Not to try and beat a dead horse or anything, but I must concur with some of the other posts which point out some contradictory statements and positions of the 3 manufacturers.
If, in fact, most of the failures occur well within the one year period and if, in fact, hard disk reliability has truly improved each year, it would rather stand to reason that the cost of offering a 3 year warranty should have decreased each year, as presumably less and less drives would be failing beyond the 1 year mark. I, for one, find it disturbing that all 3 vendors (and others?) reached the same conclusion.. and, oh by the way effective on the same date of this year(?!),.. and that conclusion was to drop their warranty period on their consumer-grade drives. I don't argue that the cost of supporting a 1 yr. is not less than that of a 3 yr. period.. that should be obvious, for if one single drive fails after year 1, it costs more to replace that drive than to not (duh). What I do argue is their across-the-board concerto about how (paraphrasing) "since drives are better, last longer, are more sturdy, the need for a 1 year warranty is diminished". Hmm.. that is precisely when I would expect a manufacturer to offer a LONGER warranty, not shorten it up. A consumer, given a financial choice, might opt out of a longer warranty if it were an 'at cost' option, in this situation.. but it's somewhat contradictory that the asserted improvements in reliability and tolerance to g-forces and other effects would naturally lend themselves to a shortened warranty period. I don't but that, one single bit. It's a matter of a 3 yr. warranty being more expensive to honor than a 1 yr. Period. End of explanation. Next question, please. Spare us the smoke screen.
The other thing that occurs to me, and this is where I hope the market takes these companies to task, is that for the past year or two, IBM consumer-grade ATA drives have been arguably the most attractive performing AND most attractive price/performance drives on the market (WD 8MB owners, pls refrain.. that's a 'special edition'). What's kept IBM from stomping the likes of WD, Maxtor, and Seagate are IBM's reputed RELIABILITY issues, lower MTBF ratings (admitting to reliability issues?). Few would argue that IBM's drives were at the top of the heap, consistently, but many potential owners (myself included) were turned off and traded some measure of performance in exchange for a perceived reliability increase in one of the other makers which was, in turn, backed by a 3yr warranty (in Maxtor's case, a "no quibble" that was very attractive). So, I would ask aloud, how many potential IBM buyers might NOW be swayed to one of these other makers now that their perceived reliability + warranty advantage is GONE. I, for one, will certainly have IBM back on my shortlist moving forward. Whereas before, they were not on the list, now with a 1 yr from all makers and the playing field even, I will probably jump at the performance of IBM and leave the "safety and comfort" of Maxtor behind me.. a choice they have just made on my behalf. Gee, thanks. Hope that works out well for you. Now that they must all compete on performance and almost solely on performance, I would expect IBM sales to rise against those other three as a result.
If you cut throught the spin the vendors tried to create, almost as perfectly in sync as their announced warranty reductions (does anyone else smell "collusion"?!), then it's clear the one and only reason is to lower their operating costs. Nothing more. Forget about the rhetoric they spun their story (it is, afterall, one single story you will note). It's purely a non-customer benefitting cost cutting measure. If you're a shareholder, it might make you happy. If you're a customer (or potential customer) it does nothing to make you happy, even if you are understanding of their need to trim expenses. Personally, I suspect all the vendors making the same change, effective the same day (uhm, 'scuse me?) is proof of collusion, especially when you consider the likelihood of what would happen if only one or two of them made the switch... those dropping warranties to 1 year would loose a fair bit of business to those who kept it at 3 years (assuming similar price/performance ratios were met). The only thing that makes sense in this is that they MUST have consulted, directly or otherwise, and reached an agreement (formal, or otherwise) to do this in concert with each other. Of course, you will NOT likely find this on paper anywhere... afterall, that might be illegal. =D
-icmp
Future IBM Hard Drive Owner?
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