Are you satisfied with Dell's support of WM5?

EngrPaul · 01-05-06, 08:35 PM

Please vote if you had problems with WM5 and looked to any of Dell's Support resources (Downloads, web knowledge base, customer service, etc.) for assistance.

johnpatcher · 01-05-06, 08:52 PM

ist really a joke. they arent doing anything, but i hope they will mprove it !!

01-05-06, 10:37 PM

Ask us X50v users who paid for (or were entitled to) an upgrade which is almost useless.

stevenator65 · 01-05-06, 11:10 PM

I had an x30 and wanted to upgrade to vga. I just got an x50v instead of the x51v b/c of this wm5 disaster. I feel terribly for those who eagerly upgraded to wm5 for their x50vs or who bought x51vs. I hope they get it working soon, and if they do it will be because of the people who posted at places like this and created work-arounds and discussed the issues. We were the guinea pigs.

Axim-Rob · 01-05-06, 11:42 PM

I dunno. Seems to me that either 1) too many of our members are too young to remember the growing pains of various leaps in MS operating systems; or, 2) we've all just become too impatient. Little bit surprised to see an engineer prompting this poll (forgive me Paul if I misinterpret your username) because we engineers know full darn well how design is always rushed to the street regardless of how much we object. For that matter, we also know how our beta testing is more like testing in a vacuum and only indentifies the more obvious flaws in a STANDARD configuration. The real world is the REAL test and everything must undergo revision and refinement after implementation. It is an engineering rule of design (for those educated in the classical curriculum). Just to mention, imagine the level of bureaupathology (which is actually the proper term) when dealing with two giants like Dell and MS... Issues will be resolved in time, only to uncover new issues...

Swim100flyy · 01-05-06, 11:46 PM

Only 1 thing wrong-- I was hoping to pay to upgrade my x50mid to an x50v when the docking port broke. But they said "You can only exchange for like objects"

***I have to admit that accidental care took all of 2 days to get a new ppc!!! Thats pretty speedy service.

So overall, I had to say that they did what they were told, but could have been a little more helpful.

EngrPaul · 01-05-06, 11:53 PM

Rob,

This wasn't a question of design, it's a question of support.

I think it's important to get a grasp on the magnitude of the support issues, since problems are usually spoken of on the internet forums while lack of problems doesn't need discussed. My intention wasn't to prove something's wrong, just to see if it really is statistically.

Your scenerio is correct, however as an Engineer my duties include failure analysis, corrective action, and clear communication with the customer. This process happens in days or at worst weeks, not months.

Regardless the state of WM5, if Dell is selling it they should be supporting it.

Axim-Rob · 01-06-06, 12:46 AM

Originally Posted by EngrPaul

Rob,

This wasn't a question of design, it's a question of support.

I think it's important to get a grasp on the magnitude of the support issues, since problems are usually spoken of on the internet forums while lack of problems doesn't need discussed. My intention wasn't to prove something's wrong, just to see if it really is statistically.

Your scenerio is correct, however as an Engineer my duties include failure analysis, corrective action, and clear communication with the customer. This process happens in days or at worst weeks, not months.

Regardless the state of WM5, if Dell is selling it they should be supporting it.

Yes, but you are making a very broad assumption in regards to support being deficient. I can tell you that they general customer support is working with what they know, and yes, that is not much. However, the powers that be at Dell are looking at the demographics of the problems being reported and trying to work through them (we have access beyond levels home customers can achieve). However, the bureaupathology makes that process longer because of kicking between "floors" and then through companies - two rather large companies, and in Dell's case, the Axim makes up LESS than 1% (WM5 is barely a blip on MS' radar), yes that's less than one percent, of their revenue. As such, Dell is now far too large to expect customer support to be true technical support. You now have to expect it to function as every corporation its size offering a product. That is, works on solving issues by demographic demand and then issuing a patch/repair. You might say that's ridiculous, but consider several specific aircraft, where this proved to be the case (and I can personally attest to one very specific example that took the lives of the parents of friends of mine as it cart-wheeled to a fiery crash).

Also your finite sampling here at the AximSite will cannot demonstrate a reasonable result because:

1. Compare the number of members this site, and then compare the entire member base to the number of Axim X51/X51v units sold since introduction in say just the US. It's also not even 1%.

2. It has been statistically demonstrated by several researchers that only a small fraction of electronics users of all forms seek out public internet forums for assistance. In fact, the highest statistic shows that if problems are encountered, the greatest reported result is a return of the problematic item. (My wife is a behavioral researcher.)

I completely agree with your reaction for support. I live it daily too. If I didn't, my licenses as a Professional Engineer would be in jeopardy. However, our clients are much different than being Dell customers. The magnitude of scale is very much different, and more often our clients have a considerable investment in us for a work product and can hold us to it via contract, liability, and licensure. Not so with Dell given the nature of the Agreement of Sale. Sure, if any client of mine, whether it would be a $6,000 foundation investigation or a $1.8 million reclamation design, says they need action, they're going to get it because of accountability and reputation and the desire to keep clients coming back. Because while these projects could be small in our global corporate revenue, they can be large to the local profit center, which we engineering firms, global or not, are most concerned with. Dell is not so much, especially for a market that's less than 1% to them, sure there is a risk that a bad experience with a PPC could jade a customer never to return, but for every 1 unhappy customer there are at least 10 that aren't based on Dell's financials! While a $250-$600 purchase is a lot to you or I, it's tiny to Dell. It's not a large profit generator in any of their markets, especially with the level of customer service being spent on it. Consider in the home market, the desktop/notebook is where they focus their concern... In fact, comparative trends indicate Dell would actually be better off dropping from the PPC market! However, and another matter altogether, is Dell's concern with poor customer support experiences overall across their markets and products with outsourcing.

As for your statement about supporting WM5, that's loaded and baited if you take it for what it is and where most of the problems are arising (not hardware, but software, and MS is the software). I know we don't call Dell when Exchange isn't playing nicely, or we've found another whole in XP Pro...

Although, this is just my opinion and $0.02 from an educated standpoint of seeing this all before. I'm simply presenting it as a different viewpoint and not trying to be a flamer Paul.

cng · 01-06-06, 01:12 AM

WM 5.0 is not a distaster by Dell, its a distaster by MS. I wont blame Dell for anything but their speed and dedication to the Axim product line. Many things are being fixed and many things are being fixed. It's my first month with my Axim, I'm learning to enjoy it right now and its all that I'm focusing on.

However, it does disappoint me that Dell included the weak MS BT stack.

AKAJohnDoe · 01-06-06, 01:15 AM

There's a WM5?

AKAJohnDoe · 01-06-06, 01:16 AM

Originally Posted by da_17

Ask us X50v users who paid for (or were entitled to) an upgrade which is almost useless.

Pig in a poke

AKAJohnDoe · 01-06-06, 01:20 AM

But, in reality, there isn't anything that WM2K3.2 is lacking in that WM5 is supposed to make better.

jsteiner · 01-06-06, 03:19 PM

Originally Posted by da_17

Ask us X50v users who paid for (or were entitled to) an upgrade which is almost useless.

Well I paid for it, contacted TS almost immediately with the list of problems, got the usual TSBS reply new OS version 1, will get better when patched soon. Well that was October/November, and soon is not here yet. So I called Dell today and long story short got a full refund and to make matters worse I don't have to return the defective product. How's that for service!