Article on Dell corporate culture

A NY Times article about the culture inside Dell:

In Faulty-Computer Suit, Window to Dell Decline

Nothing that we don't know already. Sales reps that don't have the customers' best interests, bad quality control, unhelpful tech support, denial to manufacturing defects. Too bad they are also the only firm that make gaming netbook...

 

What's interesting is that the company I work at had about 10 Dell computers go down within weeks of each other. All of them GPU failure. Identical hardware on all of them & the same GPU failed in all of them.




Then, my home Dell had both GPUs (8800 in SLI) fry within 1 week of each other.....all of this within 2 months. :\




A couple of years later, I met a guy who used to work Dell technical support & he said that none of that surprised him.

 

I remember this problem. I worked for a college back then and most of the labs had outages as machines failed in huge numbers. They tried to blame us too at first, but it was too widespread (throughout several buildings) for it to have a common cause on our end.

 

So this article makes me to believe that at least several million m11x are being shipped with faulty hinge assembly. lol

 

Dell doesn't make any of the components they use in-house, aside from the cases and power supplies. So I don't really see how it's their fault for hardware failures. Nvidia manufacturing defects with the 8800 series of graphics cards are pretty much common knowledge by now. They have some control of the quality of components used, but it's not like they're specifically telling OE suppliers to build it with defects. Although, knowing about hardware failures and replacing bad mainboards with bad mainboards isn't right either.

 

Yes, I realize that Dell merely assembles computers.



But it kinda makes you wonder where they get their parts....because they seem like QC rejects to me. (On a serious note....where DO they get their parts? Straight from Nvidia/ATI? Cause there wasn't any 3rd party branding on any of the GPUs I've mentioned)



The 10 GPUs that died were all older ATI FireGLs. Expensive stuff to replace when 10 of them decide to give up the ghost. The computers were approx 2-3 years old at the time of GPU death.


We've also had to replace 3 mobos on our new i7 systems. All 3 mobos died in the same way. Random Blue screens that got progressively worse until it wouldn't boot at all. Turns out it was the memory sockets. Guess Dell hasn't changed much. These systems are less than 2 months old.

What I find even more strange is that Dell wouldn't allow us to buy any more of that system(Those 3 were our trial-run before buying 7 more), even a month before we were having problems the system was no longer offered by Dell.


At least they replaced them free-of-cost. But it makes me wonder if they're just gonna burn out again.

 

So yes, it is dell's fault.

 

Not fixing apparent issues is, the hardware failing is not.

where everyone else in the world gets theirs, Foxconn. Lots of the other stuff are OEM retail parts that you can buy @ newegg. The mainboards and PSU's are the only real special custom made pieces Dell uses.

 

I personally think Dell is a load of crap. I purchased a Studio 1557 back in Nov. and since then I've had nothing but problems. Since then I've been through 4 replacement 1557's, then they sent me a 1558, had to replace 2 of those. The 1558 i have now is sitll having problems, mind you I've only had this one for a week. My problem with Dell is the denial that they have for their crappy ish, and their sorry tech support.

 

Funny thing is they are still the top of a horrible heap.

Lenovo isn't anything like it used to be quality wise.
HP has horror stories all over the web and these forums.
Asus, who you'd think has hardware down, is middle ground.

I've seen Dell's die at work and I know they have some serious issues sometimes. But this seems a cutthroat business world where they are all sourcing from the same vendors and almost all of them are selling the same quality grade of parts (with some varying degree of engineering involved) on often skimpy margins at best.

Any yet I recall the days when "laptops" were $5k plus machines too. I wish it were different but each of these companies is benching against their peers. And the most common denominator of quality seem to be what they all try for. Too much higher quality passes along too much cost to the consumer and people don't want to pay for that now. Even warranties now people choose to roll the dice and see if a 1 year holds out for them. That's common ground.

So while it's fair to air the complaints, there are horror stories on all the companies. And don't even factor in the huge amount of layoffs at HP.

 

My company used Dell exclusively for 10 years. The decline in the machine quality and the service got so bad that my company finally changed its policy. We can choose our own equipment, within limits and budget. The company has saved money and we are all working on better equipment. I haven't even been tempted to look at a Dell since my Vostro 1500.

Bronsky

 

The bottom line is that Dell is responsible for faulty hardware no matter if they build the hardware, get the parts or purchase prebuilt components. It is Dell's name on the computers. Dell has to respond properly to component failures especially on this grand of a scale that affects their customers.

This is no different from a carmaker having to perform a recall due to a third party component that presents a safety issue. It is their brand name on the vehicle and their reputation that is at stake.

This article shows a corporate culture problem starting at the top from both the former CEO, Kevin Rollins and current CEO Michael Dell.

I will repeat what I put in the post on the alienware forum.

In my opinion, the board of directors needs to remove Michael Dell and bring in someone to turn around the Dell brand and change the company culture back to quality with great customer service. When the CEO of the company knowingly deceived retail and corporate customers, you will not regain their trust until there is a change in the leadership that conducted the defrauding of their customers.

 

Well if they were to remove Michael Dell the only things that would improve is maybe tech support and possibly QC. Even if that were improved the parts are still being bought from the same companies, which are made in China where the QC is not good. The CEO is not in charge of the other companies too. If computers are ever going to gain quality and not loose it, then these companies are going to need better QC. I think the main problem with Dell and all these other companies is that they are all buying cheap parts and using cheap labor. I would much prefer paying more for something not made in china.

 

Ouch! That was a sad read. The first paragraph almost defies belief : "The company came up with an unusual reason for the computers’ demise: the school had overtaxed the machines by making them perform difficult math calculations."

Maybe I'll extend my warranty (which is a case of "customers taking the cost of bad quality" IMO). I'm kind of old school in some ways, among them expecting electronics to generally last for a good 20++ years as a matter of course...

--

 

The CEO is responsible for their company’s products. As I stated in my analogy about carmakers being supplied various parts from outside suppliers that are assembled by the carmaker. The carmaker has to take responsibility for any failures and work with or change suppliers when the defective part has been identified as the culprit.

In this case, the two CEOs of Dell, former and current CEO decided to deceive customers about a known issue instead of providing repairs or replacements with improved models.

In the article, this defect affected other computer companies.

The difference is in how Dell responded to the problem. Dell knowingly sold PCs for years (May 2003 to July 2005) using defective parts, denied responsibility and offered no resolution.

Michael Dell made his billions and left the company in 2004 to enjoy a carefree lifestyle. When the company continued to perform poorly, Michael Dell returned in January 2007 to turn the company around. Three and a half years later and these are the results of Michael Dell’s turnaround.

Rhetorical questions:
Has customer service improved over the past three and a half years?
Has the quality of Dell PCs improved in the past three and a half years?

Also noted in the article is:

If the board of directors do not have the courage to oust Michael Dell, the stockholders should oust the board of directors.

BTW, I would love to see Dell return to its glory days.

 

Websurfer, I <3 you.

 

Let me guess? Nvidia?

 

8800GT, so yes, they were nvidia gpus.

 

Websurfer, nice points, man.

Surely, something went very wrong with the company during those days...but...don't you think, that selling the faulty hardware automatically means that the company has to get ready for warranty issues, repairs and costs connected with such problems? And warranty service is not cheap.

Something tells me it's not the whole company, which is to blame. The company would never sell its products just to lose money on warranty repairs.

 

The short answer is no. This is why Dell is being sued and why I stated that Michael Dell must be removed from the company by the board of directors.

Dell was hiding the known manufacturing defect from their customers and then blaming their customers for abusing their OptiPlex computers. Dell claimed that their customers are either running them too hard (CPU intensive applications) or accusing their customers of using OptiPlex in limited airflow or hot environments.

The deception started from the CEO directive that went all the way through the organization.

 

What I bolded is the lamest excuse for a warranty claim refusal. I dont care what Im doing to the computer that maxes the processor. I bought the computer to do work and if it breaks while working and I have a warranty well then fix it. It shouldnt mater if I have the lowest system on the market trying to do physics or the fastest computer in the world playing solitaire. The hardware is designed to do work and no matter how hard it is it should handle it. Now keeping the pc in the wrong conditions (e.g. bad airflow, high temps high humidity, etc) and not doing certain maintenance is grounds for warranty denial. Imagine a car that is used to haul and drive alot, you maintain the vehicle and use it inside its designed task and it breaks under warranty it should be covered. Well the same car not maintained and used well out of its designed boundaries breaks the warranty is denied. You can easily tell these things on cars AND computers. Dell should only have been able to deny the claim if they saw misuse or saw signs that it wasnt properly maintained. But then again this would be all on the honor system of dell, a large corporation, and to be quite honest I dont think that large corporations have ever been honest.

 

Same issue, different article that clearly explains the caps had more or less a 97% failure rate

Dell Blames 97% Optiplex Failure Rate on Everyone Else - HotHardware