Could use some feedback

Myself and three other partners own a computer service company. I am a retired electrical Engineer, another partner is currently the head of IT for an electronics company and the third partner just retired from the federal govt where he was in charge of IT for DHS in the western US and is now in charge of quality control for a shop that manufactures parts for the military. As with many other companies things have slowed down for us so we are looking to maybe fill a niche in the netbook market. I have seen many posts from people that would like a mod they have read about on this and other forums, however they are reticent to open up their computers to complete the mod be it a touchscreen, adding ram or a hard drive or maybe bluetooth or GPS. I am seriously looking at offering those specific services for netbooks whether it is a MSI Wind, an Eee PC or an AA1 (which I happen to own and love). We have been looking at setting up a web page where you could select from a menu of services and prices. You pick what you want, we then send you a box for your computer to mail it to us. We upgrade it and mail it back to you. Flat rate shipping from anywhere in the world (these are light)...any thoughts on the business plan? Are all those that have asked if there was someone out there that would do the install for them ended up going without the touchscreen love or additional RAM they really crave? I'm wondering if there would be a call for a service like this. Would someone invest an additional two or three hundred dollars to have a AA1 with a touchscreen, ram and BT professionally installed? I could sure use some of your thoughts. Thanks for your time.
We are also looking at a way to strengthen the connector cable that runs thru the hinge on the touch screen...I don't think it will survive several thousand articulations of the lid...just a thought

Gerry
kc0cat
(yup, we are all hams here)

 

It's a business you could start up with low overhead, but IMO it might be more profitable aimed at higher end off-warranty equipment. There are a lot of consumers who plunked 4 digits for a laptop a few years ago who would spend a couple of hundred to repair or upgrade to keep it a few years longer. A year ago I had a high functioning 2002 vintage Dell 8100. Dell had replaced the keyboard and trackpad and CD-ROM under the 3yr extended warranty but off warranty it lost its LCD inverter and the 20g HDD was too small for modern times. I couldn't find anybody local to fix it up for a decent price. So I ended up buying a $1500 replacement.

I'm personally unwilling to crack the case of the AA1, but am already getting more performance than I expected from it. My observation of this forum since October is that a lot of the "modding" is being done by users experimenting and having good cheap fun with the unit, that they wouldn't risk doing to a PC they depend on or have big dollars in.

If I think about what it would take for me to send any PC off for repair or upgrade, apart from comparative price and quality of components my concerns would be the effect on an existing warranty, the terms of and the ability to enforce your warranty, and turnaround time. Good luck.