[TenTec] Orion and O II Firmware Update?

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

On Tue, Dec 02, 2008 at 09:39:58PM +0000, Barry N1EU wrote:
>Rick, I think you have some good points in there but I honestly don't
>get the thrust of what you're saying - that Ten-Tec has a more mature
>system of control over change release because they don't release
>changes?  That Elecraft is eventually going to drive off a cliff
>because they release successful changes at a rapid pace?

There is always a trade off on testing. Test too little and you have too many
bugs, e.g. Windows Vista. Test too long, and you end up with a product
has few bugs, but it lacks features that customers currently want. e.g.
Windows XP (currently).

Ten-Tec takes a let it sit longer policy with software updates. I'm not a 
contester, but don't most contests happen on a six month (spring/fall)
cycle or once a year. Since the O II is targeted at contesters, if there
is a 7 month beta cycle, it is guaranteed that a particular release 
will be tested during one of those contests. If it was 6 months, possibly
not because users will not have upgraded.

If it is 2 or 3 months, it is likely that a release will have gone production
without ever having been tested in a contest, which could yield some very
unpleasant surprises. In fact with a 1 or 2 month beta test cycle, you would
have more than one release untested. A bug introduced 2 releases back may have
been in production and cause many radios to perform poorly or fail in the
heat of a contest.

Will the competition "fall off a cliff"? Probably not. It is possible if
a failure is introduced in a release and causes several "big guns" to
score significantly lower than they have in the past and wanted to.
While one would expect that an experienced operator would notice that
a rig is failing and have a backup rig that does not run the same firmware
(or even a few releases back), you can never be sure.

I guess it all depends upon your market. I assume that while both Ten-Tec
and the competition both go after the same operators, the ones that want
the slow controlled software release cycle will buy Ten-Tec and the ones
that want the rapid upgrades, even with the chance of failure they bring,
will by the other.

The real question is now that money is tight and less people will be buying
radios, will they both survive?

Geoff.

-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel gsm at mendelson.com  N3OWJ/4X1GM