A U.S.-based computer service company said in a recently published report that computers from Asustek Computers, Apple and Lenovo/IBM cause the least amount of hardware and software problems to their users and need least technical support from a third-party service provider.

Based on the Computer Reliability Report from Rescuecom company, which compares the share among 15 000 of calls to its service centers against market share of certain PC supplier, Asustek Computers’ systems are by far the most reliable on the market of the United States. However, the results should be taken cautiously since Asustek’s notebooks shipments in the country got significant only in the second half of 2008 and the vast majority of customers getting Asus-branded devices hardly known about service companies, but more often turn to official tech support, especially given the fact that their systems are covered with a warranty.

“The results are in, and although Asus is the leader this quarter with a reliability score of 972, Asus’ 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,” said David A. Milman, the founder and chief executive officer of Rescuecom.

“We are delighted with, but are not surprised by, this result. We have invested enormous resources in ensuring that our products are of the highest quality, and that our customers get the best after-sales service possible. We are very pleased to see our efforts reaping dividends in the form of a smooth customer experience,” said Lillian Lin, director of marketing at Asustek Computer.

Other “most reliable” vendors based on the report from Rescuecom remained unchanged for years now: owners of Apple and Lenovo/IBM personal computers turn to Rescuecom rather rarely. The service company specifically noted that sales of Asus Eee PCs started to skyrocket in late 2008.

What should be noted about the Q1 2009 report by Rescuecom (and a report before that) is that in previous years the reports calculated the “reliability score” for each PC vendor based on the calculated difference between overall U.S. market share, over a three-year period, and the percentage of calls requesting service received by Rescuecom call center over one specified quarter or one year. However, starting from 2008 the service company started to compare the amount of calls over a specified period with the approximate market share in that period (or take market shares from a couple of previous quarters).

This new methodolody substantially alters the outcome as complaints regarding older systems are compared to current market shares. As a result, if a company owned 10% market share three years ago and now has 5% of the market, it will get lower reliability score since it is natural that older systems need more attention from tech personnel. The same is effective in other direction: a company with 10% market share now that used to command 5% of the shipments will get higher score since proportionally to current shipments the amount of complaints will be low.

Tags: Apple, ASUS, Lenovo, Acer, Toshiba, HP, Rescuecom