On Thu, 11 Jun 1998, Frank Heinzius wrote:
> Hiya,
>
> On 10 Jun 98, at 10:58, MegaZone wrote:
>
> > Once upon a time Paul Popper shaped the electrons to say...
[snip]
> > >The Lucent/Livingston policy of refusing to give an ETA smells a
> > >bit. Paul.
> >
> >
> > Is anyone stupid enough to believe giving a date will change ANYTHING? That
>
> Yes. But please don't call my customers stupid. End-customers often ask for time lines,
> and they are used to things like that from other vendors. This is business, man. And
> don't argue, that Lucent is a small bunch of freaky engineers. I'm working for an
> official distributor of Livingston/Lucent. Lucent employees want to know the reasons why
> sales decrease, customers are unsatisfied and so on. So, if the manufacturer wants
> professional business, then they have to act professional!
> I don't want to blame Lucent here. I want to blame people with statements like Megazone
> did. Sorry, the times are over where we only want to have fun. We have to work for our
> money, and customers pay a lot, and so they demand a lot. What's wrong with that?
Pardon? define professional? You mean releasing code that is broken or
flakey is professional? You mean releaseing code that is more alpha than
beta and doesn't approach being usable/stable is professional? You mean
giving out dates that no one can realisticly do because of the number of
unknowns involved? Ahh, I know.... Lucent RABU should announce that v.90
in ComOS will be released in the year 2000 so that it will be proven to
not have a Y2K bug!!!!
> > is ready. If you can't live without dates, you are using the wrong vendor.
> > End of story.
> >
>
> This is *your* opinion, and not that of Lucent, AFAIK ;-)
> Most of us are doing *real business (tm)*. A end customer has the right to ask "ok, you
> don't have V.90 for Europe ready. No problem. Tell me, when will it be ready?"
> Do you know what I have to tell them? "Sorry, Idunno. Lucent tells me nothing."
> Even if you say "It will be ready in Q4/98", this is better than just saying "when it's
> ready".
Bah, tell them the truth... v.90 isn't even RATIFIED YET!!! Let them know
that to get something stable there will be heavy testing of code to ensure
inter-operability with different chipsets. Educate them that rushing to
get the 'bleeding edge' is exactly that getting hurt when you don't want
to. Think about what market you are serving, if they demand the latest
and greatest, then YOU fulfill that need, go and buy Ascend or USR! Then
when you aren't happy with them come back here with your tail between your
legs and be a prodigal child. (I won't say you won't be happy with Ascend
or USR, yet with your attitude here why don't you try them and see if they
meet your expectations that you have for Lucent RABU.)
> So, overthink your attitude. I lose customers due to the above attitude. I don't accept
> this. Who else would? Especially in Germany, Livingston loses market shares.
> We do our best to sell Lucent products, and we have a lot of success here! But what I
> don't want to see are attitude like yours as official policy. Please remember, our
> companies are PARTNERS.
If you are losing customers then YOU need to rethink your equipment
alliances. It's a hard fact that not all companies can meet all their
clients needs. Granted Lucent RABU is unbeatable in certain aspects, yet
it sounds like you are delving into markets that is either not of great
demand or interest to Lucent RABU on a greater scale at this point.
> > If you have a bug to report, report it. If you have a feature to request,
> > request it. If you want to whine - shut the hell up. It doesn't do anyone
> > any good.
>
> SOme people are whining, ok. I accept that you don't like people whining. But beside of
> that, it's their way to express their frustration. It's a possible way. It's better then
> saying nothing. And, it's better than just staying silent, dispose the product and really
> get an product from a competitor.
>
> So, as long as they are whining, they express a form of interest for Lucent products. So
> care about them. They are the customers. They pay the salaries of the engineers
> indirectly. And, Megazone, some time ago it was your salary too ;-)
>
No it isn't. Discuss with sales or your contact at Lucent RABU why you
have to purchase a competitive/different product, then move on. Whining
does jack shit except to wind people up causing this exact sort of
flame/counter-flame going on. Imagine how much more productive time the
Lucent RABU employees would have if they don't get upset reading the
'whines.' Constructive criticism is one thing, repetitive incessant posts
on this issue which has already been answered doesn't do anything
worthwhile.
Come on, if you bought Lucent RABU equipment on the promise of the future
then you need to seriously rethink your strategy. If you bought Lucent
RABU on its history of solid performance in the Analog market aka PM2,
such as I did, then you will not have expectations to have your cake and
eat it.
Let me say that I went from a PM2 to the PM3 because of a cost factor.
PRI here is cheaper than POTS. In addition, not having the multitudes of
cables, power cords, modems, etc sure cleaned up my dialin section of the
office. It is very welcome that 56K technology will eventually stable on
these units, but it wasn't a part of our companies marketing plan. Till
today, I unofficially support K56Flex as I am not satisfied that it will
work universally in our locale. The Telco has too much influence on what
will and will not work.
Yeah, I'm a Lucent RABU bigot.
Livingston PortMaster PM-3 ComOS 3.7.2c3
System uptime is 122 days 18 minutes
That says to me that it works for what I want.
My customers that have solid connections are happy.
Now will someone get constructive and do a poll to see what people want to
see some 'exposure date' for ComOS releases meaning what industry are they
in, what number of units do they expect to purchase within the next year,
and other appropriate info... then submit this to sales to show the
support behind this request. Hopefully if Lucent RABU chooses to not
change their stance they will give a reason/explanation for such.
Now can we move on?
OOooooo.... *plink* *plink* here's my nickels to go into the kitty ;)
-- Aloha from Paradise,Sherwood
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