This is the most sensible post on the 'issue' so far.
Tommy - W4BQF
At Thursday 07:56 AM 7/21/2005, you wrote:
Okay, I'll weigh in on this one time:
Interesting how quickly the Ten Tec apologists can mobilize. A
year or two ago, it was, "Never need to buy a new rig; the firmware
updates will keep the Orion current!" And, "color screen? who needs color?"
Now it's, "Oh, you didn't really think you'd keep this rig forever
now did you?"
Some of you should be in Washington working as lobbyists. You bend
like a willow with every breeze from Sevierville. I'm sure you
know who you are.
No, there's no warm and fuzzy here for Ten Tec; they are a business
and I treat them as such.
At some point, if they were to roll out a new rig, which as we all
know is what happened, they had to pick a date and get on with
it. Some feel they got screwed and I sympathize. I think it could
have been handled a bit differently under the circumstances. But,
I'm interested in trying to figure out why there are bad
feelings. It's constructive to look at other cases. Let's look at
what happened when Icom started putting out the Pro III.
Pro III got announced and production started soon after (or more
likely was already gg on) and new rigs shipped to dealers who still
had plenty of Pro IIs. Surprisingly, there were no Pro II
blowouts, in fact, there was around a 4 month overlap while dealers
such as AES sold both, and never discounted the Pro II at
all. There was also no, or vy little outrage.
Why? It's constructive to see what's different here.
A. The Pro II fudamentally did what it was expected and advertized
to do and as such was a pretty good rig. Orion, basically had flaws
from day one, which supposedly were to be resolved with software,
but which were never entirely resolved. Yes, many improvements were
made, but according to some owners at least, not all that were
promised, hence a feeling of being misled.
B. Once again, the chickens came home to roost re TT's decision to
abandon a dealer network and go direct. Frankly, in most cases, the
JA manufacturers let the dealers handle the customer problems, and
relations with them, as that is what they are good at doing. TT is
held to a high or higher standard if you will, because people expect
some sort of ethical behavior (i.e. what they consider to be
ethical--whether they are being reasonable or not is something I'm
not going to address) since they are a small company and have a
reputation or image for square dealing and straight shooting,
deserved or not. In any case, the heat falls directly on them; not
AES, HRO et al. People therefore, expected more openness. But, see below:
What gets me is how well Ten Tec kept this new Orion II a secret.
Ten Tec and its staff should work for the CIA. Boy can they keep it close
to the vest!
Do you not at all see why that was done? Have you so quickly
forgotten what happened with the premature original announcement 3
years ago? TT announced the Orion and many people on this list
pestered them endlessly ....when when when Scott; how much longer;
we can't wait; I've had my order in for 6 months; I want my Orion
NOW; What, ANOTHER delay? Waaaaaaa.....
Again, you know who you are, and you have no one to blame but yourselves.
To me, TT clearly desired to avoid the problems caused by the
premature first announcement of the Orion, the presure to ship, and
the resulting release of a rig that was obviously rushed and not
ready for prime time. I believe this time they wished to avoid that
by keeping the Orion II Top Secret, and not breathing a word about
it to anyone until they were absolutely sure of it being in
production and ready to go out the door.
Otherwise, if they had casually said, "Oh by the way, we're working
on a new Orion II; should be finished up in around 9 months..." It
would have been the same old whining, crying, stamping of feet, and
bugging the hell out of the company staff. As far as that's
concerned I don't blame them for being secretive. I doubt if they
will ever mention new product plans again.
But anyway, the past 24 hrs. has been interesting to watch. It's
like observing some kind of wierd co-dependent relationship. Okay,
now your assignment is to forget all of what I've just written. I
want to get back to reading Ten Tec animosity and more, amazing, 180
degree overnight reversals of attitude, from the cult.
rob/k5uj
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