Memo to Carly - HP customers need help!

I ordered ProLiant servers, but all I got was this lousy fan

Letters Last week, HP's Carly Fiorina moved to calm customer fears about product shipments. She promised a crowd of investors that HP's broken supply chain was all fixed. At the time, we asked the dear Register flock if this was indeed the case. The overwhelming response? Hell, no! (Identities withheld to protect the innocent.)

We ordered ProLiant DL320's last month, and it took over 3 weeks for all the parts to arrive. 2 weeks after the order was placed the extra RAM arrived, no servers, just the RAM. I guess when we turned down the overpriced installation service that applied to the optional components also. Then a week later the 'servers' arrived. At least HP said it was the servers. In reality it was 2 fans for a rack. A few irate phone calls latter and 2 more days, and we got the servers.

The other servers will come from Dell. HP shipping is too slow and the DL320s are so loud! I would go into detail about the salesperson who sold the servers and their confusing and poorly written quote, but that is not HP's fault.

Name supplied

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My employer currently has a small amount of product that was ordered on Aug. 13th. However, we only just found out that the product was kitted on Sept. 14th. There is no available answer for the one month delay, nor is there likely to be one except for blaming it on the SAP migration.

On the small pieces of the order that we have received, we are seeing double shipments. We had ordered 26 SATA drives, but received 52 with the accompanying paperwork not matching any of the hard drives shipped.

There is a whole host of issues that are going on every day, and even new orders that are put into the system are still being found to have errors, if they are found at all.

If we had been in an all-fired hurry, we too would have abandoned our order and moved to another vendor. IBM might cost a bit more, but every single time I've called them for product (some dozen times this year) they have had exactly what I've wanted, confirmed to be in a warehouse that was no more than 3 days away.

If HP Chief Fiorina is saying things are "all clear," she is completely without a grasp of the realities of this situation. Or more to the point, maybe she is fully engaged and knows that if the truth became mainstream there would be blood it the water.

By the way, our sales rep told us the same thing Carly is saying now, some three months ago....

Name supplied

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As a previous customer of Compaq (since the merger I REFUSE to identify my self as an HP customer) I can say that the internal culture of HP is one that needs to be addressed not just the shipements of equipment. I have spent as long as 2.5 months waiting for my laptop to be returned (with what seemed to be related to the SAP debocle) and dispite much esclation it took the fact that I was a persistent SOB that I got anywhere (and the fact I had to E-mail the CEO AND the internal help desk of HP) Suffice it to say, my next laptop purchace was with Dell, dealing with India never felt so good :)

Pat D.

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Is it fixed? Not in the least. Recently (2 weeks ago) ordered a simple base server through HP Direct and had it's ship date bumped out 3 times. Cancelled the order and got it through distribution overnight. Our corporate policy is now NOT to order through Compaq direct, but to order everything through distribution so that we can be assured we're getting our order on time. We're telling our customers that anything they order through direct is at risk of not being shipped. Throughout this entire debacle HP lied to us, and failed to provide any (much less good) customer service. Phone calls weren't returned, ship dates were promised and not met, and orders were totally bollixed up. Sent an email to various people in the supply chain saying we were fed up and got nowhere. We've been a Compaq/HP dealer for over 20 years in two different companies - we're now looking at IBM servers.

Name supplied

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I enjoy reading your articles about HP, esp. when the focus is on Carly. I was recently working at one of the HP engineering facilities as a contractor. We actually did start getting equipment in early September that had been on order for months. All at once. In July one didn't have a prayer of getting any equipment internally, no matter how important your group was. It was all going to the customers.

Does that mean the UNIX division is doing just fine? Oh, no. In the first half of September all contractors working in the Enterprise Unix Division were let go. I don't know the number, but upwards of 200 was mentioned as a possibility. Apparently the financials aren't looking good for this quarter so they're covering their asses. There's also been re-orgs and some development work shifted overseas.

Name supplied

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We placed an order with HP Direct over two months ago for some Proliant servers and they just arrived today. We'll see how fast they can deliver the next order.

Tom B.

Grin and delay it, folks. We hope to bring you more on phase II of the SAP migration soon. Send help! ®