Transactions between the mutually ignorant
Apt as the title of this post might be for describing some of the financial shenanigans that have gone on, I am actually referring to the average PC buyer and the average PC sales clerk. A typical home PC user knows very little of all the details of a PC and its peripherals and has to rely on what others tell him or her. Unfortunately, the sales personnel in places like Best Buy often don’t really know much about computers either. So both the buyer and the sales person end up relying on the propaganda from Microsoft and the OEMs. The buyer often ends up spending too much for a system he doesn’t really need. Buying a computer is a transaction where the average person is basically in the dark. Steven Vaughan-Nichols describes how this puts big obstacles in the way of the sale of any operating system that isn’t Windows Vista:
I was looking for a mini-notebook the other day for my mom-in-law at a Best Buy when I happened to hear a senior sales guy telling a newbie the 411 on selling PCs. “You sell them either Vista, or, if you have to, point them to the Macs because those computers work. That XP stuff is old junk and Linux doesn’t work.”
Oh did I have words with him! And, as I talked with him, once more I was reminded about the difference between a used car salesman and a computer salesman: the used car salesman knows when he’s lying.
As our conversation continued I discovered that while he knew many people were unhappy with their Vista PC purchases — he told me most of them complained about older software and hardware incompatibilities — Vista was still the newest operating system so, it was, somehow, the best.
And, this mind you, was from someone who’ve I seen selling PCs at this particular store for more than five years. If this is what experienced sales help is like, God help poor customers who come in and just want a good computer for their money.
It wasn’t that this guy was shilling for Microsoft. It was that he really didn’t know any better. With help like this is it any wonder why good people make bad operating system choices?
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