How Much Are You Paying For A Nameplate? 290
Matey-O writes: "I realize most of you built your systems youself (with mad overclocking style) but if you've purchased a fully built system receintly from Compaq, Dell, HP or Apple, you may have a computer built by Quanta, a very quiet, very successful Taiwanese manufacturing company. NY times article here." (This is true at least of notebooks.)
Paying for the name (Score:5, Informative)
Its not cost effective to run a computing hardware company in the USA
Re:Paying for the name (Score:3, Insightful)
Nope!
Re:Paying for the name (Score:2)
Re:Paying for the name (Score:2)
The cost savings if the computer breaks may allow me to part out and rebuild new systems. Think THAT is a waste of time? Compare to dealing with automated 1-800 "support" lines and being told to reinstall worthless "supported" OS software required in their troubleshooting scripts. Why spend days and weeks dealing for this expensive rebadged premium when one can do it himself?
Re:Paying for the name (Score:2)
Canon makes the Printer engines for HP's products
Just like Apple used to sell printers under the apple brand, they are just the Canon/HP printers with apple badges
Nameplates (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, if they only made desktops...
Re:Nameplates (Score:4, Informative)
Plus, the Dell 1U servers look way cool....
Re: Dell Support (Score:2)
Re:Nameplates (Score:2)
I'm not so sure about that...one of my work machines is an HP Pavilion (don't laugh...it wasn't my decision), and the 80GB 5400rpm Maxtor (ugh) in it croaked after less than a year. This drive was in a 1.2-GHz Athlon system...not too far from the top of the line when it was purchased. While it has the usual DVD-ROM and CD-RW drives and also includes FireWire, it was built with an el-cheapo nVidia TNT Vanta video card (which also died recently) and only 192 MB RAM.
(It now has an 80GB 7200rpm Western Digital hard drive and a GeForce2 MX 400-based graphics card. I would've preferred a Radeon of some sort, but PC Club didn't have any in stock at the time.)
Get A Real Computer... (Score:2)
Most of these rebadged computers have the crappiest parts they can get away with. The beauty of building a PC yourself is that you can actually put sane parts into it.
The problem is with the PHBs who expect a "brand name" on their computers. You might have to do some homework on marketdroid concepts like Return On Investment and making a "Business case" for going the white-box route, but I am confident that a business case can indeed be made for building you own machines or finding a trustworthy screwdriver shop and having them build a whole bunch of computers to your very exacting specifications. If you trust the screwdriver shop to come up with a spec themselves they will use the cheapest parts they can get away with, and you are back in the same place you were with rebadged crappy Chi-com computers.
Seriously...there is no reason to get a desktop from a "name brand." If you buy one for yourself you are a fool. If your PHB demands them it's up to you to educate him/her about the problems of "name brand" computers. Besides, if you build it yourself, you can fix it yourself. That's the best argument for beige boxen I can think of.
Then again if CBDTPA (The evil bill formerly known as SSSCA and commonly called the "Hollings/Disney Act") passes, "name brand" crappy computers with "digital rights management" boobytraps will be all you can buy legally in the US. Check my
Re:Get A Real Computer... (Score:2)
Fortunately, the boss isn't of the pointy-haired type. I just think he didn't know better. I built the last two machines the company bought (1.4-GHz Athlon XPs on nForce motherboards, with Win2K on one and Linux From Scratch on the other). When we add more machines in the future, I think I've already made the case that build-your-own is the way to go.
Drugs and illegal aliens won't be the only things smuggled in from Mexico if that should happen, I think. At least the dogs won't be able to sniff out the contraband motherboards, hard drives, etc. hidden in unexpected places...
Re:Get A Real Computer... (Score:2)
Usually better to have your employees spend time doing company stuff than building a dozen desktop computers to run desktop apps.
Just pick a _reliable_ supplier of stuff that performs well at a reasonable price. Who cares about cheapest if it keeps breaking - you are buying it to use it after all.
But if I'm getting a computer for myself, then yeah I'll build it myself - Athlon, DDR RAM, GeForce, etc
Sounds like laptops only to me... (Score:2, Redundant)
The article also mentions some other interesting things, such as how Dell's success with notebooks depends on Quanta's efficiency in production.
I would like to point out that the article states that Dell popularized the concept of just-in-time manufacturing. Maybe in the realm of computers, but they've been doing that elsewhere (such as the auto industry) for many many years.
Re:Sounds like laptops only to me... (Score:2, Insightful)
JIT inventory is not the same as JIT manufacturing. JIT inventory means your parts/supplies arrive at the factory as they are needed. JIT manufacturing means your widgets/computers/whatever are manufactured as they are ordered by the customer.
In the case studies I have done, (Nissan, Ford) I haven't heard of an auto manufacturer using JIT manufacturing for its primary method. Maybe for specific BTO models, but not across the board. And besides, popularizing is not the same as pioneering.
Re:Sounds like laptops only to me... (Score:2)
Price drops in Namebrands (Score:5, Interesting)
I now turn them away and tell them to buy from Gateway or Dell instead - a Gateway can be had now for as little as 600.00 US complete. My profit margin would be very slim having to build it myself.
The only downside I see is that the namebrands tend to have some hardware issues if you try to change the OS from whatever they ship with. Seems as if the sound card/ video card is proprietary in some fasion, and even switching from the Millenium OS to Win 98 can be a chore since the manufacturers don't supply drivers for the other equiptment.
The upside is, I can refer them to name brand tech support and go back to gaming instead of sitting on a phone for 2 hours fixing a Microsoft bug.
Re:Price drops in Namebrands (Score:3, Insightful)
What the company is doing in Taiwan is building computers not designing it. The same thing happens in the car industry already. Magna Corporation (one of the largest car suppliers) supplies parts for ALL of the car manufacturers. However, nobody in the car industry says that a FORD car is driving GM parts.
So the comparison of clones produced by the Taiwanese is not the same as building computers for Dell, Compaq etc.
And if you think that the Taiwanese are learning from Dell and Compaq to put into their own brands, forget it. It is much more lucractive for the Taiwanese to build the computers than to "borrow" and clone.
The same occurs in the car industry. Magna basically makes every part of the car. And they could in theory build their own car. But they do not. It is much more lucrative to build the parts.
Magna does make their own cars (just a small nit) (Score:3, Insightful)
You're right about it being lucrative [canadiandriver.com] to just make the parts.
Christopher
Wow.... (Score:5, Funny)
Not much for websites (Score:2)
http://www.quantatw.com/edefault.htm
So What? (Score:5, Insightful)
When Dell first started using Quanta (they also used Compal MoBo's) in laptops in 1998, they got to specify the quality and construction of the product. You might find the same boards in a Time PC or a Tiny PC, but I guarantee that the Dell's will have a better mean time between failures (MBF).
This had some interesting side-effects. It also meant that some strange side-effects occurred. For instance in mid-1999, you had HP and Dell machines with interchangeable components as they were both based on Quanta decks. This actiually proved useful.
So and OEM behind laptops? Bring 'em on! All we need is for them to sell components to the public and self-built laptops aren't that far away.
Another (Score:5, Informative)
Read this [powernotebooks.com] for more information and specific model numbers.
I just bought a "Toshiba 3005" from them [powernotebooks.com], and since they don't come default operating systems I didn't have to may the M$ tax and get an extra battery instead.
List of notebook ODMs (Score:3, Informative)
"Everyone knows that Taiwanese companies make notebooks for big companies like IBM, Compaq, Dell and HP. But which company makes what? Here's the OEM list, courtesy of a Taiwanese wire. Quanta makes Gateway, Dell, IBM, Apple and Siemens products. Acer makes IBM and Hitachi products. Inventec makes Compaq notebooks. Compal makes Dell and HP notebooks. Arima makes Compaq notebooks. Twinhead manufactures for HP and Winbook. Clevo makes Hitachi notebooks. Mitac manufactures for Sharp. GVC manufactures for Siemens, Micron, Apple and Packard Bell. And FIC manufactures for NEC and Packard Bell. ® According to the survey, total notebook from the small (240 miles long) island amounted to 5,420,000 in 1998."
Actualy you pay for WARANTY. (Score:3, Informative)
Why the wide difference? Dell has an agreement with a local company to honor the Dell onsite warranty. This means that when your system goes down someone comes to your house with a spare part (after you talk to tech support on one of a very few 1-800 numbers which is free from Jamaica).
IBM, Gateway and most clones don't give you that so if you need that level of support you haven't really got a choice.
I still buy parts and asemble for 70% of the cost and just deal with the local wholesaler for the waranty on each individual part.
Re:Dell is #1 in Jamaica? (Score:2)
I laughed so hard I couldn't respond
For the record, Jamaica dose produce the best wead (Cambodia also tries to claim that title) but it's still ilegal hear. Even more so than in the US.
I.e. MDs have truble trying to priscribe Ganja for cancer patients.
No killer application? (Score:5, Insightful)
While the first statement seems very sound and realistic the last seams a little short-sighted.
The "killer app" to convert desktop users to notebook users after the plateau is not software. It is the "Internet anyware", wireless, portable, comunications terminal that is a laptop. PDA's are convenient and do their job, ie. quick basic computing on the go. People want portability and that is the notebooks "killer app".
Re:No killer application? (Score:2)
Re:No killer application? (Score:2)
Actually... a number of years ago, Compaq made a system with a docking station that held normal desktop IDE/SCSI drives. Even that would be acceptable, but 'docking stations' these days are little more than a convience so that you can plug all your plugs in at once.
No Registration Required (Score:5, Informative)
And before someone tries to scold me for this again: This is from a partnership that NYT has with Asahi.com, and it adds Asahi.com's ads to the page. Instead of "paying" with your registration, you're "paying" with the act of barely glancing at Asahi.com's ads for a split second before moving on to the actual story. And the New York Times seems to be fine with it, because they set the whole thing up.
Out source manufacturing!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Out source manufacturing!!! (Score:4, Informative)
The goal of the automaker is assembly only. They want all parts outsourced and shipped in to assemble. This is a great deal for the automakers with suppliers constantly trying to outbid each other on contracts. As there is always someone who thinks he can do it cheaper, the suppliers must agree to unreasonable demands to cut costs. Indeed, the automaker demands a price reduction every year (notice that the price of a car goes up every year). It's hardly up for debate, they simple deduct there %2 annual price reduction from their cheque to the supplier regardless of what the invoice said. Don't like it? The automaker can, at any time, give the job to someone else.
I'm sure the computer hardware industry works in a similar fasion.
Re:Out source manufacturing!!! (Score:2)
Gateway uses a company to make it's motherboards - one such board I've bought over e-bay. [Jabil is the maker] The board is nice and as far as I can tell it isn't in another system anywhere outside of Gateway and overstock that is being sold on e-bay. Works good and beat my in the box mobo in a benchmark [almost the same specs except an extra, empty, memory slot].
You need to think of your 'nameplate' as the one who bought the parts wholesale or dictated a design for those parts. The nameplate watched the market, got deals and tried to put together a good system.
This isn't always true, but the laptop market is somewhat generic and mass produced.
It's not hard, look at the outside and inside of a laptop - they are all pretty much the same. Your desktop systems vary in so many ways that some models from your 'nameplate' may be similar to other models from other nameplates.
Re:Out source manufacturing!!! (Score:2)
Re:Out source manufacturing!!! (Score:2)
How to tell if your Apple is Quanta-ized (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How to tell if your Apple is Quanta-ized (Score:2, Informative)
Looking to the Apple-"Quanta" aspect... I'll consider that you'd quantize this [weblogger.com].
Out-Sourcing Technology. (Score:2)
The implications for the US are interesting. The removal of manufascturing jobs from the US means there are less decent paying jobs in the US, tightening the Job Market.
There are also national security issues, especially in Tiawan, known not only for earthquakes, but for the proximity to a neighbor to the west who is looking forwood to the day when they can regain control of the island. To have a major center of US technology manufacture right next to a major potential enemy is not a smart strategy.
This is part of a much bigger picture, which includes the HB-1 visas, etc. All of which does not bode well for American technology workers in the long term.
Re:Out-Sourcing Technology. (Score:4, Insightful)
You've got it backwards. Manufacturing is a commodity industry, assembly line workers are paid hourly and count as semi-skilled at best. The real jobs - rewarding for an individual and value-adding for a company and a nation - are in designing the goods to be manufactured in the first place, and selling them along with services and support.
If anything, the quicker countries like the UK and US can wind down manufacturing of commodity items, the better for their economies it will be.
This is part of a much bigger picture, which includes the HB-1 visas, etc. All of which does not bode well for American technology workers in the long term.
Manufacturing, even of high-tech goods, is not what technology workers do. There is no way an American assembly plant can compete with an offshore one, where the cost of doing business is always going to be lower (in US dollar terms). But it's difficult for an offshore company to compete with the US in value-adding services (such as what Dell offers) because Dell understand the "hearts and minds" of the consumer. All the manufacturing savvy in the world doesn't amount to a hill of beans unless you know what to manufacture.
Re:Out-Sourcing Technology. (Score:3, Insightful)
It is the old internationalist'globalist argument vs the progressives. Globalism has its place is a peaceful world. Even then, the damage to your own local economy can be cruel. Look at any city where there to to be small time manufacturing. New York, for example. No manufacturing = less jobs. Or maybe the job is less than equal to what was there before. A generation or two can go to waste.
This is the whole thing of switching from manufacturing to service industry. Would you trade your job for flipping burgers at Burger King?
On the tech side, I recently had an argument with someone who insisted that because of the HB-1 program, tech jobs for americans were going to foreign nationals, making tech jobs for americans impossible to find, regardless of the recession. He cited one company where most of the local management was non-US, bypassing qualified local people.
Bottom line: things are not right around here.
Re:Out-Sourcing Technology. (Score:2)
I am always amused by the "flipping burgers" argument, since this is a commodity manufacturing process that simply produces highly perishable goods and needs to be just-in-time. Remember, it is commoditization that is the issue here, not products versus services. Americans are still designing the microprocessors and even the cases for these laptops, it's only the putting-the-bits together that goes overseas.
And don't forget the drain on the US economy from overpriced goods. Bush's tarriffs are great for steel producers - but they are a nightmare for steel users in the auto industry, construction, etc.
So the question is, Americans on minimum wage slotting PCBs together, or Americans buying cheap laptops and starting their own companies?
Re:Out-Sourcing Technology. (Score:2)
Not everyone can start their own company nor can everyone get a skilled job, there are just too many people. Whatever segment of the economy where you could move that huge mass of people, that segment will either reduce in pay to the point of minimum wage, or whatever salary is handed out becomes equivalent to minimum wage. There simply isn't enough out there to go everywhere.
The US has acheived it's relatively high standard of living because the US has historically controlled a substantial amount of the world's resources, and has kept the money inside, while other nations have more people than resources to go around. The easier it is to move jobs out, the more companies can exploit the larger labor force oversees, and slowly equalize the resources between the foreign nation and the US. If the foreign nation had the same amounte of resources per person as the US, the foreign nation would not be nearly as appealing. Of course, even if Mexico or China has the same resources as the US, they are so overpopulated that they will still be an appealing labor market.
Kicking workers out of manufacturing, and even giving them enough education will not guarantee a better job, it just means the better jobs will get worse and harder to find.
Re:Out-Sourcing Technology. (Score:2)
There is also a huge problem with a productive sector of an economy subsidising an unproductive or inefficient one. Firstly, it denies capital to the productive sector, and secondly, it gives no incentive for the inefficient sector to improve. This is, for example, while nationalized industries are inefficient, because their purpose is not to be economically productive, it's to provide jobs. But doing so means dragging down productive industries - a spiral of decline. We saw this in Britain until the former nationalized industries were sold off. How do you propose to keep low-margin jobs inside the US apart from with tariffs? They protect the producers, sure, but in commodity industries there are many more consumers than producers, and all the consumers suffer.
Whatever segment of the economy where you could move that huge mass of people, that segment will either reduce in pay to the point of minimum wage, or whatever salary is handed out becomes equivalent to minimum wage. There simply isn't enough out there to go everywhere.
Only if the economy is zero-sum - which it isn't.
The US has acheived it's relatively high standard of living because the US has historically controlled a substantial amount of the world's resources, and has kept the money inside, while other nations have more people than resources to go around.
Again, not true, there are abundant natural resources in Africa, one of the poorest continents. The difference is the American economy which is based on the principle "do what you are good at, outsource the rest".
The easier it is to move jobs out, the more companies can exploit the larger labor force oversees, and slowly equalize the resources between the foreign nation and the US. If the foreign nation had the same amounte of resources per person as the US, the foreign nation would not be nearly as appealing.
It's not about having resources - raw materials are themselves commodities than can be bought. It's about using them, knowing what to do to create something that someone wants to buy - that's why countries are compared by GDP, not by balance-of-payments.
Kicking workers out of manufacturing, and even giving them enough education will not guarantee a better job, it just means the better jobs will get worse and harder to find.
Again, you are assuming that the economy is zero-sum. Remember that new industries and new jobs are being created all the time, and it's not jobs that are lost (US unemployment is still low) it's types of jobs that disappear. That's why in the industrial revolution, there were suddenly few farmers and lots of factory workers. Well, we are in a new industrial revolution - few factory workers, and lots of "knowledge" workers. Every time a shift like this happens, standards of living, health, education go up for everyone involved.
Please end this naive debate (Score:2)
Re:Please end this naive debate (Score:2)
There is also the US Census Data [census.gov] on Business, if you really want to get into the bloody details.
facts are good.
Re:Out-Sourcing Technology. (Score:4, Insightful)
count as semi-skilled at best. The real jobs - rewarding for an individual and value-adding for a company and
a nation - are in designing the goods to be manufactured in the first place, and selling them along with
services and support.
Stop for a moment and think about the people in the US who are hourly semi-skilled people on manufacturing lines who lack the desire, ability, or education to become "designers" or other more "skilled" jobs. Tell them that it doesn't matter when they go on the unemployment line, and onto welfare, when their jobs get moved to a manufacturing facility in Mexico.
Honda built a manufacturing plant in Marysville, OH. Probably because it was the most cost-efficient thing to do over having the job done in Japan, Mexico, or Korea. Dell built a plant outside Nashville, TN. Same reason as Honda.
The simple fact is, jobs matter. Whether they are unskilled, semi-skilled, or highly skilled. Don't discount even the "lowest" of jobs, because that job probably means a lot to the people who work it.
Re:Out-Sourcing Technology. (Score:2)
I can't follow your logic. You are saying eliminating semi-skilled jobs is good because it makes them do more skilled work? Without semi-skilled jobs available, the only thing it means is that more education (more expensive education) is required to be competitive. The loss of Manufacturing does not create any jobs, in fact, service jobs related to manufacturing go away. So, with no increase in a job market, and assuming the semi-skilled workers got the training to enter the skilled market, then you have such a huge labor market that pay in the skilled sector go down.
The low pay of semi-skilled labor is *not* because it is semi-skilled, it is because of the number of people available for that work. If the same number people were "skilled" salaries would plummet.
Re:Out-Sourcing Technology. (Score:2)
The problem is that you're only looking at one half of the equation. You're looking at the people who lost their low-skill jobs to overseas competitors, but you're forgetting that that money has to be spent in the US eventually, and will most likely be spent on higher-skilled goods or services. That increased revenue translates to new jobs in other sectors of the economy.
Furthermore, when a manufacturing task gets outsourced, this leads to lower prices, benefitting all consumers. Most of the workers who are displaced will likely find new jobs paying just as well, and they benefit from lower prices from all the other manufacturing jobs that got outsourced.
I'm also appalled at the lack of regard for poor workers in other countries. What about the workers who are *getting* jobs in Taiwan? Are we really so narrow minded to completely discount their benefit? Even if outsourcing manufacturing jobs harms the average American worker (which it doesn't) might it be worth it if it helps workers in Taiwan who need those jobs much more than we do?
Re:Out-Sourcing Technology. (Score:2)
It does hurt the average american industrial worker, because jobs are disappearing in america and not as many are being generated.
All this being said, this is a selfish, US-centric view. In the end, the pay that would go to one US factory worker ends up making more Taiwanese people more content than that one US worker would be, and so your last point is well put. I view things as it would be foolish to say all this outsourcing is replaced by new, higher paying jobs, it just doesn't work that simply. A closer approximation is that as the flow of money and goods becomes more free, the working classes of different nations become more equivalent...
Re:Out-Sourcing Technology. (Score:2)
Look at it this way. If I buy a product in Mexico for a dollar, my dollar goes accross the US-Mexican border. There are two possibilities: either the dollar eventualy makes its way back to the US, or it doesn't.
In the former case, the dollar will almost certainly come back to the US to purchase a US product of some kind. In that case, the net job loss is zero, since the same number of dollars is being spent either way, just to different people in different industries.
The other possilbity is that the dollar never returns to the US. But think for a moment about what that would mean if it happened a lot. Let's say that a billion dollars left the country never to return. That would mean that we just traded a billion dollars worth of goods and services for a billion otherwise worthless pieces of paper that cost a few million dollars to produce. If we could get other countries to take our dollars and never spend them here, we could happily do that forever. Every time someone loses his job, we can just print up some money and give it to him.
In reality the second scenario never happens in the long run. Eventually, enough money gets into foreign circulation that the flow of dollars both ways equalizes. So long term, every dollar that is spent overseas is matched by a dollar that gets spent on a US product by a foreign firm.
Hence I think it's economic sophistry to claim that spending on foreign products costs the US economy. It's simply not true, and only seems true because we only look at one side of the equation. When you look at the economy as a whole, you see that if anything free trade will create jobs due to the greater efficiency and higher wealth that will result. The only problem is that there are painful transitions for those who have to adjust and find new, higher-paying jobs.
Re:Out-Sourcing Technology. (Score:2)
The problem is, that just does'nt happen. The American non and semi-skilled labor force is slowly being pushed into the service sector, which does not pay nearly as much as manufacturing.
While displaced workers may enjoy some lower prices on manufactured goods, they still face fixed costs in housing and food, which at the lower end of the economic spectrum mean a lot more then saving a few hundred bucks on a fancy new laptop.
Re:Out-Sourcing Technology. (Score:2)
I'd be interested to see some evidence of this. While it's certainly true that many workers are being pushed to the service sector, and while it's probably true that some take lower wages, it is *also* true that free trade opens up many new opportunities that those displaced workers can take advantage of. See my reply to the previous poster for the argument-- basically, every dollar we spend abroad will eventually come back to the US, and so the net job loss is zero. Focusing on the few losers while ignoring the broader gains for workers generally is disingenuous IMHO.
While displaced workers may enjoy some lower prices on manufactured goods, they still face fixed costs in housing and food, which at the lower end of the economic spectrum mean a lot more then saving a few hundred bucks on a fancy new laptop.
The laptop was an example, the same dynamic can be seen in many other areas, including many that poor and middle class workers would spend money on. For example, food costs have been dropping for 2 centuries, and would drop further if not for US protectionist policies. US tarriffs on sugar more than double its price IIRC, and there are many other examples. Tarriffs on steel will cost Joe Average when he buys a car or a major appliance. Tarriffs on lumber costs him when he buys a house (a home-building industry estimate was that a recent Bush tarriff on Canadian lumber will raise new home costs by $1500) And Joe average probably has a VCR, a TV, a DVD player, and a microwave manufactured in a Taiwanese or South Korean factory, all of which save him money.
Indeed, almost every purchase he makes will likely be cheaper because of free trade. Housing might be fixed, but food, clothing, and other essentials are anything but.
The problem is that it's much harder to measure these benefits because they go to the American public at large rather than specific segments. I might save a dollar on a shirt and 50 cents on a package of sugar. By themselves, these savings are nothing to get excited about, but when you add them up, they result in a substantial increase in standard of living for everyone. The savings on any one product is hard to measure, but when you add them up, they lead to substantial savings.
So it's sophistry to focus on the few people who are losing their jobs, while ignoring the fact that the vast majority of workers are benefitting from greater variety and lower prices on every product they purchase. And besides it's simply not true that free trade costs jobs on net. If there's a coherent argument for this proposition, I'd like to hear it.
Re:Out-Sourcing Technology. (Score:2)
At the end of the day when the ledgers are balenced, free trade does work out.
The problem, however, is in the details. In the free market, compaines will typically look for increased efficency within the labor pool. If a company wants to realize cost savings, they will cut wages or jobs, if they can. Or, they will simply move them somewhere else.
This presents a potential for danger. A ledger book does not reconize labor as human; only as a feature of production. That shirt may cost you a dollar less, but the people putting it together may also be working in inhuman conditions.
I understand the logic that as manufacuturing jobs move to the third world, the wealth created will eventually raise the standard of living in the forigen country. However, if our justification for that movement is based purly on economic advantage, whos to say that a third world nation opperating without a moral compas will re-invest that wealth into it's people?
What interest would it be to a U.S. company, other then appeasing vocal sympathetic US consumers, to see that the wealth they create abroad is distributed to that nations overall economy, espically since doing so would ultimatly raise the cost of labor there?
Another thing to consider is this: At present, the only real product America can create at an advantage is management and creativity. What happens when poor nations can produce an equilivent to a college educated middle manager who will work for 1/5th of an American? (Heck, at present many tech companies find importing software developers from overseas because they are cheaper... how long do you think it will take before software houses are simply exported entirely?).
In other words, openly embrasing the free market and free trade without any restraint or thought towards protecting fundemental US interests or considerations for basic human rights, while economically sound, does'nt help the average American Joe all that much.
We've already seen the America middle class becoming smaller and smaller over the last 40 years. It seems to me that a lot of that has to do with a strong decline in blue coller jobs (caused both by internal technological innovations and the export of jobs).
And while the average American can now afford a Car, VCR, and other assorted luxeries, what have we really gained? A family needs two incomes to enjoy these things. Most of the people I know work two jobs or a 60 hour work week.
---
Forgive the logic farts here. I'm infirmed and medicated at the moment.
Re:Out-Sourcing Technology. (Score:2)
What interest would it be to a U.S. company, other then appeasing vocal sympathetic US consumers, to see that the wealth they create abroad is distributed to that nations overall economy, espically since doing so would ultimatly raise the cost of labor there?
For the same reason that many McDonalds' pay $6-$7/hour for unskilled labor in the US-- they have to pay that much to attract workers. If it were the case that only the moral outrage of consumers raised wages, then why doesn't McDonalds pay all of its (non-unionized) workers minimum wage?
As industrialization progresses in the third world, corporations will have no choice but to provide higher wages and better conditions, because if they don't another corporation will lure away their best workers. While I'd like companies to have a "moral compass," it's not necessary to improve the lot of the poor. It certainly wasn't corporate generosity that led to the relatively high wages we have in the US.
Another thing to consider is this: At present, the only real product America can create at an advantage is management and creativity. What happens when poor nations can produce an equilivent to a college educated middle manager who will work for 1/5th of an American?
But this isn't true at all. It's not that we're unable to do manufacturing or other less skilled jobs. It's just that at the moment they aren't as profitable, so we leave them to less-skilled workers and focus on more profitable areas. If it came to pass that the third world was able to do as good of a job as us in all sectors of the economy, why shouldn't they expect comparable wages? What right does an American middle manager have to expect 5 times the pay to do an equivalent job?
In practice, I don't think the scenario you're predicting will happen any time soon. At present there is still a desperate need for highly skilled labor in many industries, and there looks to be no shortage of jobs for people who are able to fill them at the top levels of the economic ladder. Third world workers will gradually work their way up as well, but I don't see any sign that our lead is going to vanish any time soon. And by the time it does, wouldn't we expect their wages to have risen nearly as much as ours?
In other words, if Country X has as skilled a labor force, as much capital investment, and as robust an economy as ours, on what basis should we expect a higher standard of living? Shouldn't our goal be for everyone world-wide to someday be as wealthy as the US is today? I don't consider that a threat to US interests. On the contrary, it will be a great boon to American interests, as we will have ever-larger markets to sell our wares, and ever-larger selection in buying wares from other countries.
Re:Out-Sourcing Technology. (Score:2)
You touched on something there, and you're exactly right. McDonalds must pay more then mininum wage because of a current tight labor market. But...
As industrialization progresses in the third world, corporations will have no choice but to provide higher wages and better conditions, because if they don't another corporation will lure away their best workers
How long is it going to take before the third world has that type of labor market. In China and India alone there are over 2 billion unskilled workers to utilize if we have unrestricted free trade. If I ran a company and was scouting out sites to build my factory, why on earth would I go somewhere where I would have to compete with another factory for labor?
I understand that in time, as the third world develops this will change. But how long will it take? How many US jobs have to be lost before we reach parity with the rest of the world?
While I'd like companies to have a "moral compass," it's not necessary to improve the lot of the poor. It certainly wasn't corporate generosity that led to the relatively high wages we have in the US.
No, it was'nt. It was the violent struggle of the workers and their unions that demanded to be paid more then they were worth in the domestic labor market. Instead they had this crazy idea that people should be treated and paid what they were worth as human beings instead of a good on a supply curve.
This change, this idea that people should be paid more then they are worth in a particular labor market gave us a few rocky points but ultimatly, I beleave, lead to America's unique prosperity.
Like any social scientist, an economist has trouble seeing the value something that runs contrary to their models.
Don't get me wrong; I have no problem with the rest of the world enjoying the same amount of economic prosperity as we have in the United States. I just don't want to see that prosperty be gained at the expense of our quality of life.
In addition, I feel uncomfortable with the idea that the developing world needs to have it's labor markets exploited by outside interests before they can build a strong enough economic infrastructure to become self sufficent.
Whenever we do this we interfere with any natural internal development of that country and cause all sorts of problems.
This is not supported in economic modelling (Score:2)
The notion that G8 markets should purge manufacturing was once held as an ideal but has, at least for the last five years, been thoroughly debunked. Not all manufacturing is idiot work - consider logistics, cost control, and automation as three aspects of this market which do promote the knowledge economy.
HP & Apple (Score:2)
I'm also using Apple Pro Keyboard. Works great with PCs. Just a few days ago I had to take it apart to clean it, since dust collecting inside is visible through the transparant plastic it is made of. That was when I discovered that the insides of APK are manufactured by Mitsumi, which is otherwise known as manufacturer of the cheapest components for PCs. While APK does look great and it does have 2 USB ports on it, this still does not make up for almost 12x price increase.
Dont forget the Internet Appliances too... (Score:2, Informative)
Support (Score:5, Informative)
Working with the latest laptops, hardware still in beta testing, helped me understand the relationship Dell had with the Taiwanese manufacturer. Dell engineers worked very closely with the engineers on the other side of the world, and we changed specifications when necessary. This is, of course, to be expected - hopefully an OEM doesn't just buy a few hundred thousand laptops without testing them first
One item we changed comes to mind immediately - the rubber feet on Inspiron 7000's were originally made of a material that marked nearly every surface we set them down on. Many people had multiple black spots and marks where the systems sat on their desk. Ick.
Another important matter is support - some people might know that the same company makes systems for multiple OEMs and might even release systems under their own name with the same specifications, but I'll take the system with OEM hardware support that rocks - every support system might have glitches, but after working in Dell's support division, and using them in my current position for three years, I'd prefer to stick with them. I won't say no one is better, or dell never screws up, but they support their product well, very well, in my opinion. Overnight parts when available, Complete Care for LCD breakage and spills that can turn in a system into a paperweight very quickly.
And as far as OEM designs go, the Latitude base framework is hard to beat - there are perhaps a dozen models with interchangeable batteries, optical drives, floppies, power supplies, etc. Supporting them in the office is pretty simple - even if you've been buying the newest models for three years you can use the same spare parts for each as parts wear out. Every office has the same stack of power supplies - sales dorks always leave home without them. Support staff in each office has a very common experience. I don't know of another OEM, perhaps Sony, with such similarity between models. If there are, hey, hit reply.
Re:Support (Score:2)
For example, Quanta might use 110 screws in their system with 10 different types of screws. The OEM will look for where they can get rid of screws and where those screws can be the same size. This makes the system easier for onsite technicians to take apart and put back together.
If you really want to see a marvel of engineering, look at the ultralight portable systems. They manage to stuff so much into such a small packagee. The Dell Latitude C400 is a little bigger than most, but it will dock in the C series docks that all the other Latitude C series systems use.
How much for nameplate? (Score:2, Funny)
www.linuxjewellery.com [linuxjewellery.com]
Re:How much for nameplate? (Score:3, Informative)
You're also paying for support (Score:5, Informative)
Re:You're also paying for support (Score:2)
To paraphrase a very annoying line: Dude, you're gettin' a fireball.
On a more serious note, I've never had anything close to good experience with Dell machines. When most people have a system at home, they aren't likely to back it up. So, Dell's system of acceptable defects don't exactly please most home customers.
Of course, that wasn't even my problem. My problem was 5 out of 50 Dell monitors commited suicide by fire over 6 months. It's one thing to have an inordinate number of defective machines.... It's quite another to have a serious threat of personal danger to all employees. And that's not even mentioning their laptop batteries.
How clueless can you get? (Score:2)
Is this news?
Re: (Score:2)
Reason for Notebook outsourcing (Score:2)
Can anyone help me on this? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Can anyone help me on this? (Score:2)
I just grabbed that from the market data of our company (which provides market data, obviously). You can probably find it on Yahoo with "Quanta Computer Inc".
Businessweek (Score:2)
They sound like a contract manufacturer to me. But the founder claims that they're not a contract manufacturer, but a "flexible manufacturer"
It's not just tech where this happens (Score:5, Interesting)
The best comparable example I can give is the auto industry. Many car makers have alliances with one another - erstwhile competitors make each other's cars, sometimes in a straight re-badging, other times in a joint assembly line. here's a few "for instances":
Toyota jointly owns a plant with GM. It makes both the Toyota Corolla and the Chevy Prism. They're the same car with different trim. One factory, one car, two companies. Joint ownership.
Honda had no SUV on the boards when the SUV craze struck America, so they came up with the Honda Passport. It's an Isuzu Rodeo with a Honda badge. It's made in Isuzu's factory, and sold by Honda. A straight outsourcing deal.
Ford owns a great deal of Mazda (I'm not sure if they have full control or not). The Escort and Protege were identical - and the Mazda Navajo was just a Ford Explorer Sport. This is an example of two interlocked companies filling out their line together.
When tech manufacture is outsourced, the brand-name company can worry about the design, the feature set, and all the marketing. The manufacturer can worry about actually doing what's possible, and squeezing every possible cent of cost out of the build process. The marketing company then doesn't have to worry about owning expensive factories that depreciate, and the manufacturer can concentrate on building better, faster, and cheaper - with a variety of customers and products that avoids idle plants and workers as best as possible.
All your notebook are belong to us (Score:2, Informative)
The chairman announced openly that we are 7-11, the president is busy at the production line in daytime and comes to the R&D to burn the other end of the candle in the evening. We work day and night and night and day to overcome all odds with Quanta...
The market was still small when Quanta decided to develop portable computers, desktop PC was still the mainstream on the market. Apart from LCD and HDD, which are exclusive parts to portable computers, all other parts are the same to that of the desktop computer. The situation is like putting parts of an Infiniti Q30 into a Nissan Sentra. The difficulties at that time is understandable. However hard it was, Quanta's R&D history was started then.
"Do the best to realize your dreams"
As a conclusion, portable PC R&D is brain-consuming work, and many of our colleagues have had their hair turn gray. However, when we see our dreams come true, no one has any regrets and we just keep trying a new task.
Under the direction and insistence of bosses, Quanta's R&D has been running toward practicability, with some differences from others. Low cost and suitability for mass production have been the highest commands of R&D. With cooperation from world leading manufacturers, Quanta products have earned some credits and praises from world famous computer magazines. It is not only recognition of the R&D work, but also a drive for Quanta's efforts on sales achievements.
If R&D is the locomotive, we have been guiding Quanta through all odds over the last decade. We will never spare any time as long as the R&D work continues.
More then a label (Score:3, Insightful)
- Documention: Y'know, the dead-tree or online specs that in some cases read as if they were Babelfished from their native tongue and others with beautify lucid, illustrated, and well organized troves of data.
- Support: Who ya gonna call? Even if this is outsourced there's still some sort of coherent product issue / resolution process going on. Websites, call centers, tech notes, latest qualified drivers, etc. If the product is pooched better vendors will simply swap out the problem item.
- Brand Value: Braun doesn't make their own small electronics but folks buy the Braun name. Why? Because through whatever combination of Marketing / Quality Control programs consumers associate Braun products with good devices.
- R & D: They're not called Wintel without a reason. If the motherboard isn't made by Intel, or designed by Intel, or based on an Intel design then you've a rare beast. Even then the components are all about the same - this year's popular chips, or last years, or their knock-offs, all making PCs remarkably homogenous. Canon engines are in HP laser printers which sell far better then their Canon counterparts. Why? Large manufacturers do invest in making their variation somehow slightly "better" even if that only means supplying a better BIOS to the hardware manufacturer.
- Marketing: Hey, folks found them to buy didn't they? There are any number of great products sitting out there that languish without decent marketing. DEC, Novell and Polaroid are examples of companies that had great products and couldn't sell them worth a damn. Apple has good products and flogs them mercilessly to great effect. Take a lesson who is doing well and who is circling the drain or already gone.
- Product Line: Nobody wants to deal with ten vendors for similar products. Rather it is best to get some semblance of unified technology all under a single set of contracts. That means a vendor has to offer a full range of products even if they're not all necessarily completely built by them.
Buy on price, buy on specs, buy on brand name, all are foolish. There's a lot more to a PC then those qualities considered alone. For those all proud that they build their own PCs, well bully for you. How much time did you spend learning what components you wanted, from what vendors you wanted to buy, learning what is required to build a PC and how to go about it? Most folks don't want to invest their time but buy their computers off the shelf with all of the above already done for them.Build a computer, build a house, customize a car, they're all decisions with their own advantages & disadvantages. For the majority just buying the darn thing outright is the way to go.
AsusTek (Score:2, Interesting)
Human rights (Score:4, Interesting)
China in particular has a bad reputation for this sort of thing, abusing both its own people and those of nearby countries that it lays claim to (Tibet for instance). Companies like Quanta in the article are the "acceptable face" of this work. They hire subcontractors who in turn hire their own subcontractors, hiding the problem from their parent companies. However if Dell are asking Quanta to move production to China, I would speculate that they almost definitely know what the end result will be.
Apple is more than a nameplate. (Score:3, Insightful)
Because Apple's proprietary, no outside manufacturer could make Apple-compatable boxes and undersell Apple, not Quanta or anybody.
Basically, Dell and Compaq haven't done much to evolve the actual circuits inside the box, so it really is just a label slapped on the outside. Apple designed the computing architecture of their machines, and you're buying that design, the ROMs, and the OS.
That's a lot more than a nameplate, and something that Quanta couldn't turn around and undercut Apple on...
Re:Apple is more than a nameplate. (Score:2)
I think they went out of business because Apple Sued the heck out of them. There have been some mac clones tho.
Re:Apple is more than a nameplate. (Score:2)
"The key thing to remember about Apple is this: they are a fucking hardware company, not a fucking software company"
Err, quicktime? OS X? iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie?
Can't a company produce both hardware *and* software? Apparently so.
Quanta is a quality brand (Score:2, Informative)
NYT Random Login Generator (Score:5, Interesting)
UN-altered REPRODUCTION and DISSEMINATION of
this IMPORTANT information is ENCOURAGED
This has been going on forever... (Score:2)
Wanna guess who made his new Toshiba
Knowing how always makes life easier. . . (Score:2)
For those who don't have knowledge and don't have the passion to acquire the knowledge. . . They will always pay more unless they can get a friend to take care of it for them. These days, I direct friends to Dell or wherever. It costs them more in the long run, but in the end, one must always pay for one's blank areas of knowledge. If spending cash is easier than spending time and brain power, then fine. In any case, people like me don't have the time to support other people's ignorance and lack of interest. --And this isn't to say that I don't enjoy helping people! I do! I love tinkering with machines. But computers basically suck; they are poorly designed, the software is poorly written. Today's computers do not stay made, particularly with ignorant users who are prone to messing up their systems. Every new system you build for a friend is just one more on-going support responsibility. One can only afford to help so many people!
As such, the 'Make It Yourself' headspace is only less expensive for those who know how. For everybody else, I say this; Either learn, or drop a few thousand dollars on a 'user friendly' Apple and call it money well spent!
-Fantastic Lad --If a user has no under the hood computer knowledge, then Apples actually ARE friendly!
"K-Mart Guns and Gun Show Ammunition" (Score:2)
Some years ago a friend and I were regularly shooting at an indoor target range in Michigan. This range which was part of a gunsmith's store.
The gunsmith in question had a lot (negative) to say about people who would come to his range with guns they purchased at a discount store and ammo purchased at a gun show. (His catchphrase was "K-Mart Guns and Gun Show Ammunition", K-Mart being the main such store in the area at the time.) He would sometimes allow the guns if you had previously shot them elsewhere (though warning against them), but required that you buy your (factory-loaded) ammunition from him.
His claim was that discount stores would negotiate price breaks on railcar lots of guns from manufacturers. There's a lot of unit-to-unit variability in gun manufacture (because tiny differences in dimensions make a BIG difference in operation). So the manufacturers would respond by selling them the lower-quality portion of their production, reserving the higher-quality portion for the dealers (who paid more and catered to a more focussed customer base). So you couldn't trust even brand-name guns from such outlets.
Gun-show ammunition was a similar (but more severe) problem: A home reloader might make an error in the load, such as putting in too much powder (or the right amount twice), or using an off-size bullet - either of which could explode or bulge even a top-quality gun. Other things might go wrong, too: Worn dies, bad resising, reuse of damaged or excessively worn brass, UNDER powdering (which might jam a bullet in the barrel causing the gun to blow up on the NEXT shot) etc. If he had a batch where he thought he might have made an error, rather than disassemble and redo it he might sell it at a gun show. Similarly, a seller at a show might be well-meaning but incompetent, or reloading while intoxicated. (Another friend used to joke about "Tom [last name deleted]'s surprise handloads", Tom being an alcoholic who would construct an occasional double-powdered round.)
So he wouldn't allow this stuff to be used in his range - where any injuries would be on HIS insurance.
We used to think that part of his rant might be overblown - downing the competition. Until one day when we were at an unsupervised state park shooting range. Another shooter set up with his brand new K-Mart gun and loaded it with gun-show ammo. First shot blew the breach apart, cutting up his hand. (We bandaged him with cleaning patches and his wife drove him off to the nearest emergency room.) Most likely it was defects in the ammo rather than (or more than) defects in the gun. But even so...
The point is that the quality of the same manufacturer's output may vary considerably and systematically with the way that it's sold - with or without their brand; through their own outlets, a major customer/OEM's, random dealers, or discount-demanding chain stores; and so on. This is in addition to any issues with how well the seller warranties the product he sells. (And the sellers or OEMs who warranty well will also put more pressure on the manufacturer to get the quality up than the ones who don't.)
Re:NY Times Login (Score:2)
Re:NY Times Login (Score:2)
Re:NY Times Login (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Build a PC myself? No thanks. (Score:2)
You do not need to create every part from nature's barest materials to "build" the finished product.
Re:Build a PC myself? No thanks. (Score:2)
Dell, Compaq, Apple, et al make their money on design. They build integrated systems that are more than the sum of their parts. Personally, I'm not impressed with what most PC companies produce, which is why I bought an iBook, but if I were going to buy a PC, I'd be willing to spend an extra $50-$100 for a warranty, tech support, and a better design than I could come up with on my own.
Re:How much are you paying for the WARRANTY? (Score:4, Interesting)
Funnily enough, the last time I checked with my IS guys, I could put together two complete no-brand systems for what they pay for a full Dell system + support. Given that I spend a lot of time compiling, having two boxen would be a positive benefit. I have the desk space, I have the inclination, and I think we can live with the electricity bill. Worst case, a component fails and I end up with one machine plus a box of spares, with a zero second turnaround, never mind one day.
I suggested this, and got the usual answer: we buy standard Dell boxen because it removes support and maintenance issues.
That sounds fair enough until you consider that I receive exactly zero support for the problems that I have on my machine. We're an R&D shop, and taking risks and pushing things until they go wrong is pretty much what we do for a living. What the IS guys really mean is: nobody ever got fired for buying Dell (/IBM/Microsoft).
Re:How much are you paying for the WARRANTY? (Score:5, Insightful)
You forgot about the killer hidden cost: labor. I don't disagree that it'd be much cheaper in materials for us all to build our own boxen (but not laptops, mind you). Factor in just $60/hr for salary, benefits, and support costs for an in-house box-builder. I can build a standardized box in less than an hour, but then there's the OS install, service packs, and device drivers - there goes another two hours. Toss in the app installations, and there goes half a day, and more than $300 in labor - and we haven't even discussed burn-in testing.
Or, I can just pick up the phone and get my customized install done by Dell, drop-installed to anybody's office. Zero labor costs.
Re:How much are you paying for the WARRANTY? (Score:2)
As long as you refuse to break your Dell warranty and get inside your system, you will remain attached to their tits. Of course, this is what they want, because you apparently have the money to pay those ridiculous service contracts. For shame!
Re:How much are you paying for the WARRANTY? (Score:3, Insightful)
Hardware was fun when I was new to the field and hadn't seen it a hundred times, and if you're just getting into things (or are just hyped on the 'cool tech' factor and don't understand cost/benefit ratios) I can see where you're at--but it certainly doesn't make sense in every case to try to service the small stuff yourself when there is a warranty available.
Re:How much are you paying for the WARRANTY? (Score:2)
Say Joe an employee of your company knows how to assemble AND fix computers.
But how much does Joe _earn_the_company_ per hour doing his job? Say Joe is a programmer/consultant/lawyer/engineer and not reading Slashdot all the time
How long does it take for Joe to get all the parts and assemble them into computers?
Work it all out and you'll probably find that buying a Dell/etc isn't that expensive (or that Joe isn't worth that much to the company
Maybe Joe builds his own computer for a hobby coz it's fun. But that doesn't mean Joe should do it at work.
So far the brand servers I've used have been ok - HP, Dell. No DOAs. Whereas for HP desktops it was like 1/7 DOAs. For off the shelf clones (we have those here - can buy beige boxes prebuilt) it was 1/3 yep one in three dead. Sure there are warranties, but you're buying them to use them, not to send them back and forth for weeks. I figure the brands test all their servers shipped but not all their desktops.
Re:How much are you paying for the WARRANTY? (Score:3, Informative)
You forgot about the killer hidden cost: labor.
And you are forgetting the tech support center's secret weapon: automation.
The crew at the company I work for can do a Win2k install by installing a CD, attaching a network cable and powering up. About 90 minutes later is a full standard 2k install, including all the apps and service patches and whatnot we've standardized on. If we had exact hardware across the board we could Ghost it even faster.
That $300 labour charge is only incurred when you have to babysit the install. Hell even my Slackware-based firewall installs go in in about 15 minutes now because I use custom tagfiles and a few of my home-rolled packages.
Re:How much are you paying for the WARRANTY? (Score:2)
Re:How much are you paying for the WARRANTY? (Score:2)
disc imaging tools such as ghost don't have anything to do building a computer from scratch.
I think it is you who is missing the point.
How long does it take you to assemble a computer? About 20 minutes, tops? Thought so. Now how long does it take you to take that fresh Win2k install and run over to windowsupdate.com a half dozen times, rebooting after every one? Now install Office, Citrix, the in-house apps, set up the email software, grab the templates, etc.? Thought so. The time wasted is in software installation, not physical computer assembly. Buying a computer from Dell or building one from off the shelf parts is inconsequential.
Re:How much are you paying for the WARRANTY? (Score:2)
Getting the parts takes a lot longer. Then when the parts turn out to be DoA I have to send them back.
When I built my own computer (for my own use), I had to replace the video card after spending hours thinking it some windows/driver issue - thing is it worked for VGA and not other modes. I could only get a replacement the following week because I wasn't free - other things to do (which is exactly the point).
So far I haven't needed to send _servers_ back.
Now if your job was to build computers for the company then that's different. But I figure they're not paying you the bucks to do that, you're more useful doing other things.
Re:How much are you paying for the WARRANTY? (Score:2)
Re:How much are you paying for the WARRANTY? (Score:2)
Strangely enough, I didn't. Support and maintance. I'll be clearer: we're an R&D shop where all the users have to customised installs to one degree or another anyway. Oh, we're not supposed to, we're all supposed to be running NT 4.0 SP 6a, and a few approved apps, but the only trouble with that is that if we stuck to the approved list, we'd be utterly unable to do our jobs, and we'd fold within a month.
Our IS guys know this, and there's a tacit agreement of "Don't ask, don't tell," apart from the irregular software audits. My issue with this is that it's completely farcical. We (development) have to go out of our way to pretend that we can do our job with the corporate approved boxen, which is totally untrue. But nobody in management will actually bitchslap IS and get them to approve what we really need, because that would involve making a decision, and the best way to be wrong is to take a stand, right?
I'm not claiming that this is a common situation, just that it's best to consider the source of any opinion about name brand boxen. They're great for IS, but what's great for IS isn't necessarily what's actually needed by the users.
Re:Stop using the word MOBO (Score:2, Funny)
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:2)
I buy dells because they are upgradable. The desktop machines all pretty much use standard PC architecture (no propritary crap or soidered on chips like the junk Compaq puts out).
As for laptops, It can be a bit hard to find upgrades for some no name clone. I used to have one, and when I tried to put new memory in it, I discovered nobody made it. At least with a company like Dell I know I can get parts from either Dell itself or a number of aftermarket suppliers.
There are lots of reasons not to buy a name brand, the number one being price, but upgradability is not one of them.