Viglen here to Help

[synaesthesia]

I'm not going to start Viglen bashing here but the past history here with them is not a great one.
The omino units (which got a mention above) turned in to a death traps! One of the tech's here actually got hosptialised by one. Every single omino unit we have has now been replaced due to every signal power supply blowing up and most of them went just after the 3 year warranty finished.

Server solution support was not great either. They installed an external disk array and put a password on it. The tech who set it all up then left without telling anyone the password to it!

whops look like it turn into abit of a bash in the end!

Oh and viglen if you want to contact me about this then feel free!

Viglen were not the only supplier to have that problem. In fact google around for PSU issues with HP and Dell to. HP's were even more impressive in their explosions than Viglen's were - some cracking Youtube vids of that That was purely down to these OEM's being duped into buying cheaper components to manufacture their hardware (and even then I'm sure Viglen don't manufacture their own PSUs) - components which were defective due to alleged industrial espionage.

And lest we forget the battery recalls from Sony, Dell and very recently HP. Point being, just because you get such a batch issue, doesn't mean they need writing off as bad in any way. More to the point, it's how they deal with it that counts.

[Iain.Faulkner]

How is it Viglen's fault that you choose to buy under specified machines? You can buy under spec machines from anyone (and, yes, I've done it!)

If they tell you they're going to deliver (say) 2.6 GHz Core 2 Duo and you find they're 2GHz Celerons then fair enough

Only you know what you're going to do with the machines. They might well say "school X buys 2GHz Celerons and find them OK" but unless you know that school X is doing the same as you then there's no value in taking that advice.

It's similar with things like classlink - all of the management systems are less flexible than a vanilla system and you need to decide before you buy it whether it's going to be OK for you.

Of course, if you come into a school after someone else has bought a product then none of that's any help but it's still not the fault of the supplier that someone else bought something which isn't suitable for what you want to do!

You're 100% right, that it isn't viglens fault that our school purchased under specced machines.....however, by selling the system to an assistant head and telling him that these machines, with 256mb Ram(!!) three years ago, were top spec smacks of pushing out old kit just to get rid of it. Not the best customer service I would say. 1 year warranties aren't much better either.

I do agree with you comment on managed systems, they are by definition less flexible than a vanilla windows system, and that's one of the reasons we're getting rid this summer...hurrah!

[Polish]

I am a chief report at MicroScope - weekly trade publication for computer resellers and retailers - and I have just posted a story about Sir Alan Sugar's resignation as chairman at Viglen.

Thought this may be of interest to some of you

Sir Alan Sugar resigns as chairman at Viglen

Regards,

Paul