A Tale of a Third Company

I spent the summer of 1970 in Japan as an exchange student, working for the Matsushita company in Osaka. It was and is one of the largest makers of electronics and is known in the west by its brand names Panasonic, Technics, and National. (In recognition of this the company just now announced that on October 1, 2008, it will change its name to Panasonic Corporation.)

The major attraction at the time was Expo '70, the first World's Fair held in Japan. It took place in Osaka and its theme was ‘Progress and Harmony for Mankind’. Seventy-seven countries attended. The US exhibited, among other things, one of the three moon landers and a large moon rock.

Expo ‘70 was intended to "put Japan on the map" just as the 1964 Olympic Summer Games had been, which were the first ever held in a non-western country. They had originally been scheduled for 1940.

By 1970 Japan had made enormous economic strides since its defeat in 1945 and achieved extraordinary rates of growth. It was held up as a model to other countries for its industrial policy, its novel methods of production, and its legendary quality control. There were not only universal admiration, but also stirrings of unease. Not unlike China today Japan was beginning to be seen as a potential economic threat that could outperform the United States.

It was therefore tremendously exciting to spend several months in Japan, working, traveling extensively, and, of course, visiting the Expo almost every night. But that is another tale. This tale is not about Matsushita or IBM or Dell. Compared to these giants the company in this tale is tiny and low tech, but it has, nevertheless, impressed me immensely.

On my way back to Europe I stopped for a few days in Hong Kong, which was then still British. Strolling through Kowloon I discovered a tailor shop called David's Shirts and on the spur of the moment had a number of shirts made. I enjoyed the well-made and nicely tailored shirts, but soon forgot about the transaction.

In 1987 I worked in Jakarta as a United Nations adviser to the Indonesian government and in this capacity was slated to spend a week in Tokyo in meetings with NEC. I would go on from there to California for some home leave. The flight logistics required a layover in Hong Kong and at the hotel I saw a small ad for David's Shirts. With a mixture of nostalgia and curiosity I looked them up. Since I was only staying overnight an order seemed impossible, but they assured me that, no problem, it could be delivered when I stopped again in Hong Kong on my back.

Measurements were taken and I mentioned casually that I had been a customer 17 years ago. They conferred in Chinese and then told me they should still have my measurements. One of the tailors busied himself with drawers and shelves at the back of the store and, indeed, after a few minutes he came back with my record containing all personal details. This seemed an impossible feat. Even in the electronic age, which company can locate a customer’s record after 17 years? All these records were handwritten, stored in a very confined space, and in Chinese, which to a western mind would seem to make storage and retrieval immensely more difficult. Not only did they find my data, the measurements then and the measurements now were still the same, which pleased me no end and must have contributed to my high esteem of David's Shirts.

While I was in flight from Tokyo to Los Angeles on Northwest Airlines on August 16, 1987, another Northwest flight crashed on take-off from Detroit with a loss of 156 lives. My return was delayed by a few days and I sent a post card to David's informing them of the delay. When I finally made it back to my hotel in Hong Kong I found on my bed two neat packages containing ten beautifully tailored shirts.

Judging from its web site (http://www.davidsshirts.com/) the company is still in business. Amazingly, its address: 33, Kimberley Road, Kowloon, is still the same as the one listed on the label in my shirt collar. Yes, I still have a few of these shirts and they still fit - sort of.

A Tale of Two Companies

In the late 1960s I worked for Control Data in South Africa helping to install and run a triple mainframe system at Iscor, the large steel conglomerate. While there, I saw an ad in Datamation about the IBM System/360, which was then quite new. I wrote to IBM for more information, but none came. So, after several weeks, I wrote to Thomas J. Watson Jr., the CEO of IBM.

Very quickly a reply arrived on magnificent stationary signed by Mr. Watson himself, or so it seemed. The letter explained that, unfortunately, no additional information could be sent since I had not provided a return address. The package also contained the asked-for literature and a copy of my original letter. It was hand-written on a one-page aerogram common at the time and it, indeed, lacked a return address. My first reaction was one of deep embarrassment, but that was soon replaced by a feeling of immense admiration for a company that would store, somewhere in the world, what was essentially a worthless piece of paper and have the ability and will to retrieve it and to respond to my unjustified complaint. This was before the age of the Internet, large-scale databases, and even fax. The goodwill thus engendered stayed with me all my life, whether considering IBM products, buying IBM stock, or dealing with IBM people.

Some time ago I bought a PC from Dell. It was only the second PC I bought, the first had been the original IBM PC. In between I had built a number of PCs from scratch, buying parts in computer stores. But this had become uneconomical, even if I valued my time as nothing.

The Dell system worked well until I installed a second hard drive. Curiously, it would transfer data correctly, but take 5-7 times longer than it should. Thus copying a large picture folder would stretch from a few minutes to an hour.

I called Dell support and was told a number of times that this was a third party drive and "we do not troubleshoot third party equipment". I could quickly show that the original Dell drive, as well as my new "third party" drive (which was the same make as the Dell), and another drive I had salvaged all had the same problem of excessive tardiness when connected as a second drive. All three worked flawlessly as the primary drive. I also pointed out that there was no prohibition against adding third party equipment to a Dell system. There is even a section in the official manual on how to install a second hard drive.

Pursuing this turned into a morale-sapping nightmare. There were the endless waits on hold and the many disconnected calls. Once I was given a non-existing number, once I ended up in an endless loop. All the young Indian women - and they were mostly women - were charming and unfailingly polite, but they all insisted on starting with their script from the beginning. After a while I worked my way up to managers. None of them was interested in the problem, all wanted to get rid of me, one was downright rude.

After about three weeks of daily calls the verdict was that Dell does not support second hard drives, whether third party or their own. However, I could return the system, which I did, paying the freight both ways.

Incredibly, a few weeks later I bought another Dell computer. I had been told that they had never before seen my problem, so I figured the chance of ending up with the same problem was infinitesimal. Although I bought a different model, it came with the identical problem. This time I did not even bother to call Dell support. I solved the problem myself and it took only a minute to fix. The BIOS entry for the second hard drive was set up incorrectly. Perhaps I should have thought of this sooner. But none of the Dell "experts" had thought of it, the manual section on how to install a second hard drive did not mention it, and Dell cannot assume that all customers are conversant with the BIOS.

I then wrote a letter to Mr. Dell. It was returned to me unopened, by company policy I assume, and the thought occurred to me that Mr. Dell is not Mr. Watson and that Dell, the company, is not IBM.