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emachines in Big Trouble? 49

Posted by Roblimo from the it's-not-just-lawsuits dept.
It looks like emachines has trouble coming from many sides. This story at News.com makes it sound like things are so bad that the company's upper management ought to commit hari-kari. This is sad; I bought one of their early units for my wife and, even if it's not the world's greatest PC, it was a good value for the money. I'd hate to see this fine low-cost vendor go away. We need companies like this to keep the "biggies" on their toes. (Thanks go to NetSlave Steve Gilliard for this lead.)
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emachines in Big Trouble? More

emachines in Big Trouble?

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  • My E-box runs Linux and Solaris well (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I needed a cheap box to to some NT work. It was cheap, and was certified to run NT. I bought it, even though it has a Cyrix processor. I did my work and moved on. Decided to see if Linux would run on it, Redhat 6 loaded well. Im currently working with Solaris and tried it, Solaris 7 runs well, full video and audio supported. My e-machine may be cheap, use a cyrix processor, and came with a win modem (easly removed), it ran multiple OS easly. E-machine may produce a lower quality product, but the box I got was decent, so I give them a thumbs up.

  • Not proprietary (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Emachines may be cheap crap, but at least they're mostly standard cheap crap. They use standard SDRAM and a standard case and a fairly standard motherboard with a standard BIOS and a standard processor. Unlike some of the other ultra-cheapie brands in the past (*cough*Packard Bell*cough) that used proprietary crap that couldn't be replaced with regular components, you can go to a computer store or show or swap-meet and buy better parts when you can afford them or they become more affordable. Other than the really cheap winmodem thing (which is in a *standard* PCI slot), were I to go out and assemble a super cheap system I'd probably choose components much the same as they ship. After playing with a couple of them I'd recommend them to people who needed a really cheap computer.
  • I think if anyone here is a "stupid bigot", it's probably you.
  • Yes, I did read the article, thats why I decided it was just propaganda.

    So, what you're saying is that the more successful the business model (measured by that ol' faithful yardstick, the Dollar "Gates" Bill), the less likely CNet is to rag on the company involved?

    Good, glad we're agreeing on something. Thats *exactly* what I'm saying is *WRONG* with CNet!

    And I believe that in this case, its not fair to make a huge thing about eMachines minimal failures - since you read the article you know that it wasn't *eMachines* that lost the lawsuit.

    So what exactly is behind this story? Fact is, we're getting damned close to the end of the year.

    The American Super-Shopping Experience starts in just a few months... so wouldn't it be handy if those damned nuisance eMachine people weren't around to undercut the big-guns? I mean, if a family buys a computer for $400, they're not gonna buy a computer for $1200. They've already got a computer by that point...

    [removes tongue from cheek]


  • Aye..it seems Harry's spirit has already moved on, judging by how hapless the 99 Cubs are..oh wait, we're talking about Emachines..right. Well, I've never seen one of the buggers up close and personal, but I wager that it'd be a hell of a time trying to fix one with standard parts, especially the "e-one"; as to whether it's an iMac clone, I'll leave that for the courts to decide..

    If folks want to buy supercheap machines and have themselves get sucked into long-term internet service agreements (when, for all they know, cable modem/DSL/etc. are just around the bend where they live..I'd hate to have to pay two internet bills and only use one extensively) then they're welcome to it. Whether or not emachines profits from this or goes out of business actually may not matter that much, as the larger companies alluded to in the article seem to be adapting this `business model' for their own use..and guess who's got more resources..

    And as a last thought, I'm not sure what to think about the prospect of MS offering free internet access..that magic word "free" would probably attract a number of customers right off that bat, but is MS going to take an intentional loss on this or attempt to regain some of that revenue by subjecting the `free' users to mandatory ads?

    Peace,
  • That's pretty much what they are doing and the manufacturers of the machines are selling them at firesale prices. They're counting on a cut from the provider to make up for their losses. The only problem is that it isn't working. The manufacturers who sell these low cost systems are getting hammered (check EE times or EDN etc). I wouldn't be at all suprised to see the number of computer manufacturers thinned out a lot over the next few years.

    Sure, they're losing money on each computer, but they're making up for it in volume!
  • The computer manufactures are trying to capture the 75% of the market that has been resistant to purchasing computers beyond a game machine like a PlayStation in the past. To do this they needed systems that weren't too much more than the typical game system or preferably (with a little deceit and trickery) the same price.

    Hand me down systems would actually be fine for this market. Every system I've stopped using to upgrade to something bigger and better has been given to a family member or friend (other than my C-64 and TI/99-4A) and they're all being well used. They aren't the type of people who read mainstream computer magazines so this is just fine. In fact my most recent donation is being used to start up a graphic design business and is working wonderfully. Fast machines aren't that important for most people, most of the time at the computer is spent thinking about what to do next.

    This breaks down because most people read the typical trade publication which insist that you need the fastest machine possible, the latest release of Windows and really fast 3D acceleration for the latest 3D games. People buy into it. There's truth in that statement for people who do like 3D games etc, but the target audience for these low cost systems are the people who were resistant to buying one despite the internet hype. They'll visit a few web sites, play a few games, maybe balance a cheque book and write to Aunt Sally. A few of them will get into computers in a big way and will end up purchasing a quicker computer, most of them will only use it an hour or two a week.

    The problem for high end users is that these machines have either a miniscule profit margin or even a negative one. The high end machines fund the profit shortcomings of the low end ones, though most companies do absolutely nil R&D anyway.

  • I think that having low priced PC *is* a good thing. but there also should be high priced ones.
    why ?
    Because development of newer technologies isn't FREE - someone needs to pay this. IMHO low priced machines shouldn't have the newer techs but the olds ones. Thus those who are whishing to have the latest techies should pay the dev of the newer ones to come.

  • E-Machines, unlike the other low-cost "name" vendors, uses standard MicroATX-compatible cases and components, a huge plus in their favor. At least spec-wise, these are decent, if not cutting-edge products for the money. If their quality control sucks, that's a separate issue... The other vendors in the sub-$1000 space are generally using custom-built mobos and cases which are certainly cheaper to build in high volume (it's good to have a board fab in-house), but fully upgrade-free. At least if you outgrow an E-Machines PC down the road you don't have to trash the whole thing - just buy a better motherboard for it (the E-One, obviously, is not included in this part of the discussion).

    Whether E-Machines, the company, is worth a bucket of warm spit or not is another story. They're shaping up to be a classic Valley story: The small vendor who enters the market with a splash, shakes up the status quo, only to make execution mistakes and piss off the established vendors, who manage to grind the upstart into dust, aided by the upstart's own mistakes.

    The thing is, an Ebox isn't too bad for the bucks (assuming it works when you plug it in). I know more than a few happy E-Machines customers at my company who have no idea that the winmodem in it blows or that DVD running on a Rage Pro for decoding is pushing the bounds of reason. And I'm not going to be the one to tell them. They just know it works, and that they could afford it easily. It ain't the machine for the average /.er, but it's OK for it's purpose. I hope they stick around, personally.

    Side note: Does anyone actually sign up for the ISP rebates? I've been advising people to not take them, and keep the freedom to use whatever ISP you want, especially with cable and DSL providers to choose from. Of course, using a high-speed connection also neatly sidesteps the winmodem problem...

    - -Josh Turiel
  • Then I guess you don't mind if someone steals your ideas, your BUSINESS, and effectively stealing money out of your pocket? Don't give us this bullsh*t about "big boys" vs. little boys. Perhaps you prefer to do away with patents and copyrights altogether?
  • I dont know what angers me more, the fact that Apple is suing them, or that Compaq makes claim on intellectual property. These big boys have absolutely nothing to gain from squashing this distributor. If Apple wanted to make good with this, they should have said, "our iMac is the real one, theirs is a copy". That sells a lot better than choking your competitor. Plus it gives people that want Windows on their iMac a bit of Apple... ehrm, eMachines.


    And as far as Compaq goes. Im fed up with them. Release all the closed source compilers you want, I dont care.


    Sincerely,

    Alex

  • My guess is that, like health club memberships, they are counting on people not actually using the service for the entire time. They get all the money, but may not have to provide all the service.

    Imagine what the ISP market will be like in three years. My guess is that most people will be using cable modems or ADSL; but they'll still have to send their $24/month to compuserve.

    My guess is that they get a part of the price of the machine, too. The $400 rebate cost is probably shared with the manufacturer, maybe even 50-50. So Compuserve might be getting more like $16/month.

    The interesting thing, to me, about these rebate promotions is that they cleave the home market from the business market like a scalpel. It's inspired.

    thad

  • There's as economic rule that says that if the number of defective widgets a company puts out is below a certain number, you're probably overpaying per unit because of "excessive" quality control. In other words, there is an intersection of the curves of rising quality and falling value, around which a company should try to center itself. I first heard of this notion with respect to airline ticket prices and flight safety.

    The thing about computers is that their quality also tends to be "binary": they either work, or they don't. Luckily, it's usually the manufacturer who has to foot the bill for those that don't. So quite frankly, I don't see why people get too upset about shoddy computers. Send it back, get the next one, eventually one will work. Once you get a working computer, you never look twice at it--heck, it could be built into the desk hutch for all I care, I never look at the box. Computers are about the service they render, not the object they are.
  • > Side note: Does anyone actually sign up for the
    > ISP rebates? I've been advising people to not
    > take them, and keep the freedom to use whatever
    > ISP you want, especially with cable and DSL
    > providers to choose from.

    Yeah, a friend of my wife's just got one the other week. I advised him to pay the full price and skip the AOL "offer". Actually, he was quite well informed about the implications. He did the math correctly and is still mulling it over. I guess people aren't as stupid as we give them credit for.
  • Welcome to the real world. Design "theft" is economic reality. Sure, you can sue--as Apple is doing--but you have to wonder if it's money well spent. Incidentally, Apple certainly has no room to talk about theft--the fact of where they got their OS design hasn't left and gone away, even if it's been beaten to death.

    If you want to see industrial design theft at work, observe any better-known Japanese automobile. Take the Lexus LS400 for example--depending on the angle, you will recognize lines from the previous E-class Mercedes (esp. nose, trunk, rear lights), or the 7-series BMW. Or take their new SUV, is it the RX? I matched it line for line against the M-class: the hood lines, the silhouette, the shape of the rear side windows. It's more squat and slightly more petite, but if you saw artist's sketches of both, I will be damned if you could tell the difference. Are Mercedes and BMW going to sue? Hardly.
  • Well, I did say "their quality also TENDS to be binary". I wouldn't fully stand by that statement, either, but in general it either runs sufficiently reliably, or it crashes frequently, in which case it doesn't. It's amazing how much work you still can get done on a poorly configured or operating machine. It's just that for slashdotters it wouldn't be much fun.
  • I use an emachine 266 (the original) and I don't see 30% loss, more like 5-10% loss. Since I never run any microsoft applications, my processor is never more than 25% full. As for connecting to other modems, I'm inferring yours aren't v.90 compliant yet.

    The only problem I've had with my emachine is a noisy fan. But I had the same complaint about my Dell, and an AST. Of all the places to skimp, the cooling fan seems about the worst. It seems to be an almost industry wide problem, so I don't exactly fault emachines for it.

    Did Apple license beryl blue from DuPont or 3M? You can do that, you know. I believe AST tried color cases about 10 years ago, and there are several flavors of unix which have been shipping non-khaki colors for a while. I really don't see whats unique to an Imac other than the OS, and that wasn't stolen. I hope this does go to court, but I bet apple has a plan to keep that from happening, including lowering an undisclosed license fee to ~5000.00.

    When was the last time you heard about GM suing Ford because, amazingly enough, the new Ford pickup also has four wheels? or that suddenly they have 3 doors on their pickup too? or because the body panels are suddenly dent resistant plastic? Why don't they? Because it's not effective, and bad bad publicity. This is all just bloated companies scrambling for a shrinking market. Compare an apple 2 to a IBM PC, the apple 2 is a better product hands down. Which are our computers based on today? and why do you think that is? Point is that this kind of protective sueing destroys whole markets.

    The whole reason I use linux is because I see signs of protectionism in software. That means in the long run I lose, because the game I want suddenly doesn't run on my PC, and I my PC suddenly stops working when I try to make it.

    No IBM didn't have it exactly right with the PC. But there were so many versions out there, that IBM learned from the competition how NOT to improve. Did they learn anything from it? not immediately, but after the PS2 died, they seemed to get the hint. Imitation is a sign your doing something right, and a sure sign of continued success.

    Apple should have fired those lawyers after the apple 2e failed to take over the education market. Apple would be a much bigger company if they didn't chase these dead ends. Its obvious they haven't figured it out yet, and its obvious that the genius who designed the iMac needs to find a different company to drag around. Wait a second, didn't he already do that?

  • ~> cvs co harry_caray
    ~> cd wrigley
    ~> make 7th_inning_stretch
    ~> sing

    If only it were that easy, to bring back a legend.
  • Anybody try one of these? [buypogo.com] $299 for an upgradable box sound pretty good. Is their quality any better than E's?
  • Who in their right mind rated this flamebait as insightful? You obviously haven't been paying much attention to Linux development. Nearly every retail (and quite a few direct) machines come w/ HSP/soft-modems. Almost *NONE* of them work with Linux. Moreover, anyone who works tech support at an ISP should know that the phone line, not the modem is likely the culprit when a modem can't connect at v.90.

    FYI, I used a 266 (like the other poster) e-machine to connect to Earthlink at 44Kbps. (Gee, I didn't get 56k. I wonder why. Hint: It's not the modem.)

    Seriously, I keep hearing all these worthless threads about the quality or lack thereof of e-machines. That's never stopped HP or Compaq from selling quite a few machines. Check the financial fundamentals behind e-machines. That's where their problems lie. It's not in the quality of their product.


  • Everyone complains that the e machines looked so much like the iMac.. well no one seems to complain that their sony TV looks a hell of alot like a Toshiba or anything else.

    Thats because TV's look alike the same way beige computer cases all look alike. Sony didn't spend millions of dollars on a highly distinctive design with millions more in advertising to sell it. If they had, you can bet they would sue Toshiba or any other company who copped the design in a heartbeat.

    Apple didn't invent colored plastic, why should they be the only ones that get to use it?

    Apple is not suing because the eOne has brightly colored translucent plastic. Nor are they suing because it has an all in one design. Apple is suing because the eOne is specifically made to fool customers who are interested in buying an iMac. Near identical case, similar name, similar slogans, similar advertising.....eOne is guilty as sin of trademark infringment, specifically the "trade dress" area.

    I'd say the only hope for eMachines is to settle fast while they still have publicity. If they don't, Apple and maybe Compaq are going to sue and almost certainaly win. With that hanging over their heads, the IPO would be a flop and they'd be crushed by the competition, which has had time to catch up and gather capital.
  • I'm not an expert on this by any means but I took a few classes on japanese history in college. One of the more interesting ones was "japan through it's literature", The professor in this class claimed that females did commit seppuku but they tied their own ankles together first so their legs wouldn't spread.
  • I am forced to agree with this. I cannot remember if it is the same publisher or not, but this last weekend I read an article in PCWorld (I think that was it) about all the OS's out there, the couple versions of windows, Linux, Beos...It was sad. Barely a bash at all on Windows (and many praises) and hardly a praise on Linux or BeOS. They pointed that linux does not support many newer video cards. Hello? What if the vendor stopped writing drivers for windows? WOuld it be Windows fault? no...The reviewer chose Caldera 2.2 and Redhat 6, and decided he liked Caldera better, but it still sucked. I think that a responsible reporter would go out and find that Redhat 6 included more beta software than I care to think about (Gnome and KDE, the two most important pieces to this reviewer). He didn't think to try Mandrake. On a side note, I am sorry i only suggest redhat based, but the fact of the matter is that no newbie can barely point and click user is going to have an easy time installing slackware. Anyways, he compared staroffice...he says "It's not MS Office, it lacks things like me being able to drag and drop a whole word" (ok, not quite a direct quote). All I can say is "SHeesh". That is one of the lamest reasons I can think of for bashing an office suite that just took my powerpoint presentation and translated it to html flawlessly, does my spreadsheet for my bills (I am a loser without my wife around), browses the web (does office do this?), etc etc. If they want an office clone, talk to MS. He seemed to confuse "new and I have to learn a slightly different interface" with "bad". That's the worst part. Some new user who has never even used windows (like my Grandmother, who is in the market for a computer) is gonna read this and think linux is bad, when she is going to have just as much of a learning curve with windows. It's downright irresponsible to just compare it to windows and say it is not windows. Did he compare windows to anything? No. Did he say, "Well, windows sucks because you have to get up to install a printer on your kids computer" or "MSOffice sucks because it is not StarOffice"? No.

    Responsibility in reporting. Amazing how little of it there is.
  • I wouldn't agree with your statement that "computers either work or they don't." Bad RAM or CPU can drop bits and have no visible effect other than an occasional odd crash or even "Excel doesn't seem to work very well on this computer." Dropping bits between CPU and RAM is actually a lot more common than most people realize. Further, there are the mechanical components... hard drives should last a lot longer than two years, but they often don't. There are a lot of ways a computer can fail in a non-complete fashion, and I see them all the time.
  • please mod this "offtopic"

    What, do you want a medal or something? Do you think you're some sort of tragic hero or something, championing the revolution against the iMac mouse? Dig: nobody (almost nobody) likes the mouse. I personally can't stand it, though I don't feel personally offended that it has one button; I long ago mastered the difference between click and double-click: practice, man. It'll come.
    I like even less the keyboard they ship with. Every paragraph or so, my right palm hits the left-cursor key, and I end up typing behind what I had been typing. Do you expect me to be some kind of Apple apologist? I know they're not perfect, and they have done some stupid and in some cases (G4 ROM fiasco) subtly evil things. I can't speak to the legality of clearing the retail channel before moving out a new line, but I think you're supposed to realize that most companies release new computers at times, and they usually have better specifications than the old ones they replace.
    Where was I going with this? I can't remember... Oh, well, the original post was so incoherent that I suppose we haven't lost anything. Next!

  • Look at the thing! This goes a lot farther than just colored plastic; walking down the aisle of a local store I saw no less than three translucent-blue irons, coffeemakers, and such. The color is only one part of the issue. There's also the fact that the thing looks enough like an iMac to confuse the target market for both machines, which is arguably what it's intended to do.

    I doubt the specifications of the lawsuit include blue plastic, most likely having more to do with the shameless and intentional copying of Apple's design. Yes, there have been all-in-one computers long before the iMac. But honestly, have you ever seen anything exactly like it... at least, before the eThing?

  • Let's all start buying $300-$600 emachine boxes and start making servers out of them. If and when I get the money I will either buy one for that purpose or if scsi parts are cheaper I will make my own.
  • There's a bit of creative accounting going on as well. Since user-end equipment is part of the service contract, ISPs can more or less claim that, for accounting purposes, the computers are an asset. That way, they can depreciate them over two or three years without actually owning them. Depreciation is a valid business expense, providing both a tax deduction and a way of quietly turning four hundred virtual dollars into four hundred very real dollars somewhere else--like your pocket.

    Even if they can't claim the computer that way, they can certainly claim the two years of $20/month "owed" them as accounts receivable, which are an asset which can be borrowed against. And if you cancel your ISP contract early, they can count the remaining months' payments (and the remaining depreciation on the PC, if they can) as a loss!

    The accounting can get incredibly more complex. See Cringley's Cooking the Books [pbs.org] article for an example. In another article [pbs.org], he explains how even without the creative acounting, this can be a sweet deal: "magazine and newspaper publishers are generally willing to spend up to the entire cost of the subscription to get or retain a good subscriber. If the subscription costs $20 per year, the publisher is probably willing to spend that whole $20 on ads and nagging letters. With this in mind, $400 for $720 in Internet subscription revenue isn't a bad deal at all." If they're left with $320, all they have to do to stay ahead of the game is spend less than $8.89 per month per subscriber, which they can do simply by

    • assigning their equipment costs to a balloon payment due in three years, interest free because Cisco really wants to have the sale of all those routers show up on this year's report, and
    • replacing your support desk with a recorded message that says, "Dude, we're like, busy? So can you like, hold?"

    Accounting is a bogglingly complex shell game designed to let you keep the pea in your coat pocket while the IRS keeps pointing at the board and saying, "it's under that one!"

    --

  • It's the same trick as the Cellular community uses: give the hardware away and sell the service.


    How do they make money?

    1. They prevent you from going to a cable modem or DSL. This prevents their competition from getting a foothold, and helps keep them profitable.
    2. They short-change the hardware. $8/month from 100 people will go a long way to paying for three old 28.8Kbps modems. So what if you never get in? (Works for AOL!)
    3. They wait a year, and jack the prices up. "Oh, well you are connecting at 56K. Read your service contract, and you will see we only guaranteed 28.8, so you are using our premium service, which is $20/month."

    Don't go there, don't buy that, get a real computer or get nothing at all, you will be happier in the long run.
  • Wasn't eMachines formerly known as TriGem?

    My mother bought a TriGem several years ago, and it was a completely unstable piece of crap. (The hardware acceleration had to be completely off in order to run the screensaver - and this was a comparatively minor problem.)

    I've stayed well away from eMachines - have they improved their quality at all? It seems like they can't have - after all, you get what you pay for. I'd rather shell out a bit more and have a stable system than get a cheap box whose components probably don't work (i.e., the infamous eMachines quasi-Winmodem).


    "During your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I was riding the pogostick."
  • More Anonymous Coward bullshit comments.... they're just simply not interesting btw, having read the archived thread about Carl Sagan, I was seriously disturbed that A.C. had so many different and self-contradictory opinions simultaneously...some ridiculous(impotence due to pot), some disturbing (revisionist)... stupid me... there are obviously many such cowards, which hampers my ability to ignore any particular one by default.... too bad....any ideas?
  • Are you kidding me??? I bet you didn't even read the article. I believe that the story was a very fair piece. EMachines IS being sued by Apple and Compaq, and even eMachines admits that its business plan does not have any chance of profitability for the foreseeable future. This is even without fierce competition from such industry stalwarts such as Compaq, Dell, and the like. The only reason why they are doing well in the market place is that their Asian partners largely subsidize their machines. Ask yourself, "what does this company have that Dell and the like don't have?" Not much, and definitely not enough to make a successful company. So, no, I don't think that this piece was,"anything other than a seething cesspool of bias, anything more than a classic covert market slant..." thanks!

    Also, watch how quickly CNET will turn on Microsoft or Intel when they start having poor quarters. It is just very hard for any mainstream media outlet to question the business plan of hugely successful companies such as Intel and M$. No one is ready to short M$, nor question the validity of their business plan. Obviously, the prevailing sentiment on Slashdot is that Microsoft's business model is doomed to failure, but even the most jaded observer of Microsoft has to see that its business plan has been successful and, should not be even mentioned in the same breath eMachines' prospects. This is why you don't see,"any sort of negative view towards Microsoft along the lines of negativity that's been painted over eMachines right now."
     -EJ
  • The iMac is a good computer for what it is: an entry level Mac. Anyone who thinks that it's comparable to the latest greatest PIII or G4 or whatever is just being stupid.

    OTOH, I have a Mac and I think that the iMouse is the best thing since spam in a can. Much more comfortable than any other mouse I've ever used. I'd prefer it had five buttons, but you can't have everything. The point is that preference in mice, keyboards and monitors - the I/O that connects you to the computer - are a personal matter. Don't like the iMouse, get a different mouse. USB mice are usually pretty cheap. Lord knows I trashed the iKeyboard in favor of my reliable ol' Nimitz.

    Regarding the memo you describe... I used to sell Macs and while I realize that price protection is mostly a thing of the past, it's better to preserve an excellent relationship with a customer than it is to clear merchandise and make a quick buck. You should ignore that kind of thing and even tell your customers to go elsewhere if they'll save money. Do freebie work for them (if it's not serious, like adding RAM). It's a lousy idea to run a business based solely on money.
  • Just for the record, it is harakiri. Hara means stomach and kiri is the stem of the verb kiru, to cut.

    The interesting thing is that when you swap the two Chinese characters used to write harakiri in the Japanese script, they are not pronounced kirihara, but seppuku and, amazingly, still mean the same. However, if I recall correctly, the latter is a more elegant way of expressing the act.

    Chilli

    PS: A little education is never off topic ;-)

  • I'm a little confused about the math behind the ISP rebate offers.

    $20/month x 36 months (3 years) is $ 720. $ 720 - $400 = 320, or $ 8.88 per month. Interest on paying off the $ 400 rebate @ 10% should add about $60 to the cost (average $200 balance @ 10% interest over 36 months). So they are actually getting less than $ 8/month for the service.

    How could any ISP afford to offer such a deal? It sounds suicidal to me.

    D

    ----
  • I only wish I could speak of them in the past tense already. I work tech support for a large Midwest-US ISP, and I can tell you, I nearly get physically sick when I hear the customer has an eMachine (one of my co-workers compared it to Alex from A Clockwork Orange...). The HSP Micromodem they come with are vile... who let this thing out of development? A softmodem that consumes 30% of processor time is inexcusable, but you'd think that they'd at least make sure it could connect to other modems! Was that just not in the spec or something?!

    I'm not at all sure that the eMachines people created the HSP, but the only computers I've seen them on are eMachines... and some of the only computers we have problems getting connected. You paid $300 for a computer... don't act like it's my fault that the modem won't connect past v34!

  • Everyone complains that the e machines looked so much like the iMac.. well no one seems to complain that their sony TV looks a hell of alot like a Toshiba or anything else. Apple didn't invent colored plastic, why should they be the only ones that get to use it?
  • I really like eMachines well as a matter of fact I love them and their ilk. As a PC Tech if it wasn't for crappy cheap computers like them and all the cheap parts. I might be out of a job so hang in there eMachines I'm rooting for you to stay in business. Because I need the work.
  • I mean, come on, give me a break.

    Since when has CNet been anything other than a seething cesspool of bias, anything more than a classic covert market slant operation? Since when does CNet give a damn about anything other than their advertisers interests?

    Anyone who's paid any sort of attention to CNet News since its early days has (unless they're lobotomized) witnessed it turn from a somewhat cool Gen-X type news source, into an Intel-and-Microsoft-corporate-interests-are-God source of juicy net propaganda.

    CNet is a tabloid at best.

    You'll be hard pressed to find *any* articles in there that paint any sort of negative view towards Microsoft along the lines of negativity that's been painted over eMachines right now.

    Even when Microsoft (or Intel, or Compaq, or any of the other advertisers on the CNet network) *do* screw up, CNet 'News' somehow manages to paint a "well, they've got it under control now, nothing to be worried about, move along folks" picture. That's because the people who pay for CNet, the marketing 'geniuses' who hold the reigns and who get paid lots of money to be propaganda wizards, know all too well that the Best Kind of Bad News is Old Bad News (i.e. It Was Bad, But We Fixed It and We're Strong Now- TM). That's all you'll get if the subject is Microsoft or Intel.

    But if it's some other up-start company, forget it. It'll be bad forcasts, questionable-futures, uncertain perspectives, drama, reaction, excitement. ("Hey look kids, there's a car accident, is anyone dead?")

    Tabloid marketing mechanics are very well known at CNet, and I'm willing to wager that most of their editors made a living in that market before they got a whiff of this Internet thing...

    CNet News is like Slashdot for Microsoft and Intel. It serves its purpose for its paying members.

    And in this case, they're clearly doing their best to dreg up the dirt on eMachines, and capitalizing on the general tabloidical nature of the Internet to propagate the bad news.

    So, I say, so damned what. eMachines was a *good* company, with a damned good idea - make PC's affordable to Everyone, not just those elite middle-class crackerjack few who have a grand of expendable income to blow on what usually amounts to nothing more than an expensive toy (for the average family).

    So eMachines is having a rough time of it.

    Fine.

    I for one hope that they pull out of it, and get whatever legal issues resolved that need to be resolved, so they can KEEP SELLING INEXPENSIVE COMPUTERS TO EVERYONE.

    In the meantime, Compaq, Dell, and Microsoft can kiss my ass. I'm putting CNet's domains in my filter, because there's nothing but covert propaganda coming from those guys these days, and they know it.


    (And before you rightwing fruits draw the Hyopcrisy Card and start saying that the same is true about Slashdot, I'd like to point out a *huge* difference: these conversations. Try posting something like this message on CNet's forums, see how long it takes for it to mysteriously disappear)

  • Defending eMachines (Score:3)

    by SEE ( 7681 ) on Monday September 20, 1999 @05:28PM (#1670923) Homepage
    First, the Japanese injunction isn't nearly as important as the article makes out. First, it's a preliminary injunction -- all Apple had to show is a prima fascie case and a significant possibility of irreperable damages.

    Second, this is a summary and interpretation of an analyst's report, which itself is a summary and interpretation of available data. In the absence of hard facts, what does "While the company has sold over a million units since its inception last November, it has not even remotely created a business model that is sustainable," mean?

    As a disclosure, I have an eMachine which I am very happy with. I didn't bother with the "internet service" rebate, and got a etower 366i2, 15" monitor, and Lexmark Z11 printer for an after-rebates-and-tax grand total of ~$550. Toss in a $100 external modem (I prefer external anyway), and I got a decent system for less than you'd pay for a comparable Compaq. And the eMachine has 4 mb SGRAM video instead of UMA SDRAM sharing like the Compaq. Still using my home-built for Linux, though...

  • Re:The correct word is "hara kiri", btw. (Score:4)

    by GoRK ( 10018 ) on Monday September 20, 1999 @04:53PM (#1670924) Homepage Journal
    The word Harakiri translates roughly as "gut cutting." It is a rougher term for "seppuku" which is the formal ritual suicide practiced in feudal Japan. Seppuku is usually performed because one disgraces himself, his family, or his people. Properly enacted, seppuku requires two people. The person enacting the suicide is to cut himself (females did not practice this) side to side across his stomach and then up to the base of his breastbone. His "second" then was to remove the man's head. Often, the second followed suit with his own suicide. The most interesting thing about the whole ordeal was that one was not to make a noise or show any pain while slicing himself up. If he did either of these, he failed the ritual and disgraced himself again in death.

    Now please don't you clickey moderators go moderating this down as 'offtopic' It's on topic with this thread. Your karma will regret it!

    ~GoRK

  • The correct word is "hara kiri", btw. (Score:5)

    by Wakko Warner ( 324 ) on Monday September 20, 1999 @03:35PM (#1670925) Homepage Journal
    Unless you're suggesting they commit dead Cubs announcers? :)

    - A.P. (perhaps to CVS?)
    --


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