Recommend a Dell rep?

Can anyone out there recommend a small business Dell rep that won’t piss me off by basically not giving a flying fuck at the moon about their customers?

I need to buy a server asap and thus far I’ve been lobbed from one rep to another, and treated with the kind of attitude I expect from an Eircom biddy, not a customer that’s likely to bring in quite a lot of server business in the next few years. At the moment it’s low margin business, but surely that’s their problem for selling low margin, not mine?

Failing that, can anyone recommend a supplier for low-end 1U rack-mounted servers in Ireland? By low-end I mean less than a grand fully-configured. So far I only have dabs4work, and I’m not mad about the idea of buying something relatively important to the network outside the country. Encom is too expensive.

13 Responses

  1. Don’t touch Elaras whitebox own brand ones.
    A certain Irish hosting company trialled some of their cheap self built 1u boxes on us a while ago and they were dire beyond words.

  2. I’ve always contacted fergal murphy directly, you can email him on fergal_murphy at dell.com, he’s been great to me. Now I’ve mostly been buying laptops and desktops so it might not be his area.

    Tell em I sent you (that way he might be even nicer to me next time)
    des

  3. I decided against those on sight alone Michael, they look pretty dodgy. :)

    I’ll drop Fergal a line Des, thanks for that.

  4. We spent over 30k a month with dell on 1U and 2U servers and couldnt get an account manager that gave a shit. We’re actually moving back to HP and happy to pay for it!

  5. Hi Stephen. I can understand why they wouldn’t give a shit on the 1U servers I’m buying – there’s bugger all margin in them – but they don’t seem to get the big picture, despite the fact that I’ve thrown the word “data center” at them a few times.

    In fact I specifically mentioned that it might be in their best interest to pop down to us for a chat, and they said they’d “give me a ring to discuss requirements”. I get the impression they might have cut costs in the sales department as well as everywhere else, which isn’t very bright.

    Who do you deal with for HP? The problem I have is that they don’t seem to have a direct sales operation in Ireland, and I’m not sure who to buy from. The only crowd I’ve found competitive so far is Dabs, and I’m not mad keen on importing something as important as servers.

  6. Talk to Brian Larkin in Hibernia –

    They have a pretty direct channel into HP (Brian was Senior in there before moving to Hibernia) and the customer service is excellent.

    Despite buying 10-20 Dell 2950 grade and better servers each month (in addition to dozens of 1u pizza boxes) – Dell just don’t care about their customers. Is a shame really, as the kit itself is pretty solid.

  7. Adam

    Unless you are buying 100s of Dells you will not get proper customer support / service. They do not care. Similar to Stephen we have been spending over 30k a month with them and we get moved from one muppet to another.

    You’d be better off dealing with another vendor if you want personal care

    Michele

  8. Thanks Stephen. I gave this order to Dell just to get it done, however I’ll be buying another two machines very shortly so I’ll see what Brian has to say to me then. I agree with you about the kit btw, it’s a shame they can’t sort out their sales and support channels.

  9. Thanks Des. Looks like it’ll exacerbate the problem rather than correct it tbh, focussing on very large business. While you can understand why they’d want to do that, I continue to wonder how much of their business is small scale, and how much longer small scale customers will put up with Dell’s attitude towards them.

  10. Meh, we’ve already moved to HP and are delighted. Pricing is as competetive but the delivery times and overall service is amazing. Highly recommended – Ask for Brian Larkin at Hibernia