Comments on: Velocity Micro follow-up http://powersunfiltered.com/2007/02/28/velocity-micro-follow-up/ An entrepreneur's journey into grid computing and partnering with Microsoft, by John Powers Fri, 16 Jul 2010 02:26:46 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: John Patterson http://powersunfiltered.com/2007/02/28/velocity-micro-follow-up/comment-page-1/#comment-17975 John Patterson Fri, 02 Mar 2007 05:06:36 +0000 http://powersunfiltered.com/2007/02/28/velocity-micro-follow-up/#comment-17975 Oh I completely understand the perspective of a end user. I am in that position many times with my cable company, telephone company, the resturants I visit and many other companies I deal with. I just would refuse to think that a company like VM has any negative energy in its culture. Growth and industry issues are something to investigate. I would hate to see someone write off a company that tries to do their best but fails. We all hope lessons are learned and I bet they are being disected in meetings left and right. I know that happens every time my company drops a ball. We have in our companies culture a weekly meeting on issues that are not up to a very high standard and try to address them as balanced as we can. Anyways...I agian hope your computer behaves. :) Oh I completely understand the perspective of a end user. I am in that position many times with my cable company, telephone company, the resturants I visit and many other companies I deal with. I just would refuse to think that a company like VM has any negative energy in its culture. Growth and industry issues are something to investigate. I would hate to see someone write off a company that tries to do their best but fails. We all hope lessons are learned and I bet they are being disected in meetings left and right. I know that happens every time my company drops a ball. We have in our companies culture a weekly meeting on issues that are not up to a very high standard and try to address them as balanced as we can. Anyways…I agian hope your computer behaves. :)

]]> By: john http://powersunfiltered.com/2007/02/28/velocity-micro-follow-up/comment-page-1/#comment-17889 john Thu, 01 Mar 2007 03:45:38 +0000 http://powersunfiltered.com/2007/02/28/velocity-micro-follow-up/#comment-17889 I appreciate the comments, and your industry experience is far more relevant than my own. I certainly believed as you do that Velocity uses "top notch parts," and I may just be unlucky. Indeed, I've given VM the benefit of the doubt in many of my comments, in this post and my much longer previous post. But there's only so much I really care about things that "happen" or the "weakness of the entire industry," or problems brought on by growth -- just because other companies have the same problems doesn't excuse VM. From my perspective as a customer who paid good money for a high-end computer, I got a lemon and then had to go through far to much time and trouble to get it fixed. I have tried to keep my posts positive, pointing to areas that may benefit from additional attention. I thank you for your good wishes -- but I also hope the industry continues to work on improving quality and customer experience, despite the difficulties in doing so. I appreciate the comments, and your industry experience is far more relevant than my own. I certainly believed as you do that Velocity uses “top notch parts,” and I may just be unlucky. Indeed, I’ve given VM the benefit of the doubt in many of my comments, in this post and my much longer previous post.

But there’s only so much I really care about things that “happen” or the “weakness of the entire industry,” or problems brought on by growth — just because other companies have the same problems doesn’t excuse VM. From my perspective as a customer who paid good money for a high-end computer, I got a lemon and then had to go through far to much time and trouble to get it fixed. I have tried to keep my posts positive, pointing to areas that may benefit from additional attention.

I thank you for your good wishes — but I also hope the industry continues to work on improving quality and customer experience, despite the difficulties in doing so.

]]> By: John Patterson http://powersunfiltered.com/2007/02/28/velocity-micro-follow-up/comment-page-1/#comment-17882 John Patterson Thu, 01 Mar 2007 01:54:44 +0000 http://powersunfiltered.com/2007/02/28/velocity-micro-follow-up/#comment-17882 You mentioned - I had hardware trouble after just two months. Based on my experience, I have to question their QA — I believe that their team eventually identified problems with the graphics card, TV tuner card, original motherboard, RAM sticks, and D drive (not to mention Windows getting corrupted). But all that stuff shipped to me after “burn in” of my original system. Was it working when it left their shop the first time? Possibly. Did it all die at once at my house? Who knows? Unfortunately this is something that happens and absolutely no seller of computers can prevent this. The vast majority of problems in a PC's life come in the first month. Velocity Micro in my experience buys what is generally accepted in the industry as top notch parts. Yet do to many varying factors from ESD, using moving parts (This is one reason I pine for solid state hard drives), the bounce and shake of shipping and many issues lay people would never come across we all suffer. As for house calls. Many OEM's such as Dell, Toshiba, HP....they all contract techs from 3rd party companies such as Banctec, IBM and Getronics to service their machines. Getting a good tech using this procedure is very expensive and unfortunately a crap shoot. House calls are a weakness in the entire industry. As for the other issues...I leave that up to the fine folks at VM to work out. I know the shipping of Vista systems has put stress on many shipping departments. The amount of units coming into our doors is rocketing. I personally have been working 14+ hour days just to keep my head above water, yet I appreciate the growth. Time for a new hire or two. :) Anyways I hope you have seen the last of your issues for awhile. Good luck! You mentioned – I had hardware trouble after just two months. Based on my experience, I have to question their QA — I believe that their team eventually identified problems with the graphics card, TV tuner card, original motherboard, RAM sticks, and D drive (not to mention Windows getting corrupted). But all that stuff shipped to me after “burn in” of my original system. Was it working when it left their shop the first time? Possibly. Did it all die at once at my house? Who knows?

Unfortunately this is something that happens and absolutely no seller of computers can prevent this. The vast majority of problems in a PC’s life come in the first month. Velocity Micro in my experience buys what is generally accepted in the industry as top notch parts. Yet do to many varying factors from ESD, using moving parts (This is one reason I pine for solid state hard drives), the bounce and shake of shipping and many issues lay people would never come across we all suffer.

As for house calls. Many OEM’s such as Dell, Toshiba, HP….they all contract techs from 3rd party companies such as Banctec, IBM and Getronics to service their machines. Getting a good tech using this procedure is very expensive and unfortunately a crap shoot. House calls are a weakness in the entire industry.

As for the other issues…I leave that up to the fine folks at VM to work out. I know the shipping of Vista systems has put stress on many shipping departments. The amount of units coming into our doors is rocketing. I personally have been working 14+ hour days just to keep my head above water, yet I appreciate the growth. Time for a new hire or two. :)

Anyways I hope you have seen the last of your issues for awhile. Good luck!

]]> By: Jason Sadler http://powersunfiltered.com/2007/02/28/velocity-micro-follow-up/comment-page-1/#comment-17858 Jason Sadler Wed, 28 Feb 2007 15:32:10 +0000 http://powersunfiltered.com/2007/02/28/velocity-micro-follow-up/#comment-17858 This would be a great story for our site.. I had a similar experience with a crappy desktop PC. This would be a great story for our site.. I had a similar experience with a crappy desktop PC.

]]>