Best Buy will drop “Optimization” service

According to The Consumerist, Best Buy will stop providing what they called their “Optimization Service”. Supposedly their technicians would examine the contents, programs and setup to reduce the wasted space, boot time and speed up the performance.

http://consumerist.com/2010/01/best-buy-to-replace-optimization-with-installer-app.html

First off, what they do is very basic techniques that just about any PC knowledgeable person either knows or has access to through the web. I’ve probably posted some as well as pointers to others.

Second, I’m not a fan of Computer Geeks, anyway. I’ve dealt with several folks who used them and I’m not impressed at all with what they did, much less what they charged. One individual who bought a Dell through them (why?) and got an extended service contract. Now, let me say that I’m not one who recommends service contracts for tower/desktop computers. They almost always will fail in the first 3 months or almost never within the first 3 years. Even if they do, they are easy to fix (except for motherboards).

But I digress… This woman took it to Computer Geeks and they decided it needed a new mother board. When I had talked to her, she had been without the computer for over 2 weeks, going on 3. I told her that this was ridiculous. If she had called Dell, they would have diagnosed the problem and send a technician with a new motherboard and installed in her house, usually within a couple of days. Not a happy customer!!

Oh, well…. Reportedly, Best Buy will provide a “Best Buy Software Installer” starting January 17 and are working on replacing the Optimization Service. From the Consumerist: “Translation: Instead of you paying Best Buy to delete trialware from your new PC, Best Buy will get paid by software makers to try to get you to install it.””

All I can say is, if you insist on buying a computer from Best Buy, “Caveat Emptor”. At the very least, get a geek friend to help you configure what you need before you go there. Be informed…