Is there anything that actually gets users to fix their computers?

Fri Oct 3 09:29:04 UTC 2003

On 03.10 10:59, Erik-Jan Bos wrote:
> 
> Perhaps an "auto club" for PC-users: You call and within the next 24 or 
> 48 hours, depending on your subscription, an expert would dial in or 
> come by to get you on the virtual road again.

If this was a viable business proposition, it would exist.  My experience
is that the product to be maintained is both too complex and too badly
designed and engineered to be readily maintainable.  In other words:
This is more viable for cars than for personal computers and more viable for
MacOSX than for WIntel. 

I speak from 10+ years of experience as friendly computer expert for the
virtual and physical neighborhood. 

Daniel

PS: The health question in my original contribution was serious.

Digression 1: Cars have become less maintainable by the auto club because
of added *proprietary* complexity too. 

Digression 2: I also help maintaining computers at the primary school my
kids attend.  When I started this, the soloution that could be
maintained by professionals was all new WIN NT servers and all new WIN
2K workstations.  Luckily (sic!) the school could not afford this by a
fair margin.  The mainenance offer was "all-in" for a periodic fee.  

Now the professionally maintainable soloution is based on Linux servers.  
This is moving in the right direction both from an enginieering and cost
view point.  However the maintenance offer is now "buy blocks of  support hours
at a discounted rate".  My guess is that the substance of the maintenance deal 
has not changed;  they have just become more honest in selling it.  :-( ;-)
So even for a small business this option does not really exist yet.

Back to work

Daniel