hired on at another local computer store for more money). So then people with even the basic computer knowledge get upset with them pretty quick and the machine ends up on my bench, even ones with warranty still on them. So they sell them a cheap computer and I get the labour... sounds like a fair deal considering my markup on machines is pretty low to remain competative with other local shops.

A friend of mine lives in Toronto, the markup for the local shops is %1... It's not the hardware that pays my bills... it's the labour on everyone elses machines that pays my bills...