Perhaps The VAR Guy pursued the wrong career. He’s blogging for free, but could be making $229 per hour or so — that’s nearly $460,000 a year — troubleshooting Windows Vista PCs for his neighbors. That may sound a little far fetched. But check out this amazing math, using some quick cost estimates from The Geek Squad.
Consumers are actually paying Geek Squad a hefty fee ($129 to $229) to set up and optimize their Windows Vista PCs. Can you imagine paying Steve Jobs to come over and plug in your iMac? Or calling Linus Torvalds to re-boot Linux? The VAR Guy thinks not. Here’s a look at the fees Geek Squad is charging to keep all of those poor Windows Vista customers up-and-running.
First, a little bit of background. The photo accompanying this blog entry features a house in The VAR Guy’s neighborhood. (Nice crib, eh?) One of The VAR Guy’s neighbor’s purchased a Dell laptop about a year ago, featuring Windows Vista and 1 gigabyte of RAM. Well, we all know where this story is heading. The laptop took forever to boot up and didn’t function when multiple applications were running.
Obviously, something must have been terribly wrong. Or, maybe not. In this case, The Geek Squad determined that the laptop had too many craplets (free software applets) installed. Plus, Vista was a memory hog. (Amazing forensics work by The Geek Squad, don’t you think?)
This same scenario repeated itself recently at several neighboring homes. Perhaps it’s time to set up a neighborhood watch, protecting everyone from Vista and providing everyone safe passage to Macintoshes or Linux.
This Is Laughable
Oh, and about those Geek Squad support costs. For $129, Geek Squad offers to “deliver your computer and set it up with you.” An agent, the Geek Squad says, will:
- Stay as long as it takes to ensure your system is running properly.
- Get you connected to the Internet.
- Perform a Network Security Check to keep your files safe.
The VAR Guy doesn’t know how long it takes to work such miracles in the Vista world. But he can safely say his MacBook Pro and his Dell PC running Ubuntu each took less than 10 minutes to set up. Oh, and there were no craplets or annoying security applets to deactivate.
But Wait. It Gets Worse
Back in the Vista world, there are plenty of additional services to purchase. For $229, Geek Squad offers a Basic Security consultation that will “maximize your computer’s performance with more than 100 enhancements.” For that $229 sum, an agent will:
- Personalize your computer to your needs.
- Remove all unnecessary clutter. (”Including Vista?” The VAR Guy wonders.)
- Install critical updates.
- Install security and privacy software to ward off viruses and spyware.
Translation: For a mere $229, Geek Squad will remove software you don’t want and charge you for software you wouldn’t need if Vista was designed correctly in the first place.
Getting Back On Track
“How the heck did the computer industry degrade to this point?” The VAR Guy wonders. Perhaps Vista isn’t all that bad, but the mere existence of these Geek Squad services suggests that the world of Windows truly has lost its way.
There are 10 ways Microsoft could easily fix Windows Vista and make life easier for consumers. And there are at least 10 reasons why Vista has missed the mark so far.
Some folks hope Windows 7 will address Vista’s shortcomings. But The VAR Guy isn’t holding his breath. His company has already standardized on Apple Macintoshes. And one of his consumer Dell PCs is running Ubuntu Linux. So far, that combination has managed to protected him from Vista… and the Geek Squad.
Perhaps The VAR Guy pursued the wrong career. He’s blogging for free, but could be making $229 per hour or so — that’s nearly $460,000 a year — troubleshooting Windows Vista PCs for his neighbors. Alas, The VAR Guy was never good at making money. But he’s great at spending it.
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If you have Vista, you need help. Try OnForce and tell them how much you want to spend, or Geeks on Call - both provide the support, but are less expensive than Geek Squad.
“If you have Vista, you need help.” That’s nice.
I have shifted to Linux couple years ago. All what I need for now to keep my OS up-to-date, stable, secure and eyecandy is an Internet connection. When I first installed Linux, the only thing I needed was some time to get used to KDE desktop environment and a small manual or howto to refer to in situations, when I could not guess the correct actions myself.
BTW, I used the manual only twice
You have Vista - you need help (a head doctor, to say directly)
You have something of Unix family - you need 10 minutes of time to make the fine tunings and enjoy.
My parents just bought a new Toshiba P200 laptop which came with Vista. Our first order of business was to “downgrade” it (and I question whether or not we’re actually “downgrading”) to Windows XP. Our second order of business was to install Ubuntu Linux 7.10 on it. They only run Windows XP at their computer class. The rest of the time, it’s Ubuntu.
I have run Linux on Dell laptop (work supplied) for about 2 or 3 years and have run Linux at home for about 5 or 6 years now.
For 99% of my uses, I can stay in Linux. I have some hardware configuration software that I run that is Win32, but it all runs under Crossover Office so I don’t even need to boot into Windows for that.
IMO, Windows is irrelevant.
Donovan, thanks for the note. Check out http://www.allaboutubuntu.com - another of Nine Live Media’s websites focused on the Ubuntu market.
[...] Now, it’s time to rediscover Ubuntu. As you’ll recall, I purchased an Ubuntu PC from Dell back in July 2007. It was a great investment. And a great alternative to having the Geek Squad teach me how to troubleshoot Windows Vista. [...]
[...] TheVARGuy.com: Is Windows Vista Making Geek Squad Rich? [...]
Its international. I upgraded my web connection a few months ago, and along with the easy to use router, there was a note asking me if I wanted someone to come and set it up for me. For the low cost of about £70 ($140) I think. It took me about two minutes to get it set up on my network, and working with both a Linux box and a Windows HTPC. And I’ve since figured out all by my self how to set up a wireless connection to it for my N800, complete with WPA security.
Bear in mind, that this is a router that comes with a CD that includes an easy to use setup program and video tutorials, and all the user has to do is plug into the power socket, plug a phone line into a clearly market RJ11 socket, and plug an Ethernet cable which comes with it into a RJ45 socket, which is marked and colour coded. Then type in their user name and password. Money well unspent.
I think the biggest problem with Geek Squad is the technicians try to sell you products rather than fix your issue(s). My computer had a bad sector so my computer crashes often. But the Geek Squad came four times and spent countless hours. Guess what, they can’t fix it.
In brief, I went with this small local company in Toronto (http://computersquad.ca), they identified the problem and problem resolved.
Karen: Alas, for many US consumers the Geek Squad is the only on-site support brand they know.