Re: Optiplex vs. Vostro

Kin Jung wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> Our Dell Account Manager, Mark Spitzer, sent the following that some
> might find useful.

[long list deleted]

I don't dispute that these differences would be of value
in some environments, perhaps even some at UCB. However, I'm
still convinced that, as a whole, most of these differences
are not important at UCB. For example, how many departments
or groups use Dell Custom Factory Integration? How many
people have even heard of Dell's ImageDirect web-based image
development and management web-based program? Plus, some
of these features, such as "RAID 1", are available in
both *nix and Windows as a standard feature so they're
equally usable on Optiplex and Vostro systems.

These days, most low and mid range systems are based
on features provided by their chipset (e.g.
network, audio, USB, video) so the promise that Dell
won't change common components during product lifetime
isn't that big of a deal because there aren't that many
components that can change.

What I believe are legitimate differences between Optiplex
and Vostro are the 3-year warranty with all Optiplexes (although
you can add another 2 years to a Vostro warranty), and
North American tech support (for people who need tech support).

It's great that Dell's products are generally good enough
so that there are no fundamental qualitative differences
between the small business and big business lines.

Cordially,

-- 
Jon Forrest
Unix Computing Support
College of Chemistry
173 Tan Hall
University of California Berkeley
Berkeley, CA
94720-1460
510-643-1032
jlforrest_at_berkeley.edu
 
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