Is your company so hardwired to Dell and Lenovo that they can't understand competitors exist?

Buying anything outside the Dell or Lenovo business ecosystem really puts your head on the chopping block to be announced a crazy person the minute some business critical function (like dual monitors through dock) doesn’t work…

You need to find a better company with a better corporate culture.

Those are in much shorter supply than you seem to imply.

I've never previously encountered one so perverse that choice of laptop is basically tantamount to a fashion choice and causes ridicule.

Because normally you buy from Lenovo, HP or Dell for the warranty, support and driverpacks for SCCM etc.

Real companies have IT provision laptops for employees.

If you are consultant remote, sure just Citrix into the envroment. But if your laptop breaks its on you.

Several people on HN lauded Lenovos' same-day-service warranty. Downtime costs a lot of money.

What a strange set of considerations so bizarre they apply to like no one but you. Good thing that is the case and this logic applies to a dwindling number of professionals. I understand how people can judge on such minor things but on that front, might as well not hire any black people or women on your team lest you heighten your customers' subconcious biases.

edit: also, would a linux laptop work for you? Wouldn't you need office or such?

VDI scenario is common now for engineers, so yes it would work to virt into a windows box, but yes there are other friction points such as compact issues with PowerPoint for meetings, and you probably wouldn’t run a PowerPoint over a virt.

It could also take a lot of messing around to get Office 365 MDM working with Linux. I think you'd want to do a Linux desktop deploy and sort out these issues before you tried to deploy [any of these brands of] Linux laptops.

> What a strange set of considerations so bizarre they apply to like no one but you

Oh, sweet non-corporate bullshit child.

People get shown the door for just having non-Apple devices with them.

> People get shown the door for just having non-Apple devices with them.

Is this a thing that you've actually personally seen happen? Because I've seen and heard of some fairly messed up companies and that strains credulity. Like, I suppose it happens, because there are enough companies that everything happens, but that feels like the 99th percentile of insane company cultures.

I doubt he can name a company that does this.

> Is this a thing that you've actually personally seen happen

Yes, I saw situations where the things which were not conforming to the status led to... or more like didn't led anywhere.

Also, two things:

1. There are people who scoff off at green bubbles.

2. "It has doors that open like this"

[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

[2] https://media.tenor.com/9GE7Vhf9MAEAAAAd/silicon-siliconvall...

I don't think MBAs are the market they're targeting. Unfortunately, an MBA is often the one who'll have to sign off on the expense.

> Can you imagine the backlash if there’s some IT issue and someone realises that it’s not a Dell or Lenovo (why didn’t you just buy from big 2?), or how embarrassing it might be to go to a profile business meeting with an obviously random and non-corporate laptop (oh that looks like some random cheap overseas brand, uhh ok, are you sure you can afford us)?

So your proposed solution is to... remove all branding? How does that help anything?

I think that building custom no-brand desktops is a pretty acceptable cost cutting measure taken by some companies, so you could pitch it something like “we’re working with a company to build custom laptops exactly for what we need”, or if someone asks about it you can explain it ala “yes, we couldn’t get exactly what we needed so we build a completely custom fleet of laptops”.

Or ideal scenario, with a brand delete you slap a [company] sticker on it and nobody really notices that it’s not a Dell Latitude running Linux.

That might be an argument for desktops, but we're talking about a laptop.

Any suggestions how you’d sell something like this? Brand delete is all I have.

Unbranded laptops are something I'd also prefer, even though the corporate environment you're describing is very employee-hostile when it comes to technology choice. (Sorry about your situation.)

I know that Schenker sells some of their laptops with their logo on the laptop lid by default and offers a choice to remove the logo for an additional charge. Example (VIA 15 Pro): https://bestware.com/en/schenker-via-15-pro-m22.html

This option is possible because the laptop is a branded version of an ODM laptop (Tongfang PF5NU1G).

Yea random alixpress brand laptop. Sounds good lmao

Schenker is a German company. Like with all branded versions of ODM laptops (such as models from Tongfang and Clevo), customer support for Schenker laptops is handled by Schenker and not the ODM.

Okay and what if you buy 20-50 of these in bulk.

Do they have on-site support like HP,Dell or Lenovo?

So you’d rather lie to them than to have a laptop from a company they may not know about?

HP sells more laptops than Dell.

Tuxedo offers unbranded and individual Logos, like Schenker. Intel Management Engine, Webcam & Audio (on Intel CPUs), and WLAN & Bluetooth can be deactivated directly via the BIOS. Can be ordered without SSD, RAM is upgradable. Just a content customer.

https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/Linux-Hardware/Linux-Note...

This is neat, thanks!

My uni friend is a CTO in large consultancy. He attended meetings with Razer laptop.

You've got it wrong.

Yes, I imagine some prehistoric corporations might have a problem with non corpo laptop.

Luckily the rest of the world has moved on.