Registered: Oct 1999
Location: NY, NY, USA
Posts: 155

DMK:

Interesting angle, vis-a-vis the time frame for more telephone equipment, people, training, etc.

There's no question that a quick-fix isn't likely, nor is it likely to be possible, as you suggest. The way I see it is this: the first part of the problem was poor planning on the part of Handspring in its implementation (or lack thereof) of a capable order-and-delivery system. The second part is the contingency plan, which I hope is about to be implemented (aside from an apology letter and the pay lines, I don't see much in the way of improvement). But as you say, nothing occurs overnight, and that's true.

However, my personal feeling is that Handspring could/should delay receiving more orders until the current situation is solved. Maybe this is naive or unfair of me to suggest, but it seems that the continuing problems are not decreasing but are not increasing, either. Time will tell if the current problems get solved properly, and while I hope they will, I'm not quite convinced of this as of yet.

Finally, as far as my opinion re: the Visor overall, I indicated earlier that I would give it a shot and see if the tech support is better than the order-system. Personally, I think this situation is an initial, one-time snafu, and I believe that Handspring will be around for awhile, and that this whole thing will be a non-memory for most of us within six months.

However, having said that, I am disappointed that this company, after doing so well with the Pilot, has let so many of us down. I was an early adopter of the Pilot (one of the first sold in NYC at J&R), and I'm a Palm OS loyalist for life. Simply put, though, it's a let-down for me and for many others b/c of the huge anticipation of this product, and my/our disbelief that such a big screw-up could occur. I wouldn't suggest people not buy the Visor, but as of this moment, I would highly recommend against them buying it anytime soon. This is not for selfish reasons, and as I have indicated earlier, I should be Icing by Tuesday at the latest. But when was the last time you had to "guess" at the UPS site with a partial tracking number? It sounds ridiculous and comical, and it is. It's too bad this company had such an inauspicious inception, and dismay, disappointment and irritation are legitimate reactions to what they've put many of us through. Either way, to reiterate, I agree with you 1000% that patience is something we all need to practice, but conversely, if as consumers we are willing to stand back and "give them some air" so to speak, then it seems to me there should be some legitimate indication that Handspring is doing something about this problem other than trying to keep up. I think that what's fair is fair. Nothing more, nothing less.

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Urbana IL
Posts: 144

dmkozak:

I don't know anything about telephone lines, but 50,000 emails is really nothing. They probably send and recieve that many already at Handspring. You could build a *ix email box from scratch in a day that could easily handle that kind of load. Interface that with your database and whenever a field is updated to "sent to shipping" "shipped" etc just mail the cutomer the info. I would guess that you could integrate that into any reasonable database in less than a weeks time...

The real problem seems to be that Handspring has 15+ databases, none of which seem to be linked in any particular way, and several of which they can't even access. That's just plain crazy...

Registered: Sep 1999
Location:
Posts: 95

To Tiroth:

Do you really want an untested (or insufficently tested) system interfacing the order database? That would just cause more problems! We're not talking about an operation that can go into CompUSA to pick up an extra copy of some E-business software package to handle the extra load.

Handspring was probably expecting about 10,000 advance orders or so tops. From the sounds of it they got more like 50,000. Their web server was probably already a dual processor P3 workhorse on a full T1 line. We're not talking a system that you can put together in a day. We're talking 2-3 days of refiguring what they actually need to handle the load, a couple weeks for the system to arrive on their step, a week or so of configuration and testing, and then putting it actually on-line and hoping for the best.

Admittedly, the situation has been a bit messy. HOWEVER, bear in mind that we're only hearing from the people who had problems, because the people who haven't had problems don't have anything to compain about. Most of the "Handspring screwed me over!" posts are just repeated posts by the same relatively small group of people who like to hear themselves talk & want to soud like they have some sort of authority. If 10% of the orders have had problems, I'd be shocked.

The fact of the matter is that Handspring MASSIVELY underestimated the demand for an affordable PalmOS device, and simply haven't had the time necessary to rectify the situation.

I originally ordered on 9/27, called when I found out the green was more of a sea-green than the classic crayola colors I had expected, & changed to graphite a few weeks ago. I called to check to make sure that they had all my info down correctly last week. They did, & I was told it should reach me by Tuesday. If it's a couple days later than that it's no big deal. If it shows up tomorrow, I'll be thrilled.

If anybody doubts my system estimates for the web server, hit www.slashdot.org sometime & watch as even the big-name company web server clusters get hammered into the ground by a few thousand people requesting the same small cluster of pages in the same 15 minute period.