From: "Lewis G Rosenthal" Received: from [72.254.28.100] (account lgrosenthal HELO [10.84.143.87]) by 2rosenthals.com (CommuniGate Pro SMTP 5.0.9) with ESMTPA id 395620 for os2-wireless_users@2rosenthals.com; Fri, 29 Sep 2006 13:45:21 -0400 Message-ID: <451D5A3B.5010003@2rosenthals.com> Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2006 10:39:07 -0700 Organization: Rosenthal & Rosenthal, LLC User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (OS/2; U; Warp 4.5; en-US; rv:1.9a1) Gecko/20060904 MultiZilla/1.8.3.0a SeaMonkey/1.5a MIME-Version: 1.0 To: OS/2 Wireless Users Mailing List Subject: Re: [OS2Wireless]Re: Lenovo battery recall affects several models References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On 09/29/06 09:51 am, Stanley Sidlov thus wrote : > On Fri, 29 Sep 2006 00:34:33 -0700 (PDT), Rick R. wrote: > > >> Is anybody still really producing their own computers or are we already living in the >> > brave new world where even brand name manufacturers only pillage the OEM market and then > slap their respective label on the assembled box?!! > > Years ago, there was big news about IBM suppling DELL with components. > http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9903/08/nofear.ent.idg/index.html?eref=sitesearch We all > know that when we open up our laptops the HHD are Hitachi, Fujitsu or Toshiba or someone > else. IBM doesn't make HDD anymore they sold it to Hitachi. Intel is OEMing thier wifi and > other cards under DELL, IBM, Toshiba and other names. The list is endless. > > Hitachi has built thinkPads for years (forever?). Jaguar, before being acquired by Ford, used Bosch fuel injection and Lucas (g-d help us) electrics. Until recently (last dozen years), GM and Ford were the only auto manufacturers in the world who owned all of the contributing companies (with the exception of their tires, which have been provided by outside manufacturers since the 20's). In the computer world, we have Intel and AMD CPUs on hundreds of manufacturers' boards. Intel has motherboards which use ATI southbridges, Realtek audio and LAN on them. None of this is new. IBM, Dell, and Apple are not battery manufacturers. SONY has an excellent record of producing quality battery components, so it's only natural that ThinkPads - the top of the line notebooks in the world - use SONY batteries. > Up until now, SONY certainly has been a reliable provider of the batteries' PARTS. (They > supplied the INTERNAL portions of the batteries, not the assembly or casings.) They have > lost a lot of prestige over this, articles in Japan are appearing asking what happened to > the vaunted Japanese production values. > > Exactly. > IMHO, most computers are now generic things (especially desktops) and there is no > particular value to a name other than service or ego. You might as well buy a SystemMax or > CyberMax kit as much as a DELL if it has the components that you want in it (it is easier > to find out what the MB and other parts are in a third-party builder than a first tier > company). IBM/Lenovo laptops have not been noted particularly for their speed/performance > or price. "WE" bought them because they are generally more OS agnostic than some others - > but we have modems, bluetooth and fingerprint scanners that don't work (which would be > unacceptable to a 'windows' user). There are lots of people with BAD thinkpad experiences, > just as there are people with bad DELL, Gateway, Toshiba or Sony experiences. > > I see more bad *IBM Service* experiences than bad *ThinkPad* experiences. Overall, though, I see more bad Dell and Gateway experiences (and interestingly, more good Dell service experiences) than IBM/Lenovo, HP, and Apple experiences. -- Lewis ------------------------------------------------------------ Lewis G Rosenthal, CNA, CLP, CLE Rosenthal & Rosenthal, LLC Accountants / Network Consultants New York / Northern Virginia www.2rosenthals.com eComStation Consultants www.ecomstation.com Novell Users Int'l www.novell.com/openenterpriseserver Need a managed Wi-Fi hotspot? www.hautspot.com ------------------------------------------------------------