[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Asus Takes Top Spot In Reliability Report here

[mpheadley]

OS11? You there? Hello?
Remember what I said about Asus? That I can build computers with quality parts like Asus mobos for much less than buying a Mac?
More evidence Mac users (but also cheap PC users) are wasting their money

[smax013]

It is rather difficult to really gage that analysis. In reality, you can come up with an analysis that says just about anything you want depending on what data you use, how you use it, and how you might selectively choose data. With out knowing the full analysis details (i.e. what data did they specifically use and what formulas did they use to get their scores, etc), it is tough to tell what the analysis is really telling you. This is why the College football BCS stuff uses multiple computer polls...each poll uses different data, weighs that data differently, etc.

Now, it appears that nominally the formula used is roughly bases on market share and how many calls are made to the RescuePC phone number for that brand. If so, then do they "adjust" (and if so, how) for whether some users of some companies might be less inclined to call the RescuePC phone number...i.e. are all computer users of each brand equally inclined to call RescuePC?

And I will also note that it is ONE data point...i.e. it is a report for one quarter. Even the author of the report (in the article and the press release for the report) states that Asus's number should be taken with a grain of salt for now. From the press release:

> "The results are in, and although ASUS is the leader this quarter with a reliability score of 972, ASUS's reliability score should be taken with a grain of salt, even though it was more than 600 points ahead of IBM/LENOVO. We look forward to seeing if ASUS is able to maintain the same demand and reliability over the coming quarters," says David A. Milman, RESCUECOM's founder and CEO.

[joeldm]

PC World has been scammed. Rescuecom is under investigation for misleading advertising, bilking franchisees out of money, overcharging for services not rendered and to top it all, their 800 number is 800-geek-sqa, one digit off the Geek Squad's 800 number of 800-geek-squ.
These people are crooks to start with, but even if they were not their customer base is PC, not Mac, so they have no basis by which to gauge Mac vs PC reliability. This is just another of their many scams to get attention and bilk customers out of money.
You'd think if your main job was writing about tech that part of that job would be to confirm that what you're reporting is actually true.
Journalists these days are a lazy lot. Republishing other people's work or passing on specious reports without even the most cursory of examinations. No wonder they're held in such low esteem.
Given that every report ever issued about Mac vs PC reliability puts Macs solidly at the top if reliability and customer satisfaction you'd think PC World would have at least Googled these guys. But no . . . .
JoeL
Atlanta, GA

[mpheadley]

Good post and good to point that out.

I did think the hundreds of points difference was weird.

But Asus mobos are very very reliable in my experience.