How to buy a Lenovo server

Perhaps the title for this post should contain a question mark, because, as you’ll see, I have no idea.

We needed a new server at work. We always buy Dell, but The Powers That Be request that all purchases over £3000 require at least three quotes. So off I went to Dell’s website, where I spec’d up a server and they gave me a price on the screen there and then. I then emailed a Dell reseller the same spec, and he emailed me back a price in a few hours. Easy.

For the third quote, I decided to look at similar servers from other companies. HP was temporarily out as their site was playing up, so I thought – IBM do servers, lets look there. That was the first problem, as they pointed me at Lenovo. I went to lenovo.com, and chose Servers. Chose a rack server, and clicked View Models. Then spec’d one up. Easy enough so far, but then what?

There’s no “Buy” button. There’s no price.  There’s no “add to cart” (even though you have a cart). You get given a configuration code, but then what?

In the top right of the servers page, I found a phone number labelled “Buy now from a Partner”. So I rang them, and they told me their system was down so they couldn’t access the sales department via computer, but they’d ring sales and get them to call me back in 10 minutes. Four hours later, I rang back, to be told that they had no record of my call, and it was usual for me to be just put through to sales directly and they didn’t know why I hadn’t been.

They put me through to sales. After being on hold for ten minutes, I got to speak to someone who told me that “this isn’t server sales, you’ll need another number”. They gave me another number, and I rang it. Again, I was put on hold for ages, only to be cut off as soon as someone answered. I rang back, and after another wait spoke to someone.

Turns out this particular department only supply servers to resellers.

They gave me another number to try, which was busy when I rang it. I called back the next day, eventually getting through. Only to be told I’d come through to the wrong department. Sigh.

This department gave me another number. Which, unsurprisingly, was the same one I’d run originally. This was going really well. I rang them, to be told – again – their system was down and they couldn’t contact sales. But they took my name, number and email address and would “get right back” to me. That was over a week ago.

I therefore declare it IMPOSSIBLE to buy a Lenovo server, and, by inference, I simply refuse to accept that Lenovo servers physically exist. I find it astonishing that a company of Lenovo’s size can be so disorganised and incompetent, and completely unable to even provide me with a price for something listed on their own website!

For what it’s worth, HP’s site came back up and took me less than 5 minutes to obtain a price for a similar product.