Dodgy hardware

Brother's problems with their multifunction printers as reported in today's Sydney Morning Herald don't surprise anyone in the industry.

We haven't recommended Brother for years. Their printers have been flakey and the software that controls the multifunction units has been dreadful and buggy.

From a tech's point of view, these sort of problems are the worst. The client expects you to be able to fix them, but you can't do anything about an "error 41".

In the worst case, you've come out on a "no fix, no fee" basis. You can't fix it, so you don't get paid. It's another reason why I'm dubious about doing jobs with this guarantee.

The quotes from the techs are instructive. My guess is some of these guys spent a lot of non chargeable time on these problems.

The lesson here for a customer is to do your research before buying. Have a look at the models on the market and which ones meet your needs. Then fire up the search engine of your choice and type in the model name with the word "problem" at the end.

That way, you go fully informed into the market and hopefully will avoid a dog. It also means your computer tech will love you too.