Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Where are all the different options for computers? (Why are there so few choices)?
A: To be as efficient as possible, we standardize options that will meet at least 80% of the needs of the SMB market. This allows us to maintain a niche offering and provide the best service and support on the solutions we offer.
Q: What do I tell customers that have never heard of Carbon Systems? Or when they ask for Dell or HP?
A: We have found that, in general, most businesses will trust their MSP’s suggestions when it comes to IT hardware. As their trusted advisor, you can easily make the recommendation for our equipment based on the following:
It’s an Intel computer, no different than Dell or HP.
Our No-Hassle cross-ship warranty replacement eclipses anything offered by Dell or HP (do you or the customer pay for the time spent getting warranty support/replacement on a system?).
We can deliver systems within a couple of days from order placement.
If they are not 100% satisfied within the first 30 days, we will offer a full refund minus a small restocking fee.
The systems are assembled in the US and have an ultra-small-form factor, saving desk space while boasting incredible performance.
We are priced competitively with the competition, offering better solutions with better support for about the same if not a better price.
Our customer service is king, as we only focus on small business, while the other guys only look out for the big players.
You are also welcome to send them to our website to get more acquainted with our company.
Q: What are your financing options
A: At this time, we only offer payment upfront via Credit Card or PayPal. If you are interested in Credit Terms please reach out to our Finance department at accounting@carbonsys.net
Q: Who is Carbon Systems?
A: We are a value-added distributor based in Santa Rosa, California. Founder David Cook has more than 20-years’ experience in the MSP market, and he created Carbon Systems when he identified an unanswered need in the hardware sector. Our board is comprised of several industry veterans in the managed services arena.
Q: How do I know these products are good?
A: We only use parts and components from major manufacturers—industry recognized names such as Intel, Microsoft, Micron and Logitech, among others.
Q: What if I have a special need, configuration or large deployment?
A: We are happy to discuss your needs. Feel free to reach out to our sales team at sales@carbonsys.net.
Q: On accessories/peripherals, our customers complain they can find them cheaper elsewhere (Amazon, etc). What do we tell them?
A: Have them consider that your knowledge of what to purchase is valuable, and that if they choose the wrong item, or there is any issue with what your customer buys, they will either need to compensate you for your time to rectify the problem or it will be on them. Hardware/software procurement services are not about price (though you will be price comparable)—it is more like a concierge service.
Q: Where is your Core-i5 unit? When will you be offering one?
A: In our aim to strike the best balance between price/performance, we have chosen the Intel i3 CPU for the following reasons:
We have found that real-world usage, our “Black” (i3) unit is within milliseconds of a comparable i5 offering, both from boot times to application load and browsing tests.
In benchmarks, the i5 solution is only 20% greater in terms of benchmark numbers, but what does that mean? Well, when both systems are running pegged (100% load), the i5 unit will complete tasks 20% quicker. How often this happens in actual office use where the CPU is almost always idle is very limited.
We feel the i3 solution is more than adequate for 90% of typical office use cases and if you have an unsatisfied customer, we’re happy to accept a return within 30 days.
With that said, there is still a large demand for an i5 offering. We have plans in our product road map to bring an i5 workstation to the lineup within 6-12 months. There is also the quad-core gen8 i3 coming out in the next couple of months also.
Q: What about laptops? I see it says coming soon?
A: We are focusing our efforts on our workstation offering first. Laptops are a moving target with customer preferences all over the map, as we continue to grow and finetune the demands for what would serve the needs of 80% of the typical SMB laptop specs, we will begin offering a laptop product.
Q: I see you offer other products besides Carbon Systems. Why would I buy these items from you?
A: The only reason you would order from us is to save time by being able to quote/order everything at once from one place. We offer these items as a convenience factor for you, but we literally make nothing on purchases of non-Carbon Systems products (the cost is completely pass-through).
We’re tied in to most distributors: D&H, Synnex, Tech Data, Ingram, to name a few, so you should be able to get *everything* (for instance only some of those distributors carry Dell and some others only carry Ubiquiti, since we aggregate them all, we carry everything).
We won’t beat Amazon on most items any time soon, but a secondary factor in this offering is to aggregate the buying power of small MSPs. As we continue to grow and purchase on behalf small MSPs, we (in theory) will be able to wield some considerable buying power. Our goal is to eventually leverage that buying power to get you (the MSP) better pricing.
Our stock is real-time as of that day across all of the distributors, so if it says it’s available on the site, it’s available for shipment.