What Does 'New' Mean? One Netbook's Tale
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At the risk of being profane, I've got a story to tell. My 11-year-old daughter has been begging to get a netbook - even saving her own money, gasp - to accompany her as she enters sixth grade in just another week. It's been a summer-long quest. In a fit of spontaneous generosity last week, I decided to buy her one. We strolled into the local RadioShack, and she ran to the shelf where the Acer Aspire One usually sits. The shelf was bare, the highly popular netbook out of stock. But we could order one, we were told, and we did. In the color blue. I plunked down my money, paid a little extra for anti-virus software, and we went on our merry way, being told the system would be in for us to pick up in a week. We got the call this week, rushed over to RadioShack, picked up the well-packaged new netbook and a new carrying case, and headed home to start setting it up. My daughter booted the system up and played around with it for a little while but only offline, but then we had to go out, so I asked her to shut it off and we'd do more later. That's when things got interesting. She clicked the shut off tab, was brought to the Windows shut-down page and, lo and behold, in the bottom left of the screen was this little gem: "Shut off Rob's F&*()&'N computer." You can fill in the blanks for what that middle word said. My daughter gasps and beckons the entire family over. Two seconds later, I am talking to an extremely upset and embarrassed RadioShack employee who finally has to admit that this "new" netbook must have been one that someone else bought, used briefly and returned. The employees are supposed to wipe such hard drives clean - apparently. We'll get a new netbook and all will be well, but the question I have is this: What does "new" really mean? As a solution provider, are you certain the systems you install have never been used before, or is refurbishment simply a given in the industry? Share your comments, as I'd like to know. |
Comments (15)
OK, this is a geniunely funny story. Sadly, it's true. But it does reflect a real problem in the industry -- the quality and cleaniliness of used (or slightly used) or supposedly new equipment.
While I'm sure this was an honest mistake, it's a problem that can affect solution providers as much as consumers. Under economic pressure brought by the recession, many businesses have turned to refurbished goods to lower their equipment costs (http://www.channelinsider.com/c/a/Networking/Tight-Economy-Renews-Interest-in-Used-IT-Equipment/). I wouldn't be surprised to hear that some of those servers and PCs are making their way back into circulation with old applications and data.
Posted by Larry Walsh | August 21, 2009 4:37 PM
I have never had any reason to doubt that new means new. Refurbished systems are clearly marked and usually sold through alternate channels (Dell Outlet, HP Refurbished, Cisco Refurb, etc). As long as a VAR is going through distribution this is a tough mistake to make. Now if a VAR took a return internally and did not RMA it, this could easily happen as with the Radioshack scenario. In the rare case that we take a return we always sell it as like-new with a discount applied.
Posted by Joe Gleinser | August 21, 2009 5:17 PM
Joe said it perfectly! Any VAR who represents a 'like-new' product as 'new' is not doing right by their customer.
Posted by Spencer Ferguson | August 21, 2009 6:06 PM
Great f@#*% tale. Instead of 'the shack" they should change their name to abandon all hope, ye who enter here to more closely reflect their actual business. I'd be interested to hear a spokesperson earn their pay commenting on this, but that would likely just lead to some wage-slave being sidewalked and replaced by the next phi beta kappa.
Posted by Gene Cassidy | August 23, 2009 7:21 PM
This is really no different from the controversy which pops up periodically about used parts pulled from returns showing up in "new" machines. There are two ways of looking at "new". One is to understand that "new" means "not used, not ever, not even for a short while". The other is essentially to lie about it to reduce the cost of allowing returns.
Posted by Gary Lee | August 24, 2009 10:55 AM
My question is "why didn't the writer here buy a netbook from a solution provider?" - After all, this site is all about supporting the solution provider community and is supposed to represent the ideals of solution providers - and yet, the writer here won't use a VAR to buy a new netbook - that seems absolutely hypocritical to me!
Posted by Joe C. | August 24, 2009 11:08 AM
I sincerely doubt this story is true.
No returned computer looks 'well-packaged'...and I certainly doubt that there would be a 'Shut off Rob's F&*()&'N computer' (with or without any incorrectly labelled 'blanks') message and the bottom of the screen.
I don't know what 'At the risk of being profane' referred to, but that post certainly qualifies as 'At the risk of being dishonest'.
I suspect this might be a planted post from a rival competitor...'juiced up' with a little bit of fake shock-value clutter (Oh! How horrific! An 11-year-old encountering the F-word! How traumatic!)
Posted by Tom Vincent | August 24, 2009 12:24 PM
Chiming in here on a couple of fronts. First off, to Tom Vincent, this story is 100 percent true. Every single word of it. We returned the netbook in question to Radio Shack and they provided my daughter with another one that by all accounts is completely new.
As for the reason for buying retail vs. from a solution provider. Good issue to raise, but quite honestly am wondering how many VARs are actually selling netbooks today. Arguably RadioShack is part of the channel as the workers there installed AV software and additional memory as a service, but that's a whole other discussion.
For the solution providers out there, how many of you are selling netbooks today?
Posted by Carolyn April | August 24, 2009 1:31 PM
Just a word of defense for Carolyn.
I raise this point as a partner of a major player in the pc market, we are getting squeezed out of that same market. (Company name rhymes with hell.)
Our alleged partner is selling equipment at big-box retailers at prices we cannot begin to match. To add insult to injury; when we use a web configuration tool to customize a consumer product as a generic visitor, then configure it using our partner login it costs us $120 on a $900 product to buy it as a partner. Unless you need one-off customization, only an idiot would buy from a channel provider in that circumstance.
Posted by Tim Morgan | August 24, 2009 3:18 PM
Thanks Tim. It's certainly not the first time to hear about the issue you raise with respect to your vendor. Well-noted.
With specific respect to netbooks, what solution provider wants to sell them in reality? Isn't a retail outlet like RadioShack best-suited for the sale of a $299 device that does not lend itself to services attach of any kind? For that matter, what VARs are focusing their business model around desktop PC sales?
Posted by Carolyn April | August 24, 2009 5:15 PM
That's outrageous. "New" means not opened, not transferred to an end user or their agent (or gift buyer).
Radio Shack should be hung out in the Twitter breeze.
Posted by Mike Pepper ~ Computer Guy | August 25, 2009 12:29 AM
I wonder how anyone would know what Carolyn is talking about (August 24, 2009 1:31 PM) since my posted comment was censored. Hmmm...
Posted by Tom Vincent | August 25, 2009 4:48 PM
Hey Tom. Your post about censorship puzzles me as I approved your comment as soon as I saw it come through. You can see in above thread that it was published at 12:24 p.m. on Aug. 24. I'll paste into this comment, however, below my note. That being said, we at Channel Insider do not censor our blog posts. What fun would that be? I like to hear from all sides, even those that don't believe what I write is true. So please keep writing. I assure you your posts are as important as anyone else's... Carolyn
Tom Vincent :
I sincerely doubt this story is true.
No returned computer looks 'well-packaged'...and I certainly doubt that there would be a 'Shut off Rob's F&*()&'N computer' (with or without any incorrectly labelled 'blanks') message and the bottom of the screen.
I don't know what 'At the risk of being profane' referred to, but that post certainly qualifies as 'At the risk of being dishonest'.
I suspect this might be a planted post from a rival competitor...'juiced up' with a little bit of fake shock-value clutter (Oh! How horrific! An 11-year-old encountering the F-word! How traumatic!)
Posted by Tom Vincent | August 24, 2009 12:24 PM
Posted by Carolyn April | August 25, 2009 5:19 PM
I felt like I should respond to the "No returned computer looks 'well-packaged'. Some large stores actually have shrink wrap machines in their stores I have seen them in a store called "BB". I personally have been known to not take the film off the screen until it curls off! If the customer did not destroy the packaging an old package can look new again! So buyer beware.
Posted by Jim Pickens | August 25, 2009 8:58 PM
Yeah right - Channel Insider doesn't censor their comments - just take a look at
http://www.channelinsider.com/showblog/6972/Channel-Insider-Names-New-Editor-Sales-Manager/
And you can see how the original posts were changed to "I'm really Excited" from a critical post of the path channel insider was taking
Posted by Mike A. | September 2, 2009 4:03 PM