[ltp] Re: T42p bluetooth?

[Chris McDonough]

On Sun, 2004-10-03 at 07:24, Daniel Pittman wrote:
> > Yup.  The issue was that I was attempting to purchase the system from CDW
> > rather than via IBM.  Though CDW sells IBM warranties, they're
> > understandably not as familiar with the warranties as IBM is.  I ended up
> > purchasing the T42 along with a warranty upgrade via IBM.com, which was
> > much easier, although apparently it will take about a month (!) to ship
> > whereas CDW claimed to be able to ship it within 4 - 6 days.
> 
> IBM .au list a month as the lead time on all equipment, and usually
> deliver within a week.  I have *never* actually waited out the claimed
> time.

No such luck in the US this month apparently. I called IBM sales to
doublecheck on its order status and it's apparently on a 3-week
backorder.  It won't ship until ~ October 26th.  This is slightly better
than the web-supplied estimated ship date of Nov. 3, so it looks like
they give themselves a one-week fudge factor or so but not a 3-week
fudge factor as I had hoped.

I don't know if the backorder cuts across their whole product line or
what.  But if the "buy today, ship today" offers on ibm.com are any
indication you can't buy any laptops from ibm.com/us and have them ship
immediately, which makes me think there's some sort of fundamental
laptop parts shortage at the moment.  Maybe the hurricanes in the
southeastern part of the US had some sort of impact or maybe Korea
decided that RAM costs $100 per kilobyte today or... ;-)

> This, I suspect, is because their policy ensures they never deliver late
> to a customer -- by quoting the worst possible time estimate.

"Underpromise, overdeliver" is definitely a good strategy.

> Hopefully it will get through to you sooner.  I always found that
> calling and following up on a sale gets you useful information, too, and
> may help get it scheduled sooner. :)

I'm not really in a hurry to get it (aside from natural illogical "toy
impatience") so I didn't bother to agitate for an earlier ship date. 
But I'd advise others to call before ordering if they definitely need a
laptop in a certain amount of time regardless of what estimated ship
date is presented on the website.

Thanks!

- C