I was wondering about the #1 reliability ranking Asus received earlier this year for their netbooks. I've never used one, so I wondered if they were really great, or if the data was skewed because their netbooks were so new.
According to a PC World report, their quality rating took a big nose-dive, and Rescuecom's CEO says it's because their products have been out there for a while now. In March, Asus was #1 on the Rescuecom reliability list, but now their score has taken a swan dive from a high of 972 to the current value of 166.
Apple took back the #1 spot with a reliability rating of 374. Other scores include Lenovo at 320, Toshiba at 165, and HP at 134.
David Milman, Rescuecom's CEO released this statement in an email:
"This is what we were waiting for on Asus, whether or not their reliability score would be maintained," said Milman in an e-mail. "Now that many of the netbooks by Asus have been out for a while, there is obviously a higher need for service."
Given that netbooks are supposed to be "simple" devices, I'm surprised the Asus quality rating would drop this drastically.
As a Mac user, I'm glad to see the Mac quality rating at the top of the list, but frankly, I've never heard of Rescuecom, and they wouldn't be the first company I would call if I had a problem. (If they provide telephone support services for many PC vendors and also for Apple, then okay, we're dealing with a level playing field here.)
PC World and RescueCom links and information
Here's a link to the PC World article, and here's a link to RescueCom's Q3 Reliability Report.
Unfortunately I don't see any information about the number of calls RescueCom handles, just percentages. I don't know anything about RescueCom personally, but in digging around on their website it looks like they were named as one of the Franchise 500 in Entrepreneur Magazine from 2002 through 2004. This is the third year they have released their reliability study.
books by alvin
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