From: Stuart F. Biggar (Stuart.Biggar_at_opt-sci.arizona.edu)
Date: Fri Mar 09 2001 - 08:20:05 EST
At 07:56 PM 3/8/2001 -0500, you wrote:
>Here's one person's lament about buying a TP (or trying to) from IBM's web
>site--interesting, but I'm just wondering if she hit them on a bad day...has
>anyone else run into the type of things she describes? I would be interested
>to find out---
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/08/technology/08SHOP.html
Marc,
I can navigate the IBM site (sort of) but there are various broken
links and other stuff that I find hard to follow. For example,
there are places that look like links to pdf files but they instead
take you to a page with a long list of pdf files that doesn't
seem to include what you were looking for originally. Pages
don't print correctly (at least using Netscape 4.76 on either
Windows or UNIX (Sun Solaris)).
At times, the site is either down or incredibly slow (even over
100 Mbit ethernet to a big, fast, multi processor Sun server
or my new A21P).
At least a rep called her. I have at various times tried to get
a price quote for an education price on various things. Talk about
slow (or no) response. Call - leave a message; wait a week, call
again - response is promised; wait another couple of days; call
again and leave a message ... Wonder if they really want to
sell anything ... call again ... send email ... finally get a
quote 3 weeks after you want it.
After lots of waiting and trying I finally did get a price for
an A21P from IBM at an education price and, as it was lower
than IBM dealers, the University bought from IBM directly.
It wasn't fun or efficient though (probably cost way more if
time was added into the cost).
It is easier to buy from a dealer (mail order or local store)
than from IBM itself - I get disks and accessories from Bill
Morrow if he has them as he is helpful and quick.
Stuart
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