AplusWebMaster
Topic Starter
FYI…
- http://enterprise.linux.com/article.pl?sid=07/03/23/1430204
March 23, 2007 ~ "…I've been tracking this story for a couple of weeks with a PR rep from Hewlett-Packard Customer Service, who has been trying to "do the right thing" by Laura. There has been some discussion of swapping her unit with an HP notebook which is available with Linux preinstalled, but after a couple of weeks of back and forth, nothing has changed. The PR rep told me, after wading through all the terms and conditions attached to the notebook's warranty, that "it is impossible to anticipate every single issue that a customer can face, so the terms and conditions of warranties can't list every possible scenario. Usually if a customer installs a different OS, it has a big impact on the PC and will void the warranty. However, since the OS couldn't have been responsible for keys sticking on a notebook keyboard, I think this is an exception to the rule." She also asserts that Compaq's "warranty terms and conditions are in line with the rest of the industry."
I have a feeling that she is correct about that. Gateway and Dell have both declined to respond to queries about their own warranty coverage in a similar scenario. Tier one manufacturers like Dell and HP are locked up in double-blind secrecy about their marketing deals with Microsoft, like the ones that keep them from offering preinstalled Linux like their customers are demanding, or even from offering machines without an OS installed at all. Laura's problem will probably come to a satisfactory end: the return of the merchandise for a full refund, or a swap for a unit that is offered with Linux in the first place. But the bigger problem is that Microsoft's tentacles are still obvious in choking a free marketplace, and the tier one manufacturers are still submissive to and complicit in Microsoft's enterprise."
- http://enterprise.linux.com/article.pl?sid=07/03/23/1430204
March 23, 2007 ~ "…I've been tracking this story for a couple of weeks with a PR rep from Hewlett-Packard Customer Service, who has been trying to "do the right thing" by Laura. There has been some discussion of swapping her unit with an HP notebook which is available with Linux preinstalled, but after a couple of weeks of back and forth, nothing has changed. The PR rep told me, after wading through all the terms and conditions attached to the notebook's warranty, that "it is impossible to anticipate every single issue that a customer can face, so the terms and conditions of warranties can't list every possible scenario. Usually if a customer installs a different OS, it has a big impact on the PC and will void the warranty. However, since the OS couldn't have been responsible for keys sticking on a notebook keyboard, I think this is an exception to the rule." She also asserts that Compaq's "warranty terms and conditions are in line with the rest of the industry."
I have a feeling that she is correct about that. Gateway and Dell have both declined to respond to queries about their own warranty coverage in a similar scenario. Tier one manufacturers like Dell and HP are locked up in double-blind secrecy about their marketing deals with Microsoft, like the ones that keep them from offering preinstalled Linux like their customers are demanding, or even from offering machines without an OS installed at all. Laura's problem will probably come to a satisfactory end: the return of the merchandise for a full refund, or a swap for a unit that is offered with Linux in the first place. But the bigger problem is that Microsoft's tentacles are still obvious in choking a free marketplace, and the tier one manufacturers are still submissive to and complicit in Microsoft's enterprise."