Registered: Oct 1999
Location: I'm not sure, but I see lots of lights everywhere.
Posts: 1287

HOT OFF THE PRESS! Cnet reports on Handsprings troubles.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-20...006-200-1428131

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Hong Kong
Posts: 200

HS does seem to attract bad news in a big way.

First I thought it's just poor planning etc. Now I feel really sorry for them . Nobody, again NOBODY, deserves such an amount of bad luck! Let the donations flow!

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Marietta, Ohio USA
Posts: 92

CNet's report wasnt really negative.. it simply says that the Visor is so cool..
everyone appears to want one ! If I didnt know any better, I would read that article and say "Gee.. what a nice problem to have " ! There was no mention of the screw-ups, etc.
I for one cancelled my Visor order (I think)
and will get a new Palm IIIx tomorrow.I plan
to get a Minstrel modem for my Palm IIIx and have wireless action ! I sincerely hope Handspring bounces back (and I am sure they will)... I plan to watch and get maybe the
color Visor II ? I just like that entreprenurial spirit Jeff and Donna represent with HS.

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Hong Kong
Posts: 200

I will have a look at Visor once it hits the stores.

I hope you will be happy with the Visor you cancelled, but you will probably get anyway - not the color your ordered. By now you might have the serial cradle already, incl. some extra stylus.

Don & Jeff might be good geeks, but they shouldn't run a company. It seems that they have not collected any information beforehand how to do things.

Anyway, I wish them luck - and less business for the next 3 month. This should be eneugh to work out all problems.

Registered: Oct 1999
Location:
Posts: 28

it seems the handspring bashing continues.

If i ran a company and had a prob of too meany ppl ordering it. I would be extreamly happy. even with a few screwups, and for argumest sake claim that at least 50% of the first few orders were messed up. big deal. that happens to evey company with this much sucsess.

I was working for the first ISP in canada to offer $10 Inet access. the first day we ran the add we had literly more ppl tyring to sign up then avalible staff and we put more then we ever thought we needed. to no avail. maily because ppl would call up just to ask stupid questions, and check that there order was done properly. same thing that happened to HS. If ppl would not worry so much 99% of the problems we and HS incountered would't have happened.

but then again we all should have learned from previos experience but did't.

oh well

Registered: Sep 1999
Location:
Posts: 61

You have to wonder if they (Handspring) should have upped the price and done a staggered roll out of the Visor series. I can't see it hurting them starting out with just the Visor (2 meg) in the Palm Price range, tease with the Deluxe and a release a few months later, and roll out onto store shelves with the complete line (Visors and assories) and lower prices in January.

Then you get added benefit of charging early adopters a little more (gasp! what a concept), you have time to ramp up production and support, work out bugs with the early guys who are a little more forgiving then Joe Public and ramp up a kick ass company.

It seems that Handspring went out promising the world - much more so then the original Pilot - and with a lot of hype. Either they should have expected a hugh ramp up and have been ready for one or they should have introduced the first product differently.

I am not bashing Handspring, it seems like it would be a good business case for those in B-School out there. Handspring has an interesting problem, and that is that out of the gates they are a little too good at selling or they produced a product that sold itself too well.

jonpod

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Alberta, Canada
Posts: 34

HipHop -

Just curious why you say Jeff and Donna shouldn't run a company. It seems to me they did a pretty good job with Palm Computing.

------------------
Too err is human, to moo bovine.

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

Whew! Well, I finally did it...got myself a brand-spanking new Palm Vx. It's been fun reading how many hours we've spent with this caring company, but I figured I'd go with a professional outfit instead of this fly-by-night.

There was some article a month or so ago that I saw called "Will Visor Fail?" and it's pretty interesting to me that, after seeing all the interest, all the PR, and all the hype, it's taken less than a month for them to do so in my eyes. I hope all of you that are reading this while holding on to talk with an uninformed but well-meaning CSR get whatever it is you're looking for. Me, I got this product (an Ice Deluxe) to get organized, not to waste hours of my time and try my patience.

Mebbe by the time there are color Palms Handspring will be a legitimate company with actual tech support and updated customer service databases. Then again, mebbe they won't be around at all...

Either way, I wish you all lots of luck and no more frustration. I know I feel lots better now, and will feel great tomorrow when I see the UPS man take the Handspring box back to its makers :-)

Ciao for now.

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: New York City
Posts: 29

What a bunch of whiners and crybabies. I can't believe we are judging Handspring so harshly after just a month and a half in business. Jeff and Donna were incredibly brave to offer an innovative product at a reasonable price. They could have withheld the 8MB (like Palm did) or charged more so that fewer people could afford a Visor, but they stuck to their vision. Now they are being crucified for having trouble keeping up with initial demand. They deserve more understanding and respect than is being shown here.

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: San Francisco, USA
Posts: 75

I've been an apologist for Handspring many times on this discussion board before.

And in some ways I still feel that the people who placed their orders in blind faith back on 9/14 should have expected to get burned. I had figured that the problem wouldn't be customer service, but some horrible flaw in the hardware or software. But once the news got out on this board that the CSRs were taking orders with pen and paper, I knew that most everyone who had placed an order was doomed. It was more reasonable to expect the CSRs to get the orders all mixed up, than to be able to handle them correctly. So, I decided to wait rather than place an order.

I'm excited about the Visor, but I'm still waiting to place an order. I had hoped that they would have gotten the situation straightened out with the latest customer updates, and the revival of the ecommerce site. But the CNet article says otherwise.

I think at this point, I'm simply going to wait until they show up in stores. I'd rather wait a long time, than to put up with the uncertainty and frustration that most of the people here have lived through. I certainly don't trust the ecommerce site, given that it acts like a yo-yo and nobody who's placed an order over the web has received their Visor yet.

I think Handspring will do well in the long run, but they gave their early adopters a much worse treatment that I had guessed they would.


[This message has been edited by mportuesi (edited 11-03-1999).]

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Geneseo NY
Posts: 34

As a early order, 9/14 7:00pm, I must say that the only thing I found really bothersome was that HS clearly tried to give the impression that the product would ship on 10/01, then dodged behind the "six week" story when questioned. Other than that they performed as advertized. I was given my Graphite VD within the six weeks and it is a wonderful machine.

BTW it was a gas showing my alpha geek over 6 megs space left after installing the complete KJV Bible!!!!

Registered: Oct 1999
Location:
Posts: 16

Right on vflopez!

What idiots, those folks need to get a life. Handspring has created a buzzzzzz. Seems to me handspring has done what all new business es try to do, create interest. Sure, there have been problems, give them 6 months, if they are still having problems, I'll be the first to storm the doors.
To all you folks quit acting like you have a clue, wake up. this company is going to the Bank!

Simply listen to what the buzzzzzz is about! power vs value!

as chi chi would say "and it looks good to"

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Hong Kong
Posts: 200

Where is the relationship between demand, lost orders and double charged credit cards?

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

VFLopez:

What they're being crucified for is taking advantage of loyalty to their name, complete disregard for the immense excitement the product generated (like at Internet World, where they had more traffic than a five-alarm fire in Midtown Manhattan), and extremely poor planning and business maintenance.

Aside from that, the product's great. It's too bad everything else about the company, ie responsiveness, customer service, ordering/shipping and technical support, are so awful.

I'm not whining...I dumped the Deluxe and got a Vx, which I really like. However, if you're as concerned with attitude and dismay after only forty-five days, why not consider contacting each of the news outlets that have indicated that this is a colossal problem? PC Magazine, CNet, PC/Computing...all of these "whiners" should be reprimanded by you as well.

Or mebbe you ought to realize that this is business, not Excaliber, the Land of Oz or Visor Utopia, where everything is good and fair and worth waiting for.

Face it -- without people whining and complaining, most of the potential Visor buyers would have no outlet for their legitimate irritation over this ridiculous situation, and would probably have cancelled and put this start-up into the never-made-it category.

At least with complaints and *****ing, mebbe Handspring has a shot to last into May of next year. Then again, if any of you are actually willing to get shafted again and buy another Handspring product, then may Bill Gates himself come down off the mountain and glue a WinCE to each of your hands :-) -- without batteries.

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: New York City
Posts: 29

Hot Carl:

You raise an interesting point that people probably need to vent their frustration at not having received their Visor. I just read one to many complaints. I am an idealist and want Handspring to succeed. However, as Microsoft has proven (in the PC market), the best technology does not necessarily make the most successful product. Handspring's situation is only going to get more difficult with the holiday season. God help them.

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: College Station, TX
Posts: 143

For those switching to Palms because they are so "professional"...I consider myself an early adopter of the Palm...had a 1MB Pro, self-upgraded to the III equivalent upgrade board. When my Palm died around the time of the Visor announcement, I called Palm tech support and was basically told:

1) there's no way we can find your registration since we've sold so many units and you're just an insignificant drop in the ocean.

2) You shouldn't expect the hardware to last more than about 2 years, so go out and buy a new one.

I still think Palm has a good product, and I would have bought another if the Visor announcement hadn't happened. But it's not like they have unbelievably great CSRs either, IMHO.

The advantage for Palm right now is that their product pipeline is in place and flowing...you can drive to the local Office Depot and buy it off the shelf. Since these sorts of toys usually work, I would guess that >99% of the customers never have to call tech support for a return, and few of their customers are buying off of their online store.
-----
For those of us still waiting, maybe we should redefine HS to HopeSprings...

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: pocatello id us
Posts: 31

y doesn't handspring vend its products through stores?

Registered: Oct 1999
Location:
Posts: 86

Hot Carl wrote: What they're being crucified for is taking advantage of loyalty to their name, complete disregard for the immense excitement the product generated (like at Internet World, where they had more traffic than a five-alarm fire in Midtown Manhattan), and extremely poor planning and business maintenance.
*************

I really don't think Jeff and Donna ever said "We've got a lot of name loyalty, if this shipping plan doesn't work out we'll just rest on our reputations".

I think they probably were aware of the buzz for the Visor and hoped and prayed that they may get as many as 10,000 orders in the first month. So they set up their web page and had a back up plan (the phone staff) just in case. Then something amazing happened: Instead of 10,000 orders in the first month they got (by some reports) about 50,000 orders. The web page went down and the backup plan (that was never intended to handle the main flow of orders) had to take on the full load.

Yeah, I'd love to have the same timely response as Amazon.com or even an E-Bay transaction, but it's not going to happen for at least another month (my guess). If I get both my Visor's before Christmas then I'll be happy (Of course if I get them next week I'd be even happier)

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Posts: 90

With 20/20 hindsight, maybe there would have been a better way to handle the launch than trying to handle order fulfilment themselves. Maybe they could have entered into an agreement with one of the online retailers (Amazon, 1800.com) that currently handles consumer electronics..give 'em a deal whereby they would be the *exclusive* outlet for Handsprings for the introductory period (until that date in early 2000 or whenever when all retailers will have them available)...and let them deal with the orders. Somehow I don't think 1800.com or Amazon would have their site crash or all their fulfilment data corrupted. And if they temporarily ran out of product and had to backorder, even that would have been less of a disaster...as those organizations have infrastructure for tracking orders and letting customers know of backorder status.