| Disposable PCs - sub $500 machines
I was reading another thread about a $159 machine and it got my boxers in a twist.
Coming from the perspective of a one-time PC Manufacturer, I think these bargain machines have hurt the market and the consumers.
When I started building and shipping the GoPC line of Computers back about 10 years ago, I was making about $40 per thousand and could afford to put solid components in the machines and cover high end tech support. Then the Disposable PC came along... back then, it was the Packard Bells and eMachines. The immediate effect was that companies that had been buying our machines didn't leave us, they wanted us to match that pricing on our machines.
Of course, with a product's reputation on the line and the cost of tech support unchanging, the only real options were to stick to our guns and keep the quality components in the units OR do what everyone else was doing and source asian sources cheapie components for the units.
We decided to holkd our ground and keep our QC standards high to limit returns, warranty and CS costs. Through cretive control of our Integration Costs and some new improvements to the board and form factor designs, we were able to last a bit longer but eventually, our customers were wooed by lower costs and we began to loose them.
Interstingly, we witnessed a huge boom to the sub-500 market for a couple of years and then a huge amount of Bankruptcy and Closing of many of the sub-500 providers.
PB didn't survive and Dell, Gateway, HP and others that did survive came out with tarnished reputations for poor Quality Control and poor Customer Service. In fact, immediately Gateway was branded as having the WORST CS in the industry.
Then there was the rush for Consumer Cost Subsidies... your new PC came packaged with 1000 offers for services with long term agreements and contracts. This worked for a while with manufacturers that needed to keep their costs and quality up but needed a competitive price point. In the end, Consumers hated to be locked into the terms.
Now... today... with the advent of "down" or on-board manufacturing that includes the Vid, Sound, Data, Chip, Memory, Networking, Modem, etc... ALL integrated onto an extremely small form factor, your are again seeing a push for sub-500 machine that unfortunately LOWER long term servicability, reliability, repair and support.
In short, the Consumer is getting hosed. Stepping over a Dollar to save a Dime, sort to speak.
While I like a bargain and appreciate not being oversold, I think that there must be a balance between cost and quality.
My business suffered from these sub-500 machines. Customer satisfaction suffered. The Industry as a whole has suffered. The future of the industry has suffered and we are just recovering... just in time for another round of Disposable PCs.
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