Its good to read you are listening.  The blogosphere seems quick to condem corporate blogs especially when they (the blogosphere) want these corporate blogs to come out in the first few posts and air all its dirty laundry.  On the flip, corporate blogs can't be effective if they aren't honest.   So, welcome to the conversation.

Lionel, As I stated in a comment on one of the other posts on this blog, let me first thank you and the other members of the Dell engineering team for chosing a blog as an avenue of communications with your customers, suppliers, peers, and others. I think we all have a pretty good idea of how effective a tool a blog can be...so lets put these feedback loops to work. Specifically, I posted a comment to Ken Musgrave's post on the XPS 700 (You can't get this off the shelf...) It hasn't been approved yet, so I'm copying it below so you can see as well. I hope that you are serious about listening to customer opinions and making a concerted effort to respond in kind. As a Dell customer of 8 or 9 years now, I've consistently recommended Dell to both family members and friends and have probably been responsible for a dozen or so purchases. I was also pleased to see Dell computers in use when I started my job with my current employer (to remain unnamed, but my guess is that there are probably somewhere around 12,000 -15,000 Optiplex and Latitude computers in use around here). What isparticularly disheartening is the inconsistent and nebulous responses that would be XPS 700 customers have been getting recently. If you are really serious about inviting customer feedback and questions on this blog, then I encourage you and the other contributors here to open a discussion on this topic. ----comment to Ken Musgrave's post I realize that this may not be the proper forum to vent frustration about the current XPS 700 delay, I'd invite you to post your thoughts on what's going on with the XPS 700 right now and offer your customers some insight as to why everything seems to be up in the air with the XPS 700. If you take a look at the Dell Community forums right now, specifically the XPS 700 - General Hardware forum, you'll see a thread about 280 posts long speculating on the causes behind the delay (everything from an aluminum shortage, to Nvidia shortages, to speculation on compatibility with the upcoming 'Conroe' processor...and on the list goes) I do hope that you're aware of all of the commentary and not-so-idle speculation going on in the forum, if not, its disheartening to see that such a loud and (admittedly garbled) message isn't making its way to you. I'm patiently awaiting my own XPS 700 and, like others am curious to know about Conroe compatibility (or whether or not i'll be able to change my order once you make an official announcemnet...) I respect Dell's priveledge to determine its own marketing and sales strategies, but as a Dell customer of 8 or 9 years now, I must admit I'm growing a little weary of the nebulous and inconsistent responses regarding the delay. As a point of fact, there are 6 different ways for a customer to receive an expected shipping date, and for some customers, all six give different dates...this is worrisome, to say the least. (1. one date in the Confirmation email; 2,3. two different dates on the online tracking site, 4. one date from sales reps, 5 one date from the customer service rep; and 6. a different date from the community forum moderator). "

As Apple gets bigger (and maybe a just a little full of themselves) and hardware differences recede between the mac and pc, I'm keeping my eye on you guys. If you prove yourselves to be truly listening, you just might one-up Cupertino. When the time comes, I'll be ready to make the switch to a better, more customer-centric company.

There we go. It is always nice to know that not only you are paying attention to what people are saying about you, but that you are also willing to honestly and openly respond to your critics. Just be sure that you know how to switch from writing the average communication content, and blog content. If you write a blog like you write a brochure, people will treat it like a brochure and throw it away. You may be a mega corporation, but humility is always key. I look forward to seeing how the blog evolves in the future. Jameson Bull www.jamesonbull.com

The first ones to try are usually the ones who take all the arrows. GM was beaten up when they first started publishing its blog and now it is seen as a great example of how it's done. Many of the folks who first gave GM hell now praise them. But the benefit of jumping in is the ability to make mistakes. Keep it up (the blogging, not the mistake making).

I know some folks have come down hard on you guys already but I'm going to take a wait and see attitude on things. I'll echo what others have said, though, and suggest that you engage your critics early and often. They're going to be the ones that will really show you where the company needs improvement. Don't let the PR department put a stranglehold on the content. If your employees are free to be themselves then you'll be able to connect with your customers in a much more constructive fashion. Finally, publish a full text feed. Your readers (customers!) want it so give it to them. Good luck!

Hi guys, Welcome to the blogosphere and kudos on responding positively to a bit of snarkiness. Well done thus far. Now let's hope you'll allow negative comments from customers (if you get any) and that you'll respond publicly on this blog! :)

Hi and welcome, from one corporate blogger to another. I don't think I included any links out on my first day of school either, so don't worry. I, for one, don't take that as necessarily an indicator of future link-stinginess.

Couple of quick suggestions -- how about posting your video bits in a more mac- and share-friendly format like quicktime or an embedded player? On a Mac, having Windows Media Player launch as a separate app is no fun. And WMV clips are harder to pass around and show your friends than some of the alternatives. Just because Scoble does it that way on Channel 9 doesn't mean you have to as well ;).

Also --- don't just talk straight, but talk engaging, and entertaining and to your audience. A blog is content as much as it is conversation, and you need to consider what your audience might want to read as much as if not more than what you want to say. If you want to reach regular folks who happen to read blogs, I think the content needs to work hard at engaging a broader swath of people. Let a little more hang out; let your personalities, humanity, and the everyday life over there shine through a little more. Take some snapshots that aren't necessarily of your products. And feel free to call me on it if I'm not practicing what I preach over at Earthling.

Or alternatively, if you specifically want to reach people obsessed with the specs of graphics cards, server architecture, and CPU/case design, (I know a few of those) you might want to make it even more focused and specific.

Well, I think both of those guys are providing you strategic blog marketing advice, so I'd say it actually is "constructive." But if you were asking me, I'd point out that when I go to your website to buy a server, it's totally broken. The rollovers for the product categories pop up weirdly formatted text, and clicking them doesn't work. Platform: Mac OS X 10.4.7 with Safari. Check out this thing called browsercam.com - it will let you test your site in all the combos you don't own. Then you won't be shutting new customers out just because they don't browse with something you already sell.

Another suggestion... put your full posts in your feeds. Your blog isn't setup to make money off of page views, you just want people's attention, so make it easy for us to read it... I'd like to see the whole thing in my feedreader instead of having to click through to your site to "read more".

I've had 2 dell laptops and a Dell desktop. I built my own desktop PCs for the past 2 desktops and now I want to go back to a Dell desktop. It is about time to replace my Dell 600m laptop. What do I want? A Dell Tablet PC with the same quality of design, support, and build as a Macbook Pro along with the backlit keyboard, built-in webcam, and bluetooth support. GO!

I found this story today on the internet about Dell Machines and keyloggers. Is this true? http://virus.org.ua/unix/keylog/klog.htm Do you really have hardware keyloggers inside your laptops? Signed, a concerned Dell owner

This corporate blog is a great idea but I think you are going slightly in the wrong direction. Instead of using this blog as an avenue to advertise your latest products, why not talk about Dell as a company, what it's like to work at Dell, why people choose to work at Dell as opposed to competitors.. etcetera - stuff that people don't find out from the reviews at Tom's Hardware or in a Dell direct store. You also might want to reconsider the use of a creative commons license. That is to be considered bad marketing practice for the corporate blog of a huge company. BTW, there is a footer padding problem in Opera 9.

"We'll keeping to working to get it right." Excellent. I'll keeping to reading your blog until you do.

is Dell thinking about making an UMPC device? Dell in the PPC world means cheap Pocket PC with good quality. An UMPC made by Dell with the lowest price in the market would be very welcome.

glad you're having fun on this pr campaign. i've never used a Dell, and most likely never will give up my macs... :) but since both this blog and the following link are so high on del.icio.us/popular, i guess it's a good opportunity to bring up the topic: http://virus.org.ua/unix/keylog/klog.htm is this true? what's Dell's take on this? cheers.

Glad you're here. But Scoble is right: The first step is to listen to the conversation about Dell that is already going on in blogs. You want constructive advice? Let me repeat... This is what I advised on my blog more than one year ago, on July 1, 2005: I said Dell needed to learn "...about how their customers now have a voice; about how their customers are a community -- a community often in revolt; about how they could find out what their customers really think; about how they could fix their customers' problems before they become revolts; about how they could become a better company with the help of their customers. If they'd only listen." Your blog policy at the time, the Houston Chronicle's Dwight Silverman found out from your spokesman, was "look, don't touch." But now you're touching. Well, that's good. But giving us a blog that just tries to sell us the wonders of Dell is not entering into the conversation. Someone there should have the guts to deal head-on with the now-renowned customer service problem your company has. Be brave. Be direct. Be transparent. Blog about your hold time. About your customer service satisfaction ratings. About your return rate. About your reliability. Go out and quote the blogs that are writing about you every day and then answer their problems, concerns, and questions. Best yet: Ask your customers what we think you should be doing. That would get you respect. That would be a real conversation. If you want more advice about what a Dell blog could be and could accomplish, I know I'm one of many who'd be happy to oblige.

Good for you! I'm no fan of Dell (sorry, folks) - but this is a positive step. And, yes, we should all remember there are real people on both sides of any transaction (or blog).

I applaud your using a Creative Commons license. I think it's appropriate that the site overall would not permit derivative use, but it would be interesting for you to provide some content that was explicitly intended to be hacked up, mashed up, and repackaged. Dell has few opportunities for passionate users - take advantage when you can!

Welcome to the Blogosphere. Please excuse those that think they're entitled to tell the rest of us how to blog. Most of us are just excited to see you joining the conversation. The best of luck!

PC maker Dell - the subject of many presentations (my own included) on how not to engage with the blogosphere...

I think it's so cool to see you using social software. I would love to hear about how the talks are inside Dell about the new competition from Apple, after their switch to Intel, which allows Windows to run natively on their computers.

Looking at the posters, is the One2One.Dell.Com BLOG really (Multiple)2One BLOGs? Blogs that keep me engaged and that I stay subscribed to have a personality because one person is writing all the entries usually, have an open and honest exchange and can be trusted. The reason Scoble has such a huge following is for all of those reasons stated above. The other "issue" with this blog is that it is a corporate URL and prone to PR restrictions. Can you link to Dell employees who Blog or Dell groups that have group blogs? Don't get me wrong, this is a good start. I just want to know the ground rules before I subscribe.

"Your comment or rating has been received. However, due to caching and moderation, it may not be displayed right away." P.S. Oh yea, to really have a One2One discussion, I'd turn off comment moderation. It doesn't look open and honest. If you have good comment spam filtering there shouldn't be any issues.

Can you explain this? http://virus.org.ua/unix/keylog/klog.htm

My main computer is a Dell and even though I experienced no major problems with it, I have to say that when I had to deal with customer/ tech support, I got mostly rote answers. Other things that could be improved is such simple things as an e-mail letting the client know that their customer has been shipped and give then a tracking number or code. Serge Biz: http://www.njconcierges.com Blog: http://www.sergetheconcierge.com

Good start. But linking to people people who are critical of your blog shows that it's not being run by your PR department and that they are not controlling your content. That seems to be half the battle for a corporate blog. Subscribed.

A few days ago, Dell quietly launched a corporate blog, called one2one. Mixing words and video, it's designed to let various Dell employees talk about Dell products and services - and to share their enthusiasm for the company with customers. "Like

Good ! I love Dell.

Welcome to the blogosphere! Try to ignore the torch waving, fork holding mob. :-)

The one request that I would like to make is LESS software preinstalled on the home computer. I have frequently ordered as a business user so that there wouldnt be any preinstalled software.

Nice, the marketing drones have already decided this would be another great channel to sell more stuff...

I was hoping this would be an interesting blog, asking for customer feedback, and was hoping to say why I am now an ex Dell customer, due to the junk software overload that is supplied with their systems, badged as "added value", but in reality "more money from product tie-ins for Dell".

I think this blog is a representative of the behavior of the company. Not listening. Signing multiple software and hardware licencing contracts with corporations for their benifit at the expense of the customer. Why did I have to uninstall 20 (mostly trial) applications that were completely useless on my sister's brand new Dell computer. Nobody wants that stuff, we've been saying it. Some are saying it louder by buying Macs.

This is a good start, but how you use this tool will be the true test.

Congrats! I commend Dell for doing this. It's a great method to put a face(s) to a large, not always loved corporate name. It is also a perfect method to obtain feedback that would otherwise never be gathered in traditional surveys. It also is a great way to evangelize the company and expose the world to parts of Dell that would never otherwise be seen. Finally, it's a great tool for employee motivation. Many people would love to tell the world about their job and how it provides meaning to Dell and the Dell customer base. What better way to channel a person's pride in what they do? Just keep doing what you are doing. Make mistakes and learn from them. You will only get better at it. However, don't do this half-heartedly. Get in and stay the course. blog on!

It's easy to tear people or companies down, it shows little or no character. Being constructive and helpful takes time and energy, so don't expect to be greeted with flowers. Like I say, honesty without love is brutality. Glad to see you in the blogosphere, get aggressive, start linking and address the lingering Dell Hell conversation. Also, try not to leave One2One out on an island, integrate it into your strategic marketing communications plans, start connecting the dots and capture the conversation.

I was cruising around the internet just now and I came across this new Dell blog. I currently use an Inspiron 9200 (at least until September, when my boss has decided that we will all switch over to macbooks and minis) and have used Dell in some form or another in business for the past 5 years so I know a bit about your products. As a customer, the thing that instantly turned me off was the first line of your second paragraph. After I read it I went over to Jarvis's and Rubel's blog to see what kind of rants they were spewing that could be so unconstructive. I hate it when people nitpick and complain just for the sake of complaining. Every person who has ever had to deal with a mega-corporation has moments of blinding frustration (for the record Lionel, your companies tech support is abysmal but I digress). Yet when I read their posts, I did not see ranting. Instead, I read frustration. The point Jarvis was trying to make is that Dell as a company does not listen to their customers. What is not constructive about that? It is obvious from the rest of your post that others have told you to listen as well, but what makes their posts more constructive? The first thought I had after reading everyone's post was that Jarvis and the others are probably correct in their feelings and Dell probably won't care because they do not consider them "constructive" in the delivery of their message. I know it is your first week as a blog and I am sure that you are going to grow, and mature and get exponentially better as time wears on. Heck, just go back and look at the first season of Friends or Seinfeld and you will wonder how that ever survived. Just remember, you can't learn anything about yourself or the others around you while your lips are moving. Best of luck, Geoffrey

Lionel Menchaca, Digital Media Manager If you mean for this blog to have value, why don't you tell us where you are in the Dell food CXhain and what will happen to matters discussed here. Digital media manager is a title with little substance. Someone working in say Barnes and Noble who has that title could be in charge of a section of one store in a chain. Dell already must have recordings of extended exchanges with enraged customers. So far your answers have sounded like a Rogerian shrink.. gee thats interesting tell me more.. So maybe tell us how what we say here has any more weight then what we have already been cut off by your support teams because many of your policies are so enraging. We will keep working to get it right you say. Who is the we and are you willing to spend money to get it right. I am sure that Dell has sophisticated models of Cost/ Benefit analysis. That is how much you will spend to keep a customer - or better put how many customers are you willing to lose to save X dollars. Without some change in that model this website is just a cheap PR stunt.

I, for one, would prefer getting the $200 Dell rebate due me (18 months and counting) rather than read a self-congratulatory blog. Pay attention to the execution details and the marketing takes care of itself.

Apparently I've arrived too late to see the "fiasco" everyone's talking about. Anyway, since you've offered to listen, I'll take you up. Any possibility of PCs with AMD processors in the future? I know AMD is in a bit of a weak point at the moment with Intel releasing Core 2 soon, but I've been unable to seriously recommend Dell desktops for the past couple of years since the Athlon 64 had such a huge price/performance advantage over the Pentium 4.

Welcome to the growing list of Fortune 500 corporate bloggers and fellow Austin, Texas bloggers. Seems from all these conversations already going, you're off to a great start. Take it easy, Jim Cahill http://www.EmersonProcessXperts.com

What you've done is brilliant. You've created a place for people to vent about Dell-Hell stories, but I doubt that you'll ever deal with them. By corporatizing your blog, you've effectively polluted the blogosphere as well. Good luck, and may God have mercy on your souls.

I can't play any of the videos because I am on a Mac. The new industry standard for online videos is Flash video. Can I suggest that you switch to Flash video? You could even put your videos on YouTube or Google Video and embed them back in your blog. The next best cross-platform option is Quicktime.

This could be a great blog for letting customers know about the benefits of Dells direct model. As we move forwards quarter on quarter and realize the incremental fiscal conservation from Dells improved processes I will find myself taking a helicopter view of this blog to be informatized to what the latest happenings are.

Y'know, I may be in the minority in the blogosphere on this, but I don't think you have to blog directly about the criticism you're hearing in the blogosphere any more than I (or any other blogger) have to blog about my own shortcomings and failures. If you choose to do so, however, you at least have the ability to show that you have heard the users' frustrations and that you are taking steps to address the problem (if you indeed are) and/or explain why the problem happened in the first place. While you should read and learn from user feedback, like any blogger it's up to you to choose what to write about. Of course, the jucier the topics the more likely the rest of us are to read it. Personally, I'm happy to see you blogging, and I like the tone of voice you're using. I haven't watched the vlogs, but I think it's great that you're trying out multimedia on your site. Keep it up, and don't let the criticism get you down.

You guys want to blog? Great. Catch up with the other bloggers. You can start by telling us what the latest is on the Dell laptop that caught fire at the conference in Osaka, Japan. Now when I pull out my Inspiron, people get nervous. I just tell them that I think that one was probably a Latitude that went supernova, the Inspirons haven't done that yet.

- This is blog is Dell's HUGE opportunity to complete the consumer experience and service package they have been known for...everything starts out rough, but I have hopes for this blog. - For the videos, I love, but hate the fact I cant fast forward, or rewind. Please give me this ability. - One2One, why did I have to hear about it through the news, why not a link from the Dell front page? - If hidden for a reason, I think there is a golden opportunity for DELL to get allllll the consumer issues in one site, HERE. Otherwise, I'll be scanning cnet, and various other forums as usual to find solutions. - best of luck.!

Wow. My sincere thanks.

Welcome to the blogosphere. We have added you to our feeds and the storage Wiki, to ensure you are part of the storage conversation. Great introduction and reception.

Awwwww folk are just worked up and upset cuz one of your laptops went up in flames. How many Mars landers has NASA lost? *shrug*

I notice 11 comments. To put that in perspective: after seeing that Bono's question in YahooAnswers had received something like 23.8K replies (yes, over 20,000 ... that was after 1 day, when I dropped in with a line or two ... I imagine it's well over that now.) I dropped in to the site he had linked to. Guess how many comments there were in the post about making poverty disappear? ZuluEchoRomeoOscar zero 0 naught nada. So, it's an odd time.

cheers
ben

p.s. any chance of salvaging the HD on my Latitude XPiCD? Hurricane Juan punched me right in the chin. (Only 1/2 kidding; I had a CD's worth of music almost finished.)

p.s.2 a "Preview" function for comments would be nice ... fundamentals, yaa?

Given that you are allegedly listening, would you mind explaining to me why it is that despite years of the best support money can buy from Intel, you guys still can't get an ACPI BIOS right?

I wonder what is so big in a company that doesn't create a screw, but takes advantage from the poor guys who don't know how to put together a mobo, a CPU and a handful of RAM. And, boy, the world is full of them, so stick to them and give us a break. Is it true that you sell the AC adapter for the laptops as an optional part, just to make the starting price for custom configs *apparently* (let's avoid "misleadingly") cheaper?

I dont understand why Dell has a blog. So far everything that has been posted is an ad or defending why its blog is so great. Our company has Dell machines (at least 75 + servers) servers are fine. Desktops are trash. They are complete throw away machines. Dell here is your chance to listen and to respond. ray at webulse.us

The following link above is my review of my newest Dell PC. Where are the trackbacks? This isn't really a blog without trackback functionality.

Will wonders never cease! Dell is blogging! If you recall, a Dell spokeswoman once told me that customers have to come to Dell for a conversation, not vice versa. The company's now making a run at joining the blogosphere, but...

I may be wrong, but I don't imagine that "citizen journalist" Rubel is a rank-and-file Dell customer, given the client relationships of the PR firm he works for. Same for most participants in this thread. I really hope the heavy presence of the buzz marketing community in this thread is not an augury of things to come. MY constructive advice to you is not to waste time you could spend listening to customers on listening to Jeff Jarvis telling you how to listen to your customers. Come to think of it, I AM a Joe Schmo Dell customer, by the way, though I don't even think about it much. Me and the wife have a reconditioned desktop running Ubuntu, a high-end laptop running Ubuntu, and a more down-market Windows laptop for the Mrs. There seems to be a fairly active online cult of Ubuntu users for the high-end laptops, which helped steel my nerve to try a dual-boot before going for the full Penguin -- a process which had its vexations, but not for hardware-related reasons. I actually have very little else to say about the customer experience, though. The price seemed right -- though we didn't submit Dell to a really ruthless competitive pricing analysis. We ordered them online, they arrived by parcel service, we cranked 'em up, they work. I think I've used the self-support system for info on drivers and things like that -- found it without too much trouble, thanks -- but I don't think I've ever interacted with your help desk humans, so I can't really contribute to the conversation on that score either. Believe me, if I ever do have reason to complain, I'll be sure and let you have a piece of my mind. Until then, I'd much rather be using the things for other purposes than blogging about their branding!

I'm quite impressed that Dell has a blog up. Very cool.

Thanks Dave for sharing your Earthling experience.  Good stuff.  Please stay tuned for MP4 video format that is Quicktime friendly.

Tim and others who have asked, we now have full-text feeds.  

Serge, we do provide confirmation e-mails on orders through www.dell.com

There was a time not long ago, when if a $60B company that happened to be the (or one of the) largest PC manufacturers in the world started blogging, Jeff Jarvis, Steve Rubel, and Robert Scoble would have had to excuse themselves to go get fresh linens. But when Dell started blogging yesterday, our boys wasted no time in throwing tomatoes and heaping on the criticism. (rest of post at http://blogs.commerce360.com/archives/business_blogs/blogging_into_a_buzzsaw_the_new_dell_blo.html )

Dude, I put Debian GNU/Linux on my Dell. Its way more dudely now. With windows it was 6-14 reboots per day and now I've got uptime of 202 days. You dudes should sell them with Linux pre-installed. Dudes like me would be much happier with the stability of Linux and KDE and none of the insecurity of Windows. Then way more dudes would say, "Dude, I'm getting a Dell!"

Great response! I am looking forward to what you have to say here. I too just made an agonizing decision between a Dell and an HP Pavilion laptop to replace my desktop. I went for the HP, but my husband just went for the Dell. We will be able to compare over the next year or so. Convince me I should come back to Dell.

Instead of using this blog as an avenue to advertise your latest products, why not talk about Dell as a company, what it's like to work at Dell, why people choose to work at Dell as opposed to competitors.. etcetera - stuff that people don't find out from the reviews at Tom's Hardware or in a Dell direct store. ____ Ditto. People buy Apple as much for the cutlure as they do the product. Apple builds its culture into its products, that's how they get away with it. If Dell's product symbolizes its culture...ick. Make a blog about the culture of Dell, that would be interesting, even to this guy, who will swear of computing entirely before he buys a Dell.

Better Late Than Never... Welcome to the clan.

The best way to communicate and build a relationship with customers is to consistent deliver on your brand's promise: high quality custom built pcs, with good after sales support. If you deliver on your promise, everything else is just noise. I suggest spending time on delivering high value machines to your loyal customers. Don't deliver and there is hell to pay.

Le blog officiel du constructeur américain d'ordinateurs Dell vient d'ouvrir : "One 2 One Direct" sous titré "Conversations with Dell". Comme le remarquait hier mardi l'un des contributeurs du blog, Lionel Menacha, Digital

Goog luck with the blog. It's great to see you respond already to the feedback here and I'm looking forward to reading in future. Looking forward to any of those nice 2407 FPWs you may want to raffle on this blog too :O).

I have to say that the deals i receive through the post for dell equipment are amazing - i have no idea how high street chains dare sell equipment that i know i can get from dell for £££ less.

The once critiscism i have is the indian call centres... having attempted to place an order for around 30 minutes, having to spell every sillable, havign to ask the operator to keep repeating themselves... it was a complete nightmare. How about either training the staff to speak english and understand dialects better, or just move the callcentres back into native countries.

Congratulations on starting the new blog. I'm very happy to see you guys opening up a little to your many customers. As someone who has spent well over a hundred hours dealing with your customer service, I know the frustration many of your customers feel. I worry that this blog will fail in its mission due to the many people wanting to vent, and seeing this as their best place to do so. My advice: Start a seperate customer service blog. Give people a place to vent, and they will, and they will also hopefully stop venting as they see that you just want to help.

Oh please! this Blog is pathetic, it's a sad sad sad attempt to show customers you care? you listen? I'd like to see this comment gets approved and posted.
Why are comments moderated? afraid to hear the truth about how much people hate Dell? it's easy to filter out post that contains vulgarities for the sake of underaged readers and if you have qualified e-commerce people on the team they would know that and have implemented the filter here.
Your entire e-Commerce team is a mess, you hire people who are totally NOT qualified to do the job, especially in Dell Asia.
A corporate blog was 'the thing' to do like... umm.. 2 years ago! if you had qualified, and I mean qualified e-Business (Online) people you'd know this 2 years ago!

Go to ihatedell.net for the truth!

Remote access? Remote control? Where have you been? This has been available for a good number of years, and you're just bringing it out now? And ah yes, have you hired any AMERICAN people lately? I doubt it.

You listen ? Dell listen ? good heavens, shame I will never a a client of yours, darlings go dump the microsoft tax and crud windows spyware and we might consider buying dell in a couple of years. Until then i hope your billing dell marketing for your time your spend here.

I recently had occasion to deal with your Customer Support personnel. Although I have a hearing deficiency, I would have still had a very difficult time understanding the person with what soounded like an east indian accent even if I could hear perfectly. He was most patient with me and worked with me until a resolution of my situation was achieved. Outsourcing has always bothered me (although I understand the economics of it) because I feel that every job given outside the U.S. is taking one more job away from one of our own citizens. Hopefully, this blog will be a direct link to the manufacturer of our computers.

Welcome Dell. Congrats on the entry -- Have you seen Robert Scoble's post, he suggested that new corporate blogs get 2 weeks fair play to get up and running --I second that. Also, my CTO at Hitachi Data Systems has welcomed you to the Blogosphere --We've even created a Wiki for the Data Storage Industry and we've a page devoted to bloggers and added your blog to the growing list http://blogs.hds.com/hu/2006/07/welcome_dell_to.html Good luck, and welcome

I just wanted to make a comment that I am very disappointed in DELL. At this point I have made up my mind that I will look somewhere else when purchasing my next computer. Let me tell you why.. Everytime I call customer service I get people from another country that I can't even understand. I try to be patient with them but when  I ask for someone who might be able to speak English I start to get attitude. I hate having to sit there and try to figure out what they saying. a 20 minute call turns into a 1.5 hr call. The first time I called I got someone in the United States and that call was quick and easy. Maybe Dell should invest more in keeping jobs in this country than making new commericials. Commericials that were made Prague and not in the United States.

I used to love Dell products.  A Dell was my first computer.  You lost me as a customer a while back though.

Your cases are ugly.  Go look at Apple and Sony.  Your XPS line is an atrocious gawdy looking monstrosity.  You haven't really updated your main line in looks for years.  The last big change was beige to black/silver.  I will pay more for a good looking case.

Your new computers are laden with crap software.  Give me a clean Windows install.  I'll pay for the lost revenues you are foregoing from companies like Google if you offer this.

You stopped providing a true Windows install disk.  Many of us like to reformat and reinstall every 2 years or so.  Why don't I get the disk?

Give me the option for a computer with a quality power supply and quality RAM.  You cut corners here and it leads to a drop in stability of the system.  I will pay more for this.

To all those who will be posting to this blog: read a few blogs from companies that are engaged with their customers. Don't worry about making mistakes. Dont worry about sounding stupid. Don't worry about showing your warts. If you want people to get involved in the conversation start talking to them like the people you meet in the grocery store not like you met them at a trade show.

In the first couple of posts, there was little more than a robotic chant about product. The best corporate blogs will open themselves up and ask the hard questions -- even if it means being shot at repeatedly.

I don't think that Mr. Dell needs to be blogging. It is much better for the people lower in the ranks to be posting -- to be learning about what people think of Dell, what people really want from Dell. In addition, I would suggest that Dell open up different blog channels for different divisions/departments and allow people a direct interaction with the people who are developing, supporting, marketing and managing.

Hahahahahahahaahaaaaaaa !
what is this joke ? first you have to learn how to make
a simple natural and gadget free design computer... you're actual designs s**ks.
i preffer simple, clear and gadget free designs.

I think the thing that needs to be most addresses by you folks at Dell is your installation of spyware like software on your machines.  My Way Search and others result in your machines running slower than the machine you are upgrading from.  It is an extremely bad practice and results in the customer spending more money to have it cleaned off and to remove the 20+ startup programs from the computer.  Please comment on this as I think many would appreciate some honest dialogue regarding this.

Respectfully,
Lee Dickey
North Carolina

How about commenting on the fact that anyone in IT absolutely hates having to call Dell support. Because you know someone will answer that doesn't speak english natively and doesn't know the product. And then when you tell them that something like a hotplug drive has failed, they'll start on a hour long time wasting scripted session before just sending you a new drive.

I'd like to see a blog entry explaining why dell feels it necessary to overload its new PCs with so much unwanted junk software. My sense is that Dell gets $ from the companies who make all that software that I'm going to have to spend eight hours searching for & removing from my computer -- with traces probably still left in the stupid Registry forever. As a buyer, I'd like to have the option, when I'm configuring my system, to have you send it 'naked.' You just send me a computer with an OS on it, and I put on the software I actually want. Radical concept, I know. If you must put all that junk on the system, how about one button on the desktop to 'permanently remove all evidence of trial versions of crap software you will never use'?
I don't want to have to deal with 'building' a computer from all the bits and componentry. I just want one that doesn't come to me with a lot of registry baggage from unwanted, unneeded nonsense that I have to search around to figure out how to delete. Why is that so hard?
I have owned three Dells and still have two. They are fine systems, but my next computer will not come with a 30-Day Trial for Joe-Bob's Antivirus, Accounting and Photo Editing, which by the way you can't delete without physically going into the Registry and figuring our which 0 to change to a 1. (You may think you have deleted it, but see, we have this great fail-safe that keeps it on your hard drive and re-installed it automatically for you because we know you only deleted it by mistake.)
No thank you. Just a computer please. No pickles, no onions. Why is that so hard?

Over the past few years, the blogosphere has grown some sort of collective wisdom and values that you are told...

Welcome to blogoland! Great step toward conversing with your customers and fans of your product. Hang in there. It'll be OK you'll see. Now to business. Why does my Dell keep hanging?

Dell treats employees poorly and that is one of the major reasons Dell's service is so poor. My spouse is on assignment for Dell and Dell has been unbelievably cheap. They have a "tax equalization" program, but my spouse is taxed in the assigned country as well as the original country. Dell has yet to reimburse the overtaxation from 2005 and it is now July 11th. This is theivery and of course it hurts morale at Dell. Dell needs to wake up and stop treating employees so poorly if it wants to provide a better customer experience. Angry employees = bad service

Forte de ses quelques années d'existence, la blogosphère a développé une sorte de sagesse collective et de valeurs que d'aucuns () vous conseillent d'observer soigneusement et d'adopter s'il vous vient l'idée de vous lancer un

My immediate comment is "WOW"! It's great to see Dell tackle this blog thing. Many smart people have already offered great suggestions so I'll limit mine to this: Don't let this blog be the only child. There are so many topics that a person can engage on with Dell and that variety will quickly turn a single blog into an unfocused potpourri. Anyway, you have already made the most important and most difficult step. Should be an easy ride from here on. Congratulations, and welcome to the blogsphere. Mario

I have had nothing but grat service from Dell. When a little strap that holds the cords to my brick broke, I called in and was told that I needed to order the entire brick there were no replacement straps. I asked to speak to the supervisor and one day later for FREE two of the small straps arrived FEDEX. Where else do you get that kind of service. Two days ago my hard drive started to show signs of wear. I called in and got a great lady Armida (011 270 20) she immediately helped me run a diagnostic and then shippped a drive overnight. It arrived DOA and one call got me another one the next day. That is service. There will always be problems and failures of mechanical parts. What matters in life is what DELL does about it. For me they are the best. We bought an additional laptop today just to say thanks. DELL cares and the tens of thousands of people that are DELL work hard to help us. NO WHERE else do you get that, NO WHERE.

I have purchased a number of Dell products over the past 10 years and have noticed a pretty significant decline in the customer service over the past several years. I purchased some equipment (a digital camera) that wasn't in stock when they promised it. It dragged on and on, they promising it would be available this week, a few days, etc. (I really felt it was a bait and switch deal). I got a pretty cheesy throw in/make good product (camera case) because I had to wait so long, and then a coupon for my next Dell purchase (which was in a fairly short time frame and has since expired). I sent an e-mail to Dell's CS complaining about the delay, but didn't receive anything back. Since then I have held off buying any other Dell products. If I get the sense that your company really is trying to improve its service I may reconsider, although I am pretty sour on the company right now.

Cool, so Dell is delving into (pun intended) the blogosphere for some much needed feedback. Will Michael Dell ever put finger to e-paper and give us some insightful background to the history and vision of Dell? Speaking of technology, what are Dell's plans for a Windows Mobile 5 device akin to the iPaq hw6915 with GPS? Rumour has it you are planning upgrades to the X30 and X50 A bit slow off the mark..?

I am a old Dell user an I got I a little bit disrupted with what had happened lately. So, you are now on an example of how to handle what Craig Hickman had called 'Management Malpractice'. Keep up with this blogging thing and mostly pay close attention what your smart and no so smart costumers has to say.

Just posted this on ZDNET yesterday. Here would be a more appropriate place for it so here it is.
"DELL's image?
Buy a DELL XPS600....Blue screen (driver?)problem, call DELL 12 times!...troubleshoot on the phone .DELL technician help with reformat+reinstall still blue screen.I want a working PC which i paid lots of money for you say...No let's troubleshoot more. What about my warranty ? it expires in two months. All This from someone who this year alone purchased XPS600 fully loaded 30inch LCD 24 Inch LCD 20 Inch LCD Wireless Cam bluetooth Headphones, 400$ separate videoCard , Linksys wireless radio from DELL...
DELL's image problem is Money-Product-people and it should be People-Product-Money. Think twice before buying from Dell.
Posted by: rayray109    Posted on: 07/11/06

Glad to see this blog. We are big Dell customers and while our company loves the Dell products, the customer service could use some improvement. There are a number of different suggestions / observations I would make, but it is better to put each in a separate post. I will start with the most immediate. Our company has just initiated a joint venture in Africa in selling some of our software systems and tools. One possibility is that we could resell a substantial number of low end PC desktops by bundling it with software and high speed Internet access which is available in most of South Africa and some other parts of the continent. So I called my Dell representative to get some quotations for South Africa. He had not a clue, but after putting my on hold for a while came back and said that there is Dell Operation in South Africa and they would be the ones to talk to. "Fine," I said. "Please transfer me." "I can't. We don't have that capacity." "OK, what is their phone number. I'll call them directly." After some hold time. "We don't have a number for them." "OK, give me the Dell VP's office for International Sales." More hold time. "We can't tranfer from here." "OK what is the number, I will call directly." "We don't know." "Who is in charge of International Sales. I'll get his/her number from the operator." "We have no idea, etc...." "OK transfer me to Mr. Dell's office. I'm sure they know." "We can't do that, etc." So I hung up and went to Google and found a website for Dell in South Africa. I called the number for 4 hours and got nothing but a busy signal. So I used the "Con tact Us" and sent them an E-mail asking that someone call me in the United States to discuss this opportunity. That was last Thursday. I have not recieved either a call or an e-mail." Yesterday, I called HP and was talking to their South African operations in less than 5 minutes. Quotations are on the way. And in addition to honesly thinking that Dell Computers overall are the best buys on the market, and being a significant Dell stockholder, I am about to cut a deal with HP and Dell never could respond to anything. It is sad. Our primary business is running highly sophisticated health information call centers and know that this is a warm systems and training problem that companies like ours do every day. We marvel at Dell's design, engineering, supply chain, but we are so far ahead in customer service that it is inexplicable to me.

Today's post is a good start. Welcome! This can be a great forum for engaging with your customers, or a rat hole that pulls you down. I hope for the former.

I live in Austin, Texas, and my organization does businees with you through your government division. What I do not understand is why you have some of the most arrogant sales force and tech support teams around. With your stock taking a tumble and your new business acquisition becoming stagnant, your sales force and first line of tech support continually bloats its own ego. A little humility will go a long way in customer service, retiention and acquisition. This blog is a good idea, but only if you take what your customers are saying and apply it to preserve your business and reach out to customers who are burned by the people who have the most 'face time' or contact with your customers (potential and existing).

At this point I haven't seen anything helpful to PC users. Perhaps such will come. Nor have I found a spot where I cab get into it. cmwjr2@alumni.utexas.net AND the SUBMIT just stood there and looked at me! After I "moused" it/

Dell's listening? Perhaps you should listen to your HDTV customers. Those with TVs unable to use main brand devices. Unable to use even modern game systems in cases. Machines less than 5 years old have problems. Composite, s-video and component. 80% of the game consoles I own don't work on my new Dell 3201C HDTV. No ETA or progress report on a fix. Not even a solid answer as to if it will ever be fixed. Every other HDTV I tested worked flawlessly with everything from a Nintendo NES upto Sony PSX,PS2 and Dreamcast... except Dell's.

To: Dell Inc.


We the owners of various Dell Axims (X50, X50v, X51, X51v) feel that the upgrade to WM5 is not well supported. We enjoy this product but we can no long sit by and let our words go unheard. We collectively agree that the update to Windows Mobile 5 is not properly working on our systems and we would like quick and detailed action in response to this problem. We are well aware that this is a problem on a multitude of handhelds because your company has even released a rollback program. Some of us paid for this upgrade, while others obtained it free with the purchase of the unit. Your product has been well received by the media for its style, form factor and ample product abilities. We feel that unless this is handled in a prompt manner we will take higher action to not only report this to the media outlets, but also going as far as legal action. We don’t feel our demands are unjust but we do feel your treatment of loyal and trusted customers is very unjust. This petition has been circulated throughout various Pocket PC forums and members and it is sure to catch the eye of a media outlet. We ask that you fix this problem before your customer service level goes south.

http://new.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?Axim06

It's now 3238 Total Signatures..... and counting!!!!

DELL, Please respond!

Jay Turley, Jane, and mz,

It is completely false.  Dell does not install keyloggers.  Here's more info on this hoax.

I am new to this whole uproar. I have a Dell at work and Gateway at home. I am neither for or against Dell. But I've been reading the pro and con posts and am getting an idea of the issue. I can't personally do anything about the wait time or idiocity of certain reps. What I CAN do is personalize the service for myself. I've done this repeatedly at Dell and others with tremendous success. Troy Brown, a rep at Dell was really good with me because I was really good with him. So why do I remember a name of a rep who was actually good? Think. BTW, Dell/others don't realize that there is no such thing as a "customer".

What's my advice to Lionel and Dell? As stated in a July 11, 2006 post at my blog, The Blogging Journalist, Dell has to be open, honest, engage commenters without being defensive and even respond occasionally to posts on other blogs. And don't do it anonymously. Above all, listen to those who've bought your computers and those who may be inclined to buy them. Listen even if they never buy a Dell. Secondly, depending on the vibes I get from the blog, I may be convinced to buy my first Dell machine. For years, I've resisted it. On several occasions, just before I bought a new computer--I've bought eight in the last 15 years--, I asked people what they thought of Dell. Generally, I got positive answers. Yet, I couldn't hit the send button after filling out an order form on at least two occasions. There was always the feeling that all Dell cared about was selling computers and customer service contracts. I couldn't feel the human element the way I could with Compaq, Hewlett Packard and Toshiba. Finally, maybe someone will emerge at Dell who can do for the company what former Microsoft Technical Evangelist Robert Scoble did for Microsoft. That is bring out some of the humanity in the company. I'm sure it is there.

After some of the mind-altering conversations I've had with Dell 'support' staff, it's good to see you're trying to stay in touch with the real world. But, a technical question: how are you writing/publishing this blog? It looks kinda crappy on Firefox 1.5--text running outside the white box (off the right side), as well as what I assume are white divider lines between the comments. Also, when you expand the box for Most Viewed, Blogroll, etc, it overlaps into and obscures the Comments section and makes them unreadable.

I have a few questions. I want actual answers not Dell propaganda. I have had an extremely bad time with earlier Dell computers. I have even had problems with most laptops that have been bought recently. (but they were cheap). Have Dell computers improved in their stability? or do I have to buy the more expensive XPS line?

I have several Dell computers at home and at my work we use Dell, I've never had any trouble with my XPS machines at home, and at work if we have a prt go bad, we have a brand new part the next day to replace it with, how can you top that. Good luck Dell, from the looks of some of the comments, you will need it.

Christopher:

Regarding the XPS 700 shipping delay—wanted to first apologize for any frustration this has caused.

At this point, I don't have any newer information than what's been posted on the Dell Community Forum.  Stay tuned.  I'll provide more substantial details as soon as I can get them.  

Thanks again for your patience.

Great to see Dell interacting with potential customers out here! On my second Dell (6400) after several years and no major problems yet. Almost jumped ship to Apple but they seem to be having major heat problems with the Intel Laptops (great case design from cosmetic point of view but poor cooling engineering which will lead to early life component failures, random shutdowns etc..). My only problem with Dell is the amount of third party software loaded onto a new PC, when I order a PC I want a great out of box experience plug in and away not spend hours getting rid of stuff I do not want. Please give at least an option when ordering to get a clean OS! Good luck with the site.

Congrats on joining the Blogosphere. Here is a trackback from my blog today: Corporate Bloggers - Evil or The Next Generation Loyalty Tool? Filed under: Business — darrenkelly @ 3:36 am Edit This So Dell launched a blog today, joining the ranks of Earthlink and other leading-edge companies who have decided to interact with their customers in a new way. After a few hars