About six weeks ago, Jason posted Vista, Office, and Outlook 2007 are a Nightmare over on Spend Matters. Since that time, one hundred comments have materialized in response to this post, and thirty three of those comments, or one-third, have been with respect to Dell machines – and similar problems. Furthermore, the first Flaming Laptop, if I recall correctly, was a Dell.

In my view, a good supplier is one that delivers a good product of good quality at a good price in a good time frame. It seems that Dell is only hitting three of these four metrics: quick delivery, competitive price, and comparable hardware power – quality, it seems, has slipped through the cracks. Quality assurance requires you test everything you use in the construction and delivery of your product and service – not just what you manufacture in-house. Dell seems to have forgotten that. It doesn’t matter what you are buying, who you are buying it from, or what their reputation is. Any supplier can make a mistake. And if you’re the one delivering the product to the end customer – it’s your responsibility to make sure all mistakes are caught before a product is shipped. At this point, all I can say is I’m glad they’re not making pet food, otherwise, with the recent fiasco, I do not think that a single pet in North America would be safe!