Taxi Driver Online

Dell make great kit, but their slaes and customer service leave a lot to be desired.

Shame really, as it spoils a good product - good warranties too.

I like Dell too, I'm using a Dell Dimension 8200 at this very moment.

Of course, many taxi offices may have their own beloved PCs and don't want to consider changing them all just because they're getting in a new B+D package.

But I have seen the insides of machines that live in taxi offices and let's say that they don't live in the cleanest environment.

There is a nice little article on the Diplomat website (no, I didn't write it!). Go to http://www.diplomat.co.uk , go to the left hand menu item 'Computer Hardware' and click on 'Computers'.

If you don't like Dell then just ignore the first paragraph, but do read the section on 'Life expectancy of a PC' as this applies to each and every make of machine including the one you are reading this message on. The life expectance figures are straight from the Intel and AMD websites.

Seen what the fan on your processor looks like lately?

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Having a picnic

Rob

Further to the above did you see BBC Watchdog tonight?
There was a very good piece about Dell.
They say that the amount of complaints that they get about Dell has steadily increased over the past couple of years.
Their results were.

System quality = Poor
Customer Service = Fail
Delivery of items = Fail (They failed to deliver items on time if at all).
Refunds = Fail.

My experience of any Dell machine that I have come across is that in my opinion it is built of cheap and mostly inferior components and they are not the most powerful of machines.

Every machine that I have ever owned at home has been built by myself with top quality components and I have had 100% reliability with all of them, I would put any of my machines against a Dell machine of equal components and put them through any speed or reliability tests.

Rob, please do not think that I am bashing your system, as I am not, I think that it is one of the most user friendly and probably one of, if not the best out there at present I just think that maybe you should look at offering a few different options to the customer.

Also you did not answer 2 of my questions.

1 why the overinflated price increase for TomTom intergration?
2 why no base pricing published

I also have a further question, considering that once installed the system basically runs between the host and mobiles, why the ongoing cost per vehicle (forgive me if you have already explained this somewhere in this topic). Why not just a price per installation for support and upgrades?

Rgds
Jambo

Poor Dell. For full story see http://www.bbc.co.uk/watchdog/reports/index3.shtml.

They are letting themselves down. I don't think their reliability of product was the issue on Watchdog, it was their poor delivery and customer support.

I do take much of the stuff on Watchdog with a large pinch of salt. I remember they did a thing on Dyson vacuum cleaners that nearly took out the company but it was all down to sensation seeking BBC journos making a big deal out of nothing. My old cleaner went bang last month so what did I get? - I got a Dyson. And it sucks!

No, really, it does.

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Having a picnic

Wish my girlfreind did.

Hi,
We are using the Cordic System. Installed end of October 2003. Very smooth change over from old system. Training was excellent and system WORKS BETTER THAN EXPECTED.
I spent 2 years looking at systems, demonstrations, trade shows etc. before deciding to invest in the Cordic System. This is a next generation system not just an improvement of PMR or existing Data-head technology.
It may be a little more expensive to use than PMR; which only costs an anual licence fee, but when it is set against the advantages it is well justified.
Anyone who wants to see it work is welcome to make a site visit.

Are you Poole Town Taxis or Poole Radio Cabs?

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A member of the Hire or Reward Industry

Do us a favour Mr Poole, add www.taxi-driver.co.uk to the favourites on IPacs/PDAs.

Alex

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ʎɐqǝ uo pɹɐoqʎǝʞ ɐ ʎnq ı ǝɯıʇ ʇsɐן ǝɥʇ sı sıɥʇ

Simply the best taxi forum in the whole wide world. www.taxi-driver.co.uk

Hi, what would you like to know.
We installed Cordic in Oct 2003. It was our biggest single investment in anything and I beleive it is the best investment decision I have made.
I am happy to answer any questions on our experience of the system and Cordic as a Company. I have no financial connection with Cordic and they have not given me any enducements to promote the system, though I have managed to get a promise of lunch out of Rob next time he is in this area.

I think he is desperate to see it in action.

Perhaps Rob can buy you both lunch.

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IDFIMH

Are you prepared to tell us what the old system was, and why you thought re investment was neccesary?

[/quote]Are you prepared to tell us what the old system was, and why you thought re investment was neccesary?

Our old system was a computer booking system without data dispatch and the supplier was no longer supporting it. We needed a new system and data dispatch is far better than verbal dispatch. I spent 2 years looking for a system and they were all PMR based. Then the first GPRS system appeared and I was impressed with the technology, it was a new concept. I looked at suppliers and Cordic was in my opinion was the best. I found dealing with a company that is technology and developement driven rather than sales driven gave me confidence in the product and the back-up. Cordic's "weakness" is that it does not have a mob of slick salesmen and too often the best ideals and products are passed over because a cheaper inferior product gets the hard sell. This technology will certainly become the preferred option over PMR based systems and more suppliers will develope thier own similar packages based on GPRS. Cordic have a head start and by far the best system, if they continue to develope and refine the system they will be the one everyone compares thier system with.

Jambo - while I fully appreciate the importance of your research - and you are right in checking this out, our experience of Dell's products has been nothing but exemplary. Of all the systems supplied, we have had 100% uptime and no performance issues. If your desire is to only buy our software and run it on a machine of your making then give us a call - however, we are at liberty to charge you an installation, configuration, factory and field acceptance tests on a T&M basis. Alternatively you could save yourself £5K per machine and know that if something we have supplied goes wrong we'll fix it asap. A downed machine means no booking = no despatching = idle drivers = no one is making any money = no one is happy. This is an equation I cannot afford to let happen. I need to rely on products that I know arn't going to let us down....hence our decision to use Dell. We could have chosen HP, IBM, whoever but Dell gives us and our customers the best deal.


...."and how many times a day doth those mythical beasts become re-booted or tinkered with in an unearthly fashion me wonders eh?"



As I've said in previous posts we are constantly reviewing everything we do - and if you called us you would see that we do offer many install options. However, we have to supply something that makes economic sense to us and our customers. The cost of the supplied PC's is practically insignificant to the overall cost of the solution so I'm surprised as to why this is an issue?



Hmmm, forgive me but I thought within the context of your posts these were statements not questions. I can't comment on what was said at a trade-show. The £500 figure usually crops up as the difference between our GPS/SatNav vs.non-GPS/SatNav offering. Out of context you could say - hey they are charging £500 for TomTom. Well, if you had hung around long enough you will have also heard that most of this figure is the extra charge for incorporating the auto-despatch/nearest driver functionality into the system, not just for adding a GPS receiver. The software requirement between the two offerings is quite significant hence the price difference....and even if it was £500 what we do to TomTom to make it usable is worth that just alone!


Oh Lord not this again! Tell you what - find out what Auriga are charging then take off 25% for a good-ball park figure


If you buy on a cash basis we you have no on-going costs with us (Cordic) other than maintenance and even that is optional. However, because the handsets use a GPRS service plan supplied by those nice O2 or Orange people you have to pay them a monthly subscription - the same as your mobile phone. Currently between £6 - £9 for 600-900 jobs + some trackings worth of data. This is arranged twixt the carriers and you - we are not involved. If on the other hand you take our 2 year lease purchase option, you pay up front for the hardware and then a paltry weekly sum to cover airtime, maintenance and software repayment. After 2 years its all yours. You can then elect to tell us to get stuffed and pay O2 or Orange for a GPRS service plan or continue to pay a significantly reduced airtime and maintenance bill with us..the choice is yours.

Now, so I can put your enquiry into some context, where are you, how big is your fleet, what sort of job turn-over do you do, are you owner operator, operator, black-cab or ph and what are you running to manage the fleet at the moment?
Later
Rob

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I might be here but my soul's gone golfing

Rob

Thank you very much for your candid replies, reading through your postings I had wrongly come to the conclusion that the weekly charge was in addition to any airtime charges, but from what you have explained I was wrong for which I apologise. From what you have explained the ongoing costs are extremely good value for money and makes your system very attractive.

As I have stated in my previosu postings your system is probably the best of the GPRS offerings on the market at present. I have recently seen teh new Xeta system which seems to be very similar to your own but not as pretty or as easy to rad given the screen size, they are also, I am told, having problems with the software continually locking the XDAII and freezing the screen.

We are not yet ready to go live with a system as yet, but I will most defintitley be contacting you in the near future with regards to taking a closer look at your system.

We will be looking to start very small with maybe 5-10 vehicles witht eh view to growing.

Many thanks for your replies and you candid answers.

Rgds
Jamie
London-Taxi

Rob

Just one further question/statement, when at the show the salesperson that I spoke to did not explain the Tom Tom connection properly even though I did pose a few questions at him regarding this, he was very coy with his replies. I aksed him if the vehicle tracking still operated without the Tom Tom Sat Nav installed, he stated that it did, but from your reply to my previous posting I assume that this is not the case. Could you please clarify this point for me.
I know that this is probably not the salesperson's fault as I believe he was not a full time salesperson but ont he software development side of the business.

Rgds
Jamie