When seeking help, why do I have to isolate my issue into hardware or software issues? The other day I was having a problem with my computer, and needed to get help to find out what was the matter with it. I went to the support website, and the first thing that I needed to do before I could get help with the problem was to separate it into a hardware issue or a software issue. I don't consider myself a pro by any means in diagnosing whether or not the problem is hardware or software. If I knew that I would be a whole lot closer to solving the issue on my own. What if the issue was in the communication between the two types of products, who would I call then?

I wasn't sure if this was just a problem with one company, or across the board, so I did a web search on "Hardware Software issues," and also went to some of the support websites of companies like Dell, IBM, and HP. It turns out that a lot of companies require you to decompose their products in to hardware or software issues when you have a question or problem.

I think this is a symptom of a bigger problem in maintaining silos of functionality within companies. Apparently the two organizations can't communicate, so they require the customer to understand the product structure before they can get help. Wouldn't it make sense to have a function on top of these two divisions that maintains the problem at a holistic view, and that can perform this drill down for the customer?