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Why you should invest in a
turnkey computer solution with us...
To read the detailed reasons please
continue reading.....Click
here for the short, condensed version.
Did you know that 100 percent of all "out-of-box" mass
manufactured computers when bought from big box retailers or mass-market
mail order are incorrectly configured and have not been optimized
for best performance? (ie: Dell, H/P, Sony, IBM, etc.) Especially
for high end speech recognition applications! Why is this? When
you buy a computer bundled with pre-existing software you are
buying a system that has "lite" or "trial"
versions of software pre-installed on it. (also known as Bloatware)
Those programs that are installed on that machine are just that.
Programs that are installed on your hard drive with limited features
or features that are designed to quit working after they have
been used for a pre-determined amount of time. They are installed
on there to entice you to buy the upgraded or "full version"
of that software. These companies enter into an agreement with
the manufacturer to install that software on a mass manufactured
machine which is part of the reason that those machines are sold
at less cost. Sometimes and more often then not at a price less
then it actually costs the manufacturer to build it!
A specific example is how cell phone carriers operate. Lets say
you wanted to purchase a Apple iPhone 3GS. As of this writing
the cost of an iPhone with 16GB of storage is $199.00 but you
only get that price if you enter into a 2 year contract with the
carrier which is currently AT&T. In actuality that phone will
cost you close to $700.00 if you do not enter into a contract.
They sell the phone below cost and make profit on the other end
with the service! Computer manufacturers also employ these kind
of techniques which include service contracts, upgrades, on site
support, repair and of course selling more hardware to go with
it like printers, cables, bigger LCD displays, hard drives, external
backup drives, memory upgrades, etc.
The next thing we want to make you
aware of is how you will often see advertised prices from big
box retailers and online superstores/warehouses for computers
at ridiculously low prices. Sometimes just a few hundred dollars.
More often than not these are systems that are at EOL (end of
life) status and are no longer manufactured. (with that exact
configuration anyway) That's why you will never see a hardware
warranty offered no longer than three years even though now the
average useful life of a system is five years or better. It becomes
an availability of parts and repair time issue. A national distributor
or retail chain might buy 500 to a 100,000 or more of a certain
model which they get a great deal on because of the quantity involved.
What most people don't realize is that these low cost computers
(even if they have Windows 7 installed on them) may have been
manufactured 12-24 months ago or even longer. As the technologies
continue to be improved the older technologies decrease in price
because of faster chip speeds, RAM, availability of larger hard
drives etc. The price will always go down on older technologies
as the newer ones are introduced. A major distributor will carry
an item for so long which is usually until EOL (end-of-life) on
the manufacturing line and then those machines may be sold off
to other entities who then resell them at heavily discounted prices
to the end-user online and often the big-box retailers will keep
or purchase more EOL systems so that they can offer what the end-user
believes is an attractive deal in their Sunday advertising circulars.
One thing for sure is that they are not going to let them sit
there. They are going to be either dumped to a wholesale buyer
who will buy them in "large lot" quantities or they're
going to use them as enticements to get you to buy other updated
equipment. The end-user doesn't realize that that brand-new machine
they just bought may have been actually manufactured two years
ago. What's happening now is that since there was such a problem
with Vista machines they are now just upgrading those machines
to Windows 7 and selling them off cheap. The end-user summarizes
that since they just bought the computer it must be a brand-new
manufactured machine which is not always the case.
Be aware of the low price computer
because it will end up costing you more in the long run! It's
almost always going to be an end-of-life product which means the
manufacturer is no longer manufacturing that product on their
assembly line. The processor will be slower and it will quite
often have less memory and a smaller hard drive. Warranties are
usually no longer than 90 days to 1 year. If a video component or a motherboard
component fails then it's going to cost you more then the machine
is worth to fix it. The reason we sell high end solutions is because
speech recognition takes a lot of power and resources if you want
to achieve any decent accuracy. The faster the processor the faster
you can dictate! The more memory (RAM) that you have gives you
better accuracy with your dictation. If we provide you with a
high end solution built with quality components in the beginning
then your machine does not become obsolete in 18 months. If we configure
it correctly and teach you how to maintain it the machine
performs properly and you won't spending hours on the phone with
technical support. One last thing to mention here that is if you
develop a hardware or software problem that requires you to send
your machine off for repair we are going to make an attempt to
save your data on that machine. This is one of the reasons we
give you a backup image of the drive in the first place. If you
send it back to Dell, H/P, Sony or any of the other mass market
manufacturers and they can't find a hardware problem (which is
often the case) then they are going to format that hard drive
and you will lose any and all data that might be on it if you
don't have it backed up.
When you invest in a turnkey solution with us we are obligated to technically support that machine and
to help you troubleshoot problems should they occur. We will provide
you a properly optimized and configured solution to start with
and we provide you with the knowledge and training to keep that
machine running smoothly. We can give you remote support on-demand
which means we can actually log onto your machine and help you
troubleshoot any problem you might have. This is the one thing
that the mass market manufacturer is not going to do for you! If you
call Dell or any other large computer manufacturer for a support
issue you are going to likely get redirected to a support person
in India or some other country. At best you'll be connected to
a support center with 500 - 5000 people working in it and you'll probably
be waiting a while to get a "live person" on the phone. They are
not going to logon to your machine remotely so you can visually
explain the problem and you are going to have a hard problem understanding
them if you get redirected to a support center outside the U.S.
and you'll most likely have a communication problem and you could
be on a very frustrating support call for hours trying to get
the issue resolved. It's to our advantage to sell you an up-to-date
system with quality components in it and for us to do proper optimization
and set up before we ship it to you. It's really a win, win situation
for you as the end user and for us as the builder and integrator!
We provide you with a “training
toolbox” that will give you the proper hardware/software
utilities, knowledge, tips and training on how to use your software
applications and keep your system running optimally, healthy and
safe. This knowledge has been acquired over many years and we
share that knowledge with our clients so that they are more productive,
save time and money and have a true and safe fault tolerant system
so that your system is protected from spyware, viruses and other
unforeseen dangers. We will train you how to back up your voice
files, documents and critical data files as well as teach you
how to run simple “house keeping” tasks that will
keep your system optimized and performing at its best! Anybody
can sell hardware and software out of a box but what sets us apart
from the rest is having the knowledge and experience to put together
a system that has been properly configured and optimized in the
initial configuration of your customized solution. You can't substitute for experience!
One thing we know is that
our corporate and physician
clients do not want to be bothered with things like this. We don't
spend our time running corporations or trying to practice medicine
but we do spend our time every day trying to ensure reliable and
fault tolerant systems. We have many years of experience in doing
this and we know how to configure systems that work correctly
for our clients when they take them out of the box. We configure
our systems according to the way our client wants them done not
the way the mass-market manufacturer decides it should be done.
If you are having a hard time believing all of this this call
Dell, H/P, Gateway or any major computer manufacturer and tell
them that you want a machine configured with the operating system
only with no other software installed except for the drivers and
see what they tell you. Our machines are sold as work machines
and we really don't see any reason to have software that is useless
or unwanted residing on that work machine.
Why have we been successful in doing
business this way? When we configure a system we build it
from the ground up. Our systems are custom built for us starting
with the processor, RAM, hard drive, type of display and other
critical system components. The operating system is installed
and then patched and tested. (Does it start clean, fast and properly)?
Then we install utilities and applications and then test them
thoroughly. We do this many times as the configuration process occurs restarting a machine 35-50 times. When we have everything
installed and patched then we will try to do something to make
it fail. When that process is complete we then will burn it in
watching it for 24 - 48 hours and see if anything fails. We will
then build a voice file on that machine and test the speech
recognition software to make sure it works properly. Only
then after passing our internal rigorous tests do we let that
machine
go out to a client. Because hardware can and sometimes will fail,
we also back that machine up with a warranty when it leaves here.
If you are going to configure a system
properly for speech
recognition you have to use building blocks meaning you should
build everything in stages starting with the operating system
then adding your applications
as need be. It is impossible for a manufacturer/retailer to do
this because everybody's needs are different. We are not saying
that if you don't purchase a bundled solution from us that your
system is not going to work. What we are saying however is the
system configured properly and able to provide a useful working
tool for you on a continuous basis? We don't use a "cookie
cutter" approach but rather spend lots of time to make sure
the configuration and the optimization process is preformed properly the first time.
We look forward to working with you on your speech recognition
solution. See our custom turnkey solutions.
 Contact
us for more information
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