A tale of two companies
blittled
Posts: 681
It was the best of companies. It was the worst of companies.
This is my experience and research on two companies that deal with hobbyists. Why post this? As Parallax expands into the industrial realm this story may help them focus their priorities. I'll mention who the companies are at the end of the post but it should be apparent who one of the companies is
.
The companies:
Company "A" which will be known as "A" is a small company that primarily deals with hobbyists and educational institutions.
Company "B" which will be known as "B" is a very large company that primarily deals with other large companies.
Products:
A has products that are focused on the hobbyist and educational market. They also has a small base of distributors.
B has a wide range of products and a broad base of distributors. They recently, probably as a PR campaign, entered the hobbyist market with an ultra cheap development board.
Customer Sales:
I've dealt with both companies.
When I buy something from A I do run into a little difficulty with their system declining me credit card although myself and the financial institution my card is from does not know why. This is cleared up with a call to their friendly sales dept and using another card.
I have had no problem with B's online store but when they first released the development board the system was easily overloaded and caused many headaches for hobbyists.
Delivery:
An order by ground with company A is usually 5-7 days.
With company B they use Fed Ex 2nd day BUT I have placed my order July 18th and due to overwhelming demand it is still back ordered (with no current official update).
Customer Relations:
Company A has taken great strides in making the customer feel welcomed. They are very generous with deals and giveaways. They are also very active with the community with their involvement in webinars and forums. When they had a shortage they constantly posted their progress with the problem. Recently they revamped part of their website based and have dealt directly with the hobbyist community to make the changes as smooth as possible.
Company B has the attitude of "We only deal with large companies". Many forum postings deal with their attempts to contact with no replies. They also made a change to their website. This caused people that previously ordered to show up with a "no order" status when logging in and no official word on how to access their order. I kept a link to an old page that still shows the order status but only half works and the validity of the page is in question. I saw one posting where a person was asking how he could cancel his order when now it does not appear to exist! I rarely see anyone from B on the forum and they posted a brief message early in the shortage stating that they will fill orders as the parts come in with no current updates. All current news has come second hand from other posters that have received responses from B. I have a friend in a moderate sized company which wanted dealings with B and they actually said they didn't want to deal with smaller companies. Then why be involved with hobbyists?????
Thanks for getting this far into my rantings and ramblings. Now for the identities of A and B..........
A - Parallax (of course!!!)
B - Texas Instruments - The TI launchpad
To Parallax, as you go forward expanding in the industrial sphere and hopefully become a big name there, don't forget the little guy. Parallax is a valuable asset to the hobbyist community and a great place for a beginner. Thank you!!!
As for TI, they should leave the hobbyist community alone. Their attempt to gain hobbyists appears to be a failure causing a bad taste in most hobbyist's mouths and probably have pushed some beginners away from micro-controllers.
This is my experience and research on two companies that deal with hobbyists. Why post this? As Parallax expands into the industrial realm this story may help them focus their priorities. I'll mention who the companies are at the end of the post but it should be apparent who one of the companies is
.The companies:
Company "A" which will be known as "A" is a small company that primarily deals with hobbyists and educational institutions.
Company "B" which will be known as "B" is a very large company that primarily deals with other large companies.
Products:
A has products that are focused on the hobbyist and educational market. They also has a small base of distributors.
B has a wide range of products and a broad base of distributors. They recently, probably as a PR campaign, entered the hobbyist market with an ultra cheap development board.
Customer Sales:
I've dealt with both companies.
When I buy something from A I do run into a little difficulty with their system declining me credit card although myself and the financial institution my card is from does not know why. This is cleared up with a call to their friendly sales dept and using another card.
I have had no problem with B's online store but when they first released the development board the system was easily overloaded and caused many headaches for hobbyists.
Delivery:
An order by ground with company A is usually 5-7 days.
With company B they use Fed Ex 2nd day BUT I have placed my order July 18th and due to overwhelming demand it is still back ordered (with no current official update).
Customer Relations:
Company A has taken great strides in making the customer feel welcomed. They are very generous with deals and giveaways. They are also very active with the community with their involvement in webinars and forums. When they had a shortage they constantly posted their progress with the problem. Recently they revamped part of their website based and have dealt directly with the hobbyist community to make the changes as smooth as possible.
Company B has the attitude of "We only deal with large companies". Many forum postings deal with their attempts to contact with no replies. They also made a change to their website. This caused people that previously ordered to show up with a "no order" status when logging in and no official word on how to access their order. I kept a link to an old page that still shows the order status but only half works and the validity of the page is in question. I saw one posting where a person was asking how he could cancel his order when now it does not appear to exist! I rarely see anyone from B on the forum and they posted a brief message early in the shortage stating that they will fill orders as the parts come in with no current updates. All current news has come second hand from other posters that have received responses from B. I have a friend in a moderate sized company which wanted dealings with B and they actually said they didn't want to deal with smaller companies. Then why be involved with hobbyists?????
Thanks for getting this far into my rantings and ramblings. Now for the identities of A and B..........
A - Parallax (of course!!!)
B - Texas Instruments - The TI launchpad
To Parallax, as you go forward expanding in the industrial sphere and hopefully become a big name there, don't forget the little guy. Parallax is a valuable asset to the hobbyist community and a great place for a beginner. Thank you!!!
As for TI, they should leave the hobbyist community alone. Their attempt to gain hobbyists appears to be a failure causing a bad taste in most hobbyist's mouths and probably have pushed some beginners away from micro-controllers.
Comments
I just so happen that I still do have Student Email at the community collage for life so I can still order free sample but it getting harder for a hobbyist
to find electronic parts that do not cost so much just test and idea out and to see whether or not it going to work or not
I can guess the company...
It has been my elder's experience that a lot of companies just do what they want and I find that out a lot.
It is great that company B wanted to enter the hobby market but it is an issue of supply vs demand and a large company trying to change gears with a large offering. At such a low price, I don't know what kind of profit they are making or how long it will take them to break even. I don't think they are making a terrible profit yet so there is no incentive. They aren't making enough of a profit to pay someone to answer the phone even though they do answer the phone.
Some companies created websites just to be in the game but the problem is that just having a website to be in the game doesn't mean they are actually doing anything to keep people's attention.
I've complained to a number of fast food companies and other restaurants and most of them won't change. They don't always see themselves as other people see them.
You are basically out of pocket for about five dollars for every board you have a problem with. It is not a terrible loss but there are other fish in the sea; There are other microcontrollers out there.
Digikey says they have 249 available.
You basically want a fundamental chip and it doesn't have to be TI.
Chuck
I had just read the datasheet for a microcontroller in that particular Launchpad - apparently it is a special-purpose microcontroller. It is for sensor applications only. The microcontroller should be interfaced with another system for more effective operations.
However, for the ordering, I will order these through Farnell as I could not buy these locally from TI.
Personally, I still haven't much need for greater speed or many more i/o pins. I have found it hard to keep up with the older and existing devices and with less ambitious code.
But Parallax has a vision far beyond mine about what they are doing and the Propeller 2 seems once again to be something that the so-called 'industrial' companies would never pursue. So I suspect there will be lots of fun and interesting challenges ahead.
The real core problem is that the technology just keeps getting smaller and smaller. It is difficult for a electronics hobbyist to have the 'hands-on' experience that was so much a part of ham radio in the 1950s-60s.
And I don't think Parallax wants to really become a 'big company' with all that entails. If they did, they would at least move from Rocklin, California to Reno, Nevada for the sake of taxes and profit. California is tough on businesses, while Nevada has no corporate income tax, no individual income tax, and maybe no inventory tax.
In sum, accept that everyone has to adapt to survive and stick with friends.
If you intend to manufacture widgets to the tune of 5000+/month, contact your TI sales rep and he or she will be certain you get the help you need. Otherwise, you're far better off with Parallax, as you have already discovered.