Why doesn't Parallax "sell" the Propeller?
Heater.
Posts: 21,230
I have asked this question before. A year or so later and with this new forum initiating thoughts of web site design. I feel the need to ask it again.
Why doesn't Parallax sell the Propeller? I mean as in market, push, advertise, support, generally get it out there. Why is the Propeller kept in a back room, in the dark, under a rock, only available to those who already know what it is and where it is? Why is the Propeller unloved by Parallax? How can that encourage anyone to buy it?
Another motivation for this question is that I was just trying to suggest to someone, on a different forum, that he might find the Propeller suitable for what he wants to do. I wanted to give him a quick link to the Propeller. Oh boy no luck. I experienced what those who don't know the Propeller experience. Like so:
1) Go to Parallax.com
2) If I don't do any scrolling around there is no hint of a Propeller to be seen.
3) OK there is a "microcontrollers" button, let's try that.
4) Hmm.. no Propeller there. The head line items are a bread board, a flight controller, a robot shield with Arduino (Let's sell the other guys product why not?), and a camera module.
5) Finally, if I have bothered to continue (This does not look like a micro-controllers page after all) I find mention of a Propeller Activity and Homework boards. Well, if I don't know what I'm looking for how do I know they use Parallax micro-controllers. Besides they are boards not micro-controllers.
6) If I persist with that page a find an actual MCU chip. The BASIC STAMP. At this point I would give up and assume Parallax does not have any interesting micro-controller, only that historical stuff.
Well there we have it, Parallax does not "sell" the Propeller. It's there, under the counter, only if you know what you are looking for.
And why on Earth is a link to "micro-controllers" a page full of all kind of stuff that is not "micro-controllers" anyway?
But there is more, tool support.
If our tenacious potential customer finally gets himself a Propeller he will need dev tools, PropellerIDE say.
Judging by the many posts on the forums for a long time the available packages for PropellerIDE are either old or somehow don't work. People are having no end of problems with this.
Then there is the issue that PropellerIDE packages are not available for many platforms, RedHat RPM for example.
That would be OK if Propeller IDE could be built easily from a source download. I seems it is not. For example http://forums.parallax.com/discussion/161421/good-old-bst-brad-s-spin-tool#latest as an example of many such complaints.
It would be OK not to have platform specific packages if a simple tarball of the binaries and perhaps a little install script were available that would work on all modern Linux systems.
All in all the Propeller is not "sold" and the tools are not in good shape.
Why does Parallax not love the Propeller?
Edit: I guess I'm just hoping that the guy I suggested the Propeller to has an easy time of finding his way and getting started.
Why doesn't Parallax sell the Propeller? I mean as in market, push, advertise, support, generally get it out there. Why is the Propeller kept in a back room, in the dark, under a rock, only available to those who already know what it is and where it is? Why is the Propeller unloved by Parallax? How can that encourage anyone to buy it?
Another motivation for this question is that I was just trying to suggest to someone, on a different forum, that he might find the Propeller suitable for what he wants to do. I wanted to give him a quick link to the Propeller. Oh boy no luck. I experienced what those who don't know the Propeller experience. Like so:
1) Go to Parallax.com
2) If I don't do any scrolling around there is no hint of a Propeller to be seen.
3) OK there is a "microcontrollers" button, let's try that.
4) Hmm.. no Propeller there. The head line items are a bread board, a flight controller, a robot shield with Arduino (Let's sell the other guys product why not?), and a camera module.
5) Finally, if I have bothered to continue (This does not look like a micro-controllers page after all) I find mention of a Propeller Activity and Homework boards. Well, if I don't know what I'm looking for how do I know they use Parallax micro-controllers. Besides they are boards not micro-controllers.
6) If I persist with that page a find an actual MCU chip. The BASIC STAMP. At this point I would give up and assume Parallax does not have any interesting micro-controller, only that historical stuff.
Well there we have it, Parallax does not "sell" the Propeller. It's there, under the counter, only if you know what you are looking for.
And why on Earth is a link to "micro-controllers" a page full of all kind of stuff that is not "micro-controllers" anyway?
But there is more, tool support.
If our tenacious potential customer finally gets himself a Propeller he will need dev tools, PropellerIDE say.
Judging by the many posts on the forums for a long time the available packages for PropellerIDE are either old or somehow don't work. People are having no end of problems with this.
Then there is the issue that PropellerIDE packages are not available for many platforms, RedHat RPM for example.
That would be OK if Propeller IDE could be built easily from a source download. I seems it is not. For example http://forums.parallax.com/discussion/161421/good-old-bst-brad-s-spin-tool#latest as an example of many such complaints.
It would be OK not to have platform specific packages if a simple tarball of the binaries and perhaps a little install script were available that would work on all modern Linux systems.
All in all the Propeller is not "sold" and the tools are not in good shape.
Why does Parallax not love the Propeller?
Edit: I guess I'm just hoping that the guy I suggested the Propeller to has an easy time of finding his way and getting started.
Comments
Perhaps there is more profitability in them than in selling chips themselves? (Just a thought)
In all fairness, the Propeller is listed after you press the Microcontrollers button on top.
There is also a small section at the bottom if you scroll down a bit.
As for the IDE... I'd rather not engage my thoughts there, I've caused enough trouble of late.
What I don't quite understand is why Parallax doesn't take a more pro-active role in publishing related educational material as another income stream, or create a nice cash cow in manufacturing a complete accessory product line.
But I suspect that the answer has always been the same all along.
Parallax conserves its capital for other priorities, changes absolutely must pay for themselves. At one point, it was the dream of Parallax Semiconductor becoming an industrial distribution channel where chip sales would have single transactions of thousands of chips that diverted other promotional efforts; at another point, it has been the desire to cover a large cash outlay in bringing the Propeller Two into reality. And then there was the time that it seemed that Parallax was going global and would need to support with core literature in many world languages.
In short, we get a lot of opinions of what Parallax should do. But those opinions lack the realization that the out of pocket expenses to go in a different direction need to be recovered or the enterprise will go under.
Parallax seemed to have gotten sucked into the idea that RHOS would require that they set up two parallel and separate product lines. But then reality set in after lots of meeting and consultation with experts (that were not so much experts as they were salesmen for more machines and lots of consultant meetings), and Parallax along with everyone realized getting rid of the non-RHOS was far less capital intensive than managing two separate inventory and production lines.
Just spending a lot on advertising can sink a company. Management has to constantly track how effective dollars spent for promotion are. Word of mouth advertising and customer loyalty are old standbys as they produce sales without much additional risk of capital. Selling the same old thing day in and day out will cause customers to actually buy less. Rotating what grabs their attention will sell more.
In other words, in business having a lot of people that are friends and that like you is simply the wisest way to go. And it is often the only way one can go if the economy rolls over or the company suffers other missteps.
Let the Gracey's manage their own capital rather than expecting them to jump one one horse or another due to some passing brain wave.
One has to spend capital with a purpose and keep a very close eye on how such spending really performs -- or there is a loss rather than any profit at the end of the year.
Nothing wrong with having a URL that leads to the Propeller. As I said you can getit if you know what you are looking for. Where is the promotion to those who don't know thatthis Propeller is not for moving boats? Surely as one of the main products of Parallax itdeserves such promotion?
@Oldbitcolector,
I don't recall ever seeing the Propeller being prominent on the home page. Ah, thereis "micro-controllers" in the nav bar. Missed that as my eyes were drawn to the side bar.Bottom line, no mention of the Prop on the front page unless one scolls down to the bottom.
@Loopy,
I would not suggest throwing money at advertising. All I'm looking for is a little more promotion on the front page.
@David Betz
Oh shoot. You mean I have directed some one to a non-existent resource?
The first hit points to Propellor boards, etc page in the store.
The second hit points to the Propellor HereIsWhatItIs page.
Just Sayin'
I got a wikipedia article as the first hit.
The second result was https://www.parallax.com/catalog/microcontrollers/propeller which doesn't even have a Propeller chip on it or introduce it in any way. No, there is a camera, a bot, a hoverfly and so on.
Third hit is https://www.parallax.com/microcontrollers/propeller. BINGO!
It's hard work. And I as I said relies on one knowing what one is looking for already. It's not promotion of the Product at a place people visit, the front page.
I thought I remember seeing lots of ads for Prop/Hydra even earlier.
Prop seems placed prominently on the main page, just not THE primary product being placed. Obviously, Parallax is focused on higher margin products that must actually be bringing in $$ vs the P1 alone. Not very odd behavior all things considered.
The P1 on its own is not much of a money maker, else it would be taking up primary product placement on the homepage, as it once did.
To find actual silicon, you need to drill to http://www.digi.com/products/wireless-wired-embedded-solutions/software-microprocessors-accessories/
and top of that list is now NS9210/NS9215 ARM 9 BGA MPUs
As to actually buying a Rabbit 6000 chip ? None seem to appear. Digikey list some NS92xx and R2000/3000/4000
Excellently put.
The P1 may drive some of the products, however the P1 by itself is not apparently worth the front page coverage compared to other products.
Parallax are adding PropBASIC support to their IDE, but I suspect simple HW fundamentals like incompatible Vcc, will constrain a 'Prop Stamp' deployment.
The core idea of Basic Stamp is great, but it needs dragging into this millennium with integrated USB debug, now amost universal on development boards.
Interesting example that Rabbit thing. Seems to be some souped-up Z80. Never heard of Rabbit.
I guess I'm just a cheap scate. I'm not interested in expensive dev boards and modules. Just give me the chips!
Yes, RabbitSemi started with "a better Z80", and managed to release R2000/R3000/R4000/R5000/R6000 variants.
RabbitSemi was sold to Digi, who have more an industrial module focus.
I suspect part of the 'buy' motivation was to protect sunk IP costs, but they seem to have released no new Rabbit devices since.
Not sure if the ARM9 are tooled by Digi, or simply re-badged from someone else.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_Semiconductor
I would not call it a failure, but I would say it is an example of a niche part.
It has a strong industrial control focus, where design life matters.
Yes indeed. Installations are expected to last the lifetime of the systems they are installed in. Be it plant control, traffic lights, aircraft systems and so on. That can be 10, 20, 30 years. Of course things fail and then you find they can't be replaced or repaired because the parts are not available any more. Even after a short time.
I have also been involved in a number of "upgrade" projects. A huge expense of basically pointless work to reimplement what already existed. No new features even. Whole software projects rewritten just to get it off some obsolete processor.
Which is why I have campaigned at every place I have worked in the last 15 years or so to use only Open Source software. No proprietary RTOS, or compilers or IDEs. At least that goes some way to isolate the software part of your product from this endless and rapid churn.
Microchip has a policy of keeping chips in production indefinitely - the very first PICs are still available.
Maybe they don't know what to do with it?
Even the NMOS versions?
-Phil
EBAY
The only thing I find there is
http://www.ebay.de/itm/Parallax-Propeller-Chip-Developement-Unit-/140438381605?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item20b2c7a425
A few offerings - long running - and 'this is not Arduino' in the text ... and they will get thousands of hits.
Even the NMOS versions?
-Phil
Were there NMOS versions of PICs?
EBAY
The only thing I find there is
http://www.ebay.de/itm/Parallax-Propeller-Chip-Developement-Unit-/140438381605?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item20b2c7a425
A few offerings - long running - and 'this is not Arduino' in the text ... and they will get thousands of hits.
They haven't got any to sell, apart from QFN parts.
Parallax should look at the XMOS web page to see how it should be done:
http://www.xmos.com/
Both companies are similar in size with around 50 employees, although XMOS only makes microcontrollers and isn't interested in the hobbyist market.
EBAY
The only thing I find there is
http://www.ebay.de/itm/Parallax-Propeller-Chip-Developement-Unit-/140438381605?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item20b2c7a425
A few offerings - long running - and 'this is not Arduino' in the text ... and they will get thousands of hits.
They haven't got any to sell, apart from QFN parts.
I am not only talking about the Propelle chip alone, but all Propeller and related offerings.
The early PICs (PIC1654, etc.) were all NMOS. Before Microchip acquired the PIC line from General Instrument, there was only one CMOS version, the PIC16C58.
-Phil
The PIC16C58B is still available. Microchip has 1000s of the PDIP parts.
Exactly my point. Firstly you knew what a Propeller is and whey you want one and then you know where to find it. It's not selling the Prop chip to you.
Also there is no Prop chip on that page anyway. Which is odd because the path is Home -> Microcontrollers -> Propeller. Instead we get camera, robots, Raspberry Pi shields etc,
There is no headline space anywhere that shouts about the Propeller.
Weeel, main page, right at the bottom is our controllers, although BS is listed first.
Also, when you go to the main page, the top banner had Microcontrollers on it, which when clicked goes right to
Shop PropellerEducationQuestions & AnswersShare Objects Application NotesDatasheet
On the whole, I would make room for a blurb/pic/link to the Prop vt name somewhere at eye-level on the main page.