[ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu on Dell (revisited) ....

[Bruno Girin]

On Fri, 2010-06-04 at 15:59 -0400, e-mail b.drake wrote:
> Hi Dianne .....
> 
> On 4 June 2010 11:45, Dianne Reuby <pramclub at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> 
>         Great work! What email address did you use? I can only find
>         phone/chat/postal contacts for them.
> 
> Someone on this list suggested writing to Dell CEO - Michael Dell
> (michael at dell.com) and my email was answered quickly by the guy in the
> reply I attached.  I just got so frustrated by the lack of ways to
> make contact with Dell UK.
> 
> I wonder if an official communication from Ubuntu UK asking to partner
> with Dell UK would help? "We'll support the OS - you supply the
> hardware to our folk" kind of approach might work ....  I'm willing to
> write something, what do the folk here think?

You'd have to define the word "support" very precisely.

Most large organisation understand "support" as having a call centre
which can take customer calls 24/7 or at the very least Monday to Friday
during office hours. Canonical can do that and I suspect already have
that sort of talks with some hardware vendors (although maybe not Dell
UK). A loose combination of individuals like the Ubuntu UK Loco team
cannot do it this way.

What could work is if the community was a second or third level support.
This would mean that Dell would need to invest in some Linux/Ubuntu
knowledge for their customer service so that they can act as first level
support.

Another option that could work would be for Dell to sell the hardware
with Ubuntu pre-installed, include the Ubuntu manual [1] and add as an
optional extra some Canonical support [2]. This would probably require
an agreement between Dell and Canonical so that when a Ubuntu user calls
the Dell support number, the support staff can redirect them to
Canonical.

On the other hand, Dell could very well sell their hardware with Ubuntu
on it but say that they will only support the hardware, not the software
and direct users to Canonical or Ubuntu UK for this. The risk here is
that for issues for which it's not clear whether the issue is with the
hardware or the software, you'd have users left in the lurch.

So yes, lots of possibilities I think but it would require some goodwill
on all sides. At the end of the day, what is important is that support
works for the end user, whoever actually provides it.

[1] http://ubuntu-manual.org/
[2] http://shop.canonical.com/product_info.php?products_id=528

Bruno