The Eric Mack Saga Continues And You Will Not Believe This

Ok, at the risk of turning my blog into a satellite of Eric Mack's blog, I've got to post this latest information from Eric's blogging about the crash of his Toshiba Tecra M4. Eric and I just got off of a phone call talking about this and I'm still dumbfounded by what I read in this post.

WARNING do not make the jump here if you have food or drink anywhere near your mouth.

Eric placed a call to Toshiba technical support. I've written here and on Tablet PC Buzz about the woeful inconsistencies that users experience when calling in a problem. The Buzz Toshiba forum has many threads dealing with this issue. But this takes the cake.

The rep actually told Eric that the best solution would be for him to purchase a retail version of the Windows XP Pro Tablet OS.

Ok, if you are like me and reading this here or on Eric's blog your mouth is hanging open in disbelief. I couldn't believe what I was reading. A support rep actually telling a customer to go out and buy something that does not exist to fix a problem?

Give me a break.

This is at once utterly preposterous and at the same time so typical of what I have heard and experienced from Toshiba support that all I can do is shake my head in dismay. Do these folks have a clue? Eric is experienced enough that he knew what he was hearing. What about the folks who don't have that kind of background. Can you imagine the frustration. I would soon be out of business if my employees gave out that kind of erroneous information. Simply amazing.

Eric posts some other interesting info about his call as well regarding his discussion of CRAPWARE (my word not his) and the dust under his screen (another chronic Toshiba problem.) No solution to report on the CRAPWARE, but apparently Eric's warranty will allow him to deal with the dust bunnies.

I rant about this kind of corporate behavior quite a bit I know. I do it because I am truly a believer in the Tablet PC platform. I see it transforming how many people work. I also hammer Toshiba on this incessantly. Two reasons for that. I am a devoted M200 fan and the problems keep occurring with no discernible attempts at correction. These folks who count the beans and skimp on shipping the disks and market the CRAPWARE need to wake up and smell the coffee instead of counting the beans.

Eric is polite in his "whining." I'm not so polite. I call a spade a spade. So while we are talking about cards, let's look at some hearts here shall we, because indeed there are a few OEMs who get it.

1. Electrovaya doesn't put CRAPWARE on their Tablet PCs. (The also include a nice stand.)
2. Motion Computing seems to handle complaints well and occasionally has a rep answer questions on the Tablet PC Buzz forums.
3. Post a comment here if you know of other OEM Tablet PC vendors who get it. I'll update the list.

Eric hopes that the Tableteers who blog will pick this up and run with it. I have. Let's hope the rest of the guys and gals who love the pen do the same. Maybe it'll mushroom a bit through the blogosphere and some of the big dogs (Scoble, Rubel, Church of the Customer, etc...) will do some barking.

So, Toshiba, cut the CRAP in your support system and cut the CRAPWARE. You're cutting your own throat if you don't.

*****As a humorous break from all this ranting, I sincerely hope that those Tablet PC Podcaster Guys try to pronounce Eric's new acronym: TCFDTLAIDBWFS on their next podcast.;->

Comments

[Alfredo Octavio]

I wanted to get this one Decently priced and locally made. I didn't because it ships with XP Pro Spanish. I can't get XP Tablet Edition in English (only language available?) to install in it...