The Hewlett-Packard Chronicles

By: Jack Koenig, Management Consultant/Network Consultant

I purchased a T45 multifunction printer from Computer Discount Warehouse, a company with whom I’ve been doing business with ever since they opened their first little store in Northbrook, Illinois. The purchase was for a client interested in having his home office networked to his company’s VPN. The home network was simple: two Thinkpads and a Hewlett-Packard G85 printer for the office section and two Hewlett-Packard Pavilions with a Hewlett-Packard T45 printer for the children.

Fine... no big deal. Except I found the T45 couldn’t be used with a print server in spite on its advertising trumpeting “Communications For The Entire Office.”

Once again, no big deal. Just cable it to one of the networked Pavilions and let the other print through it. Except that didn’t work either. In fact, I couldn’t get that lousy old T45 printer to operate on any one of their four computers regardless if they were networked or set up as a standalone! And it didn’t matter if it was Win 98, Millennium, or Win 2000, it simply wouldn’t work. And neither could Hewlett-Packard’s tech support personnel get it to operate. In fact their tech support blamed everything on Microsoft for the problem, an idea I guess who’s time has come.

My exasperated client finally told me to get it out of his house or I would lose his business account. I replaced it with a Canon C555 which worked just fine, thank you!.

I took the T45 to my office and tried it on an additional four computers under two different operating systems. Zero! Zip! Nada! It wouldn’t work with any of them. So far, eight computers operating under three different environments and nothing!

HP’s staff then advised me to download a new driver for those computers operating under Win2000 Pro. Still nothing! HP then sent out the same driver on a CD. Again, nada.

I worked with HP’s tech support personnel for an additional two sessions, the first of which lasted over two hours and the second, just under an hour. After these three hours, I was once again told it was Microsoft’s fault and I would have to download and install a “dot4.sys” file from Microsoft’s website before the problem could be escalated. I did so and still zip.

I called Hewlett-Packard’s tech support again, hoping to have the problem escalated and simply exchange the printer for one that worked. By this time I had already chewed up 44.5 hours of my time attempting to get a lousy $254 printer to work. But no! The next support guy didn’t even take the time to read his predecessor’s report. Instead, and in spite of my protests, he plowed aimlessly ahead with the same old same old, forcing me to repeat everything. For some reason I failed to ask him to identify his real occupation was at HP. Considering the previous guy was a disgruntled assembly line worker, perhaps this guy was a janitor?

But then this fellow had me do something which has rendered one of my office computers virtually worthless: he insisted I delete a number of files over and above those his predecessor required me to delete. And after challenging his directions, he as much as told me I was on my own if I didn’t comply.

What a mistake I made following his arrogant demands. The result was the loss of the computer’s “Add Printer” icon. And guess what? He didn’t have a clue on how to restore it! By now I had spent 47.75 hours attempting to get that lousy $254 printer to work, and the only thing I had to show for it was a still failed printer and a crippled computer.

Fortunately, HP’s tech support failed to grind me down. In fact, they energized me to fight back by making as many as possible aware of my experiences. This includes publicizing this debacle in my consulting firm’s quarterly newsletter (read by several hundred business leaders), discussing the subject at various Chamber and home based business group meetings, and publishing the fiasco on the Boycott Network.

It’s high time companies such as Hewlett-Packard learn they can no longer hide their deeds. A window to the world is only a mouse click away.

And that lousy little $254 printer? Well, I’m donating it to an organization who intends to use it as a fund raising gimmick: they’re going to sell tickets for an opportunity to destroy it with a sledge hammer! Believe me, that will get great press coverage... you can bet on it!

The author of this report has worked in the computer field for over 35 years with a career which included consulting at one of the “Big Three,” Systems and Programming Manager at a Fortune 500 company, Director of Data Processing at a Fortune 100 company, president of a mainframe service bureau, president of an electronics firm engaged in the design and manufacture of special purpose computers and electronics,  and finally as president of a highly respected management consulting and network consulting firm serving the upper Midwest.

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