Registered: Mar 2000
Location:
Posts: 98

What's the deal with springboard manufacturers? Innogear has set a new date for availability of "Summer 2000". Wasn't this module initially to be available by February? And how about the GPS from Marcosoft. Now THAT module isn't available until "April 2000". Here is a bit of advise to springboard module manufacturers:

We want what you have to offer. What we DON'T want are your empty lame promises as to when your product will be available. If it isn't going to be ready until October then tell us that. This notion of slipping availability really sucks and does nothing but piss us all off. Most of us bought the Visor because of the modules you said you were producing. If we had known "production" actually meant "conceptualizing" we all might have bought the TRG Pro, which actually HAS expansion options AVAILABLE now. Stop promising the VAPORWARE and cough up some REAL HARDWARE!


[This message has been edited by Slacker (edited 04-03-2000).]

Registered: Mar 2000
Location: Charlottesville, VA
Posts: 48

I think they could ALL learn from the excellent reputation that BLIZZARD has made by releasing it's products in a timely manner.

I know I'm enjoying my copy of Diablo II.

Registered: Jan 2000
Location:
Posts: 45

quote:

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Originally posted by Slacker: What's the deal with springboard manufacturers?...We want what you have to offer...cough up some REAL HARDWARE!

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I would rather buy a perfectly working product late than the alpha products that the Windoz industry leader continues to release "on time" but full of bugs. I have real work to get done. I need stable products. So... I generally wait for several months after a product comes out before buying it.

As to why the dates keep changing and the vendors aren't sure of when, keep in mind, or learn, several things:

1) The lead time from product done to market through the advertising and other marketing channels is 3 to 6 months at best. That means that in a fast changing world like electronics you must predict when you'll have the product done 3 to 6 months before it is possibly ready to ship. That is very difficult.

2) Not all of us are gods who know exactly when the project will be done and write perfect code that never needs debugging and design perfect user interfaces that are perfectly intuitive to use and hardware that never fails. Things need to be debugged. Mockups and preproduction models need to be made. Testing takes many cycles. All of this takes longer than anyone every thought. Just hope the vendor does it BEFORE they sell you the product. Remember the Pentium...

3) The vendors WANT to sell to you. They are losing money and customers when they are late. What, you think they do it on purpose? Well, aside from MS, I mean.

4) Life happens. Get one. You don't have much time.

Suggestion: While you are _patiently_ waiting for the Springboard of your dreams, go to the Handspring web site and read the developer's section so you know the specifications forwards and backwards. Then develope your own Springboards, make them perfect, manufacture them, bring them to market, learn what it is really like. Heck, it's even fun, sometimes.

Cheers!

------------------
Walter

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Registered: Sep 1999
Location:
Posts: 106

Walter, thanks for the insight. I own a VDX and am for the most part happy with it. I don't have any immediate plans for purchasing expansion modules other than the HS backup (which I already have). I placed my original HS order on 10/6/1999 and have been keeping up-to-date on the postings on VC. Given EVERYTHING that I have been through and seen from Handspring and their partners, my guess is that they will soon be the Edsel of the PDA market. That's not to say they aren't visionary or had a good idea though. Per the points you previously made:

1) Understanding lead times to be 3 - 6 months in scope, there should (in many cases) be 3 - 6 months prior notification of 'slippage'. Cruise on over the 'Modules' section of this forum. Check for yourself how many 'ready to be purchased' modules there are. Aside from the docs, games and backup there is essentially nothing. The dates are as liquid as they were back in September when all these partners dovetailed on Handsprings release announcement. Across the board the list continues to grow and continues to slip. Re-read their reasons for delays. I have yet to hear any comments from any company that remotely suggests their delays are anything that they have direct responsibility over (Taiwan had an earthquake, our suppliers are slow, industry forces have blah, blah, blah). Each apology has the overtone of "Gee, we're awfully sorry. We're trying has hard as we can, but it's really not our fault." Each manufacturer waits until release dates have PASSED until making a revision. Zero informative, substantive information is released. Tell me, what is the business rational behind that. We critics are not complaining about a given company. Your points, stacked up against any one company might be true, but this is a pattern. This is a prevailing attitude. Companies are figuring "Hey, it's not just us, everyone's late...let's toss out a date."

2) You've used the word "perfect" three times as to directly argue and imply that that is what we will finally get by waiting. There is no perfect. Perfect = never. I really feel that Handspring and their alliances consider themselves to be strictly 'technical'. It's "Hey, don't bother me here, I'm an engineer." It's time get some true experienced not bits-n-bytes people, not bleeding edge people, not IPO minded people involved. A programmer by trade, I have always thought of our project planning group to be too political, too nitpicky, too non-technical to understand. But you know, I may have it backwards. They maintain project plans that consistently track each task and phase of product development. They and we meet regularly. Timelines, dependencies and deliverables are taken seriously. Contingency planning is for real. By focusing on individual tasks and creating accountability, very few of our large pre-announced releases have slipped. The process, when done professionally and correctly...works. Good intentions are not enough.

As for the Pentium (and no I'm not Intel). I bet you can't find one true, personal experience (no urban legends please) of an instance where their calculation bug bit you. You'd have to get pretty scientific to be impacted by it. Intel fixed, tested, and replaced for free (if requested) within a matter of WEEKS all faulty chip sets.

3) These vendors do want to sell to you. But it has nothing to do with creating, maintaining, or servicing a customer base. They want to make money (there's a difference)

4) Cheap shot.

Re read the Shipping and Handling posts. Handspring failed miserably in the delivery of their product. They thought it would be easy to do E-commerce but they knew nothing about it and sadly they chose not to learn from it. They baited early adapters and (opinion) their strategy all along was to wait until it goes retail and let the stores deal with the service end of things. I should have bought two and kept one in the box. It'll be worth something in a few years.

Registered: Sep 1999
Location:
Posts: 95

As to the Pentium bug, I know two people who got bitten by that bug (same computer with an original release P60). A pair of my friends while I was in college, were Math/Physics double majors, and got bit HARD. They were lucky the professor was up on the tech news and had heard about the bug, or they may not have passed the course.

There was a news site on the web at the time that gave simple instructions for causing the Pentium division bug to manifest itself using single digit numbers and Windows Calculator at the time.

As for Intel replacing all the chips within weeks? You seem to have forgotten the month or so when their policy was that you had to demonstrate that the bug was actually causing you problems before they'd replace it.

Registered: Sep 1999
Location:
Posts: 106

theo...Thanks...

You're right. I dont want to downplay the serious of that situation. And i'm sure that on a forum such as the internet you can find more than a number of people who were impacted by the bug. you can also make a strong and valid point with respect to the severity of the situation. But with the number of istructions processed per second through all the chips in the world. Its a nit!