[TenTec] Orion2 Firmware Update

[geoffrey mendelson]

On Apr 15, 2010, at 6:14 PM, Rsoifer at aol.com wrote:

>
> The possible saving grace in the O II situation might be that we are
> "only" dealing with 10K lines of code, rather than millions in the  
> banking
> situation.  Rather than trying to fix the existing firmware, might  
> it  make more
> sense just to treat the O II as an  empty hardware platform, and   
> write an
> altogether new system?

I think that you would find there are a lot more lines of code in the  
O2 firmware, and each one does a lot more than whatever was used in  
your banking situation. Your bank probably had hundreds of programers  
to maintain, test and develop code, Ten Tec at best had (has) a handful.

In the 1990's when I was a computer consultant, I had one bank that  
had a single programmer on staff. They bought a banking package that  
was complete, and cost more per year than a house. Obviously the  
company that provided it had many programmers, testers, etc.

The reality of the situation is that at $4000 or so the the O2 is  
cheap. If it were sold as commerical or military equipment, it would  
cost $10k-$20k  and if it ended up in the ISS probably close to $100k.

If it were sold by CISCO or another similar company, you would get  
annual firmware updates, but you would be paying $1k yearly support  
contract. No contract, no firmware. If Ten Tec did something to make  
sure firmware for my radio did not load on yours so that I could not  
"gift" you mine, because you don't have a contract, it would be a  
normal practice in the computer business.

Companies that gave away free software updates to their commerical  
routers, such as Baycomm, have long since disapeared. A calculation by  
the WSJ of thieir stock price in their last year of business was that  
if you bought $1,000 of Bud in cans or $1,000 of Baycomm stock, in a  
year the deposit on the cans was worth more than the stock.

I buy routers from a company called EDIMAX. They are $50-$75 each, and  
come with lifetime free sofware updates. In reality, they issue two or  
three of them in the "lifetime" of the product, then they tell you to  
buy a new model. The same with another cheap company TP-Link, whose  
routers are now $30, but the last update on theirs was 2 years ago,  
athough that model is still on sale. If you want current updates, you  
have to buy a $75 model.

Linksys (which is really CISCO) and D-Link have similar polices. Two  
or three updates and goodbye.


Sun used to give away software patches and small user licenses for  
their operating system. They kept loosing money, and were bought out  
by Oracle, who now requires service contracts and limits free licenses  
to 90 days. Sun was about to file bankruptcy, probably by the end of  
the year, Oracle is not in any such danger.

Sure you could get better software support, but be prepared to pay for  
it. As for re-writing the code, forget it.

AFAIK software engineers are cheap in the area Ten-Tec is, as long as  
you don't have to buy someone from silicon valley. A really top-notch  
developer of embeded code could easily demand salaries of $300k-$500k  
depending upon the job, the company and the options, even in this  
economy.

At the height of "the bubble" the average income of a programmer in  
Seattle was $400k including bonuses and stock options. It's probably  
now half that, but that was all programmers at all levels, not the top  
end of the embedded software guys.

That would mean if you wanted Ten-Tec to hire a program to work soley  
on the O2 issues and $1k of the price of the radio was software, they  
would have to sell 200 to 300 a year just to cover his salary. Or if  
they wanted to do the same by subscriptions, they would have to sell  
that many at that price,
or if you wanted $100 a year subscriptions, 3000. More like 5000 to  
cover all costs.

Just to put it in perspeciive, the average salary of the programmers  
at the bank is probably around $100k, and if they live in a high cost  
of living area, closer to $150k. That means there are some that make  
$60, and some that make $150, aren't you sorry that when you worked  
for that bank, you did not take the free programming classes they  
offered?

73,

Geoff.
-- 
geoffrey mendelson N3OWJ/4X1GM
Jerusalem Israel geoffreymendelson at gmail.com
New word I coined 12/13/09, "Sub-Wikipedia" adj, describing knowledge  
or understanding, as in he has a sub-wikipedia understanding of the  
situation. i.e possessing less facts or information than can be found  
in the Wikipedia.