> JimMoci@AOL.COM sez --
>
> >Hey guys- I work for a tech school and we are sent products to evaluate
> >all the time- so much that we have to turn some stuff away. Everything
> >from textbooks, TV's, laptops, software, electronic whiteboards, etc.
> >Panasonic even gave us a $25,000 plasma screen monitor in hopes of
> getting
> >the school district to buy one for every school. It's how business is
> >done- and its how companies get new customers. Not everyone is as frugal
> >as hams. Now lighten up and enjoy the holiday!
>
[Steve Katz] I suspect those are tax writeoffs, provided to a
non-profit organization. Can't do that in commercial business. My company
provides such freebies to schools all the time.
-WB2WIK/6
> Nobody said there was anything wrong with businesses providing free stuff
> (pursuant to certain anti-bribery laws, of course).
>
> The issue was whether it was reasonable for a business to _DEMAND_ free
> prototypes when producing and delivering same were not justified by the
> expectation of follow-on business.
>
> I make no bones about accepting free literature and free samples from all
> electronics companies willing to provide them. If I don't have to endure
> the ^&^(&^(* BS some companies want to put me through to get sample
> quantities, it makes me a lot likelier to specify their parts. Nowadays
> (and for several years) my first question to a rep is "How soon can I get
> *one* piece?" The only correct answer is "yes." Until this year,
> Motorola
> couldn't quite figure that one out.
>
> Part of Motorola's current economic woes stem from its insistence on
> focusing on the 20% of the customers that provided 80% of the bookings, to
> the total exclusion of all other business, and often to the exclusion of
> all external customers. I think they've seen that this strategy is
> ineffective, considering that they're now licensing their wireless ICs to
> any company willing to buy them.
>
> Last time I checked, Agilent (HP) and Apple started in a garage, Dell
> Computers started in a dorm room, and National Instruments started out of
> a
> briefcase. And last time I checked, these companies were not especially
> enamored with MOT -- at best, MOT is second-source for Apple processors.
[Steve Katz] Don't forget Microsoft starting in a motel room.
-WB2WIK/6
> I'm not saying prototypes need to be free. I do feel that samples and
> prototypes should be priced at the hobbyist level, given the nature of
> the
> part (e.g., no free Dahl transformers or Sand Labs 5 KW amps). And I do
> say that any company that shuns the small developer deserves to suffer in
> the marketplace.
[Steve Katz] Interesting point of view. On the other hand, when I
worked in circuit design (at Bell Telephone Laboratories, for example), we
were prohibited from accepting "samples" of anything for fear they may be
hand-picked "best of the lot" parts especially selected for us and not
representative of standard, off-the-shelf hardware. The company felt it was
unwise to use such parts as parametric standards for design, and thus we had
no choice but to go out into the marketplace and buy samples via
distribution, often clandestinely (having parts shipped to our homes, rather
than the Labs), to avoid such selection. And we had to buy a lot of parts,
"one" or "two" doesn't represent a lot. It was common for us to buy 100 pcs
of a $100 item, test them all and find the mean and standard deviation for
the lot in order to determine what the parts really did. Of course, we were
building systems intended for zero failures (such as missile guidance
systems) or extremely long life (such as telephone central office
equipment), so reliability had to be designed in, down to the most basic
parts. -WB2WIK/6
> Jim N6OTQ
>
>
>
> --
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