The IBM 17-year Time Warp
by Zube (zube@stat.colostate.edu)
Created: Nov 6, 2003
Updated: Feb 22, 2006
http://www.stat.colostate.edu/~zube/docs/ibm.txt

[Additions, suggestions, corrections or thoughtful discussion always welcome.]

I like IBM.  They make solid laptops.  The RS/6000 line of workstations 
were built and ran like a tank.  You could kill someone with the
original IBM clicky keyboards and they will still work well long after
civilization has come and gone.  In short, they make good products.

They are also generous.  One of my departments received a grant from IBM
in the form of a large amount of computing equipment along with the 
manpower to get it all working.  The employees that I worked with were
smart, hardworking and extremely helpful. 

So why won't I buy an IBM computer?

Because there is something seriously wrong with a company that does 
not understand the importance of email.

Today is November 6, 2003.  As of today, there is no way for me to *email*
IBM to get support.  No, you aren't reading this wrong.  It's true.

If I buy a computer from Gateway or Dell or virtually any other company in
the world, I can email that company for support.  I have found that Gateway 
is excellent in replacing parts via email (YMMV, of course).  I'm sure 
many other companies do just as well.

However, go here:

http://www.ibm.com/planetwide/us/

There is *one* email address for "general information" and the rest of
the contacts are phone numbers.

I mailed that one email address and asked in my best bewildered ASCII if
it was true that IBM doesn't have email support.  This was the reply, in
part:

***
Please note that IBM does not offer any technical support via an e-mail
contact forum for IBM PC's.

...

For further assistance or to speak with a technician, please contact
our PC HelpCenter directly by calling 1-800-772-2227.

...
***

That's right, phone support only.  Let's check the calendar, eh?

If the calendar showed Nov 1986, I could understand it.  If it showed 
Nov 1996, I'd wonder how a company could survive without email support, 
but I'd probably let it go.  But it is Nov 2003.  The days of waiting in 
phone queues for support are gone.  I don't walk to Texas to pay my
mortgage bill (thanks to a recent innovation called postal mail) and
I don't wait in a phone queue for minutes or hours for computer support 
(thanks to a recent innovation called email).

How can IBM not understand this?  It boggles my mind.

[Feb 22, 2006 update]

Praising Sun isn't something I do very often, but here goes.

I had a disk that went bad, but was under warranty.  Here is what I did
to replace it:

1) logged in on sunsolve.com
2) filled out a form explaining the problem and providing system S/N's
3) received several email messages tracking the case
4) received the disk the next day

Excellent.  Well done Sun.  Now, why can't IBM do this?