What is the *expected* Element14 response to expression of interest?

Hello Morgaine,

I think my expected response from Element14 would be some sort of communication, but this is only expected, not experienced.

I can second the good experience with Farnell, I have been getting e-mails and also polite people on the phone if I feel the need to call them 'just to check' :-) They must be completely fed up with it I should think, but always a professional response.

I have had mails from RS, the same as Chris above, saying there is testing going on. Not sure how this impacts on Farnell (I would presume the same) but they seem to be able to give prospective shipping dates.

@Chris, the mailing list on the Raspi website is next to useless, please don't expect any information to come from that source. The only time they have used it is to make people aware of the rather botched launch 'event' and that mail seemed to make it to less than half of the people registered. Also the official Raspi forum doesn't take too kindly to people asking 'probing' questions there, I think I am right in saying that Morgaine has had at least one thread closed for asking similar questions.

Steve

Hi Steve,

@Chris, the mailing list on the Raspi website is next to useless, please don't expect any information to come from that source. The only time they have used it is to make people aware of the rather botched launch 'event' and that mail seemed to make it to less than half of the people registered. Also the official Raspi forum doesn't take too kindly to people asking 'probing' questions there, I think I am right in saying that Morgaine has had at least one thread closed for asking similar questions.

I just gave out those mailing list details, I felt it would help Morgaine understand why she may not have a response from Farnell.

I been following raspberry Pi since 27th Aug 2011, posted a link on my G+ profile https://plus.google.com/u/0/106191182717678017250/posts  I placed my email address on that mailing list and received an email about the launch. I was also looking at Rasperberry Pi web site when their was only one post on the wordpress site. Eden and Liz did make a decision they wouldn't take pre-order because they felt is not in their interest to as Raspberry Pi is a Charity and a non profit org. This was posted on the Raspberry Pi and it was tweeted out. Agreed the launch day didn't go quite as planed. There was a post on Raberry Pi website, also on the forum about it stating that RS Compondents, Premier Farnall were told about the launch but I don't know what happened there I but some people within all areas of IT and management were giving eachother a good ear bashing over the fact that 2 well supported  Companies with large networks couldn't hold up their severs on launch day. even though the Raspberry Pi fornum memebers gave loads of server space and bandwidth to support the downloads and torrents of the OS packages for the device. Why didn't Farnall or RS move their services onto those servers. Maybe because of red tape between the parties involved, no idea but just a thought.

Also the reasons for the lack of emails sent out in time, due to the large amount of people that place their names on the list. When servers and networks are placed under heavy load, also you have IT trying to add extra services on the fly, I belive you are going to lose some data which you have no idea what it relates to. On launch day I was trying to get/pre order/register interest, even though I signed up to the mailing as stated above . I was like what for. I saw that Premier Farnall other sites where falling over, so I added my details for interest on RS, even that failled on my first attement so I tried again which worked. A few days/ a couple of weeks passed. I got 2 emails from RS, gosh did my first go work but web page said no. So maybe there is 2 email address related to my interest. After this I stoped trying and walked away, I have regisered my interest, will sit on hands and wait.

Another hitch which cause problems as it was only 1 per person because Rasberry PI didn't want people selling them on Ebay for 400 times their direct cost. Why I hear you ask because the charity won't see a penny of it. In fact on launch day I was laughing out loud becasue people where saying where my Pi 3 hours after putting down cash for pre-order. Are you aware of anyone paying for a product online and have it in thier hands within 3 hours. I think not.

I can't understand why everyone is getting so worked up about not getting their Pi. Lets look at time line demand for Raspberry Pi is far higher than anyone could have know about, Liz & Eden had a well earned 2 week break, the sher mention of anything related to RasberryPi brings down your servers, delay casued by the worong ethernet port connected to the device, now delays casued by compliance testing. Morgaine is having a go at element 14 for bad customer service, I can't understand why if you follow the founders of RapberryPi rather than someting that has grow to support and provide information so that people can understand why it's been delayed & their pre-orders deliverly dates are being extended. Don't you agree it would casue less stress for all parties 

I can understand why her posts have been removed. Lets put this way, If you are driving on a long journery & i'm a young child sitting on the back seat "saying are we there yet" , "are we there yet" "are we there yet" every 10 secs, I sure that you wouldn't be driving the car for very long.  The internet provides many ways to know about something but don't waste time moaning that element which once provided good service is no longer becasue of actions and decisons out of their control. I'm sure they are aware of their errors and are working hard to put things right so we can all enjoy some Raspberry Pi.

Be patient and focus your energy on more postive things, Also click on the speech bubble in the top right corrner of the posts on Raspberry Pi web site, the scroll down the comments, you make start to understand the reasons for the delays, thus helping to reduce the stress through understanding.

Chris

Message was edited by: Chris Hills

Chris,

You are right that in a car, a child has no right to be upset with what they perceive to be

inadequate or outdated information regarding estimated time of arrival.  But there is an

important difference here.  The vendor/customer relationship is not a parent/child relationship,

it's a more equal relationship exchanging money for product.  Prior to a product launch,

a vendor can be as evasive as they like regarding schedules, but I think they lose that

right after they launch a product and take your order.

In general, when there is a breakdown in communications, it can be either for technical

reasons, such as being out of cell phone range, or having dead phone batteries, or

being too busy to talk at the moment, etc., or it can be because one's ducks aren't in a row.

When someone who owes you money, for example, doesn't return repeated phone

messages, you can be pretty sure it's not because of technical reasons, but because

their ducks aren't in a row.  Maybe they are waiting on a paycheck, or tax refund, etc.

So to answer Morgaine's question, Element 14 is perfectlly capable of communicating

with their customers, either directly through email, or though announcements on their

web page.  That they are not communicating indicates that their ducks are not in a row.

We already know about some of the wayward ducks.  The launch on Feb 29 was supposed

to follow the Fedora Remix launch on Feb 22.  But on Feb 22 all we got was an OS

launch party.  A product launch is normally supposed to happen when there is at least some

product in stock in the warehouse, and we were assured that this would be the case. 

But the Feb 29 launch went ahead despite the lack of stock in hand.  Normally an

OS is beta tested, but the Fedora Remix was launched without beta testing, with

fingers crossed that Murphy's law wouldn't apply.  But no such luck.  The first users

couldn't even log on without an internet connection, and couldn't change the time zone.

There were known OS performance issues, including the lack of X Window acceleration,

but these issues were deferred to after the mass market launch.  Farnell seems to be

gradually coming up to speed on such issues.

The beta hardware had known issues, apparently sound didn't work, and various SD

cards didn't work, but these issues weren't resolved in a second round of beta hardware

prior to launch.  The launch went ahead before anyone tried the ethernet port. 

It is being called a "gnu/linux box", but was launched with no box.  Will an expensive metal box

be required for RF shielding, nobody knows because no RF testing was done before

launch.  Will the board need to be redesigned to fit better in a box, with connectors

lined up, and maybe not on all sides of the box?  Will the GPIO pins need to be

protected from static discharge? 

Farnell can't really tell people what batch they are in, until they arrange for production

of the batches.  But they can't do that until they know the boards they make will not

need to be redesigned, due to RF,  box, or any other issues.  Until they know their

level of returns and/or complaints from the first batch, they can't be expected to start

production of subsequent batches.  They can't be expected to take high-risk gambles

on a low-margin product.

Agree on some points.

The child/car bit was not related to that type of relationship.
He is now a see it, what casued the confuseion, Eben at RaspberryPi made/invented the product, they worked out they couldn't/wouldn't be able to deal with the demand, so RasPi in the Uk spoke to RS Electrontics and Premier Farnell about helping them with shipping and handing orders, demand casued the severs to fail, something which may have cost both companies a lot in lost sales. I'm wondering how many non-raspberry pi customers had problems with their orders placed on the same day?

Yes I agree that Farnell can't readly tell people when they are likely to get a product which was not available to sell. It's seems that element14 and Farnell are adversting pre-orders where as RS Electrontics only asked for "register for interest" . It's seems that the other 2 have taken money in pre-orders to help cover the cost of lost orders on launch day, so looking at the problems listed above I hope those who have, get a RasPi or a refund of they money based on the time to took to deliver product.

It also seems that the order system at Farnell is trying to predict the future by saying you will get this item by x date. I would think that you need to have "physical" device or compondent for this system to work well and I'm sure there are ways to get devices and compondents in large numbers other than the Rasberry Pi becuase on the problems faced with the production of device. It's this order process which fits the model of the child "asking are we there yet". Farnell or Element 14 should stop pre-orders and updating customers with deliverly dates which might be or not met. It's not like they will lose money on this deal but some product has to be shipped soon becasue people are bitting at the bit to make a fast buck without shipping the product to anyone which will just kill it.

"It's not shut up and take my money!!"

"It should be give me a physical product and I will pay a fair price for it"

Our UK import laws regaring importing compondents casued delays and the device to cost more than RasPI wished to sell the device for, this meant that it needed to go to china to be made, but the reason for RasPi to produce in the Uk was to bring back Bristish Manufacturing and help repair the UK economics. So Eben lost some control over the final product and some of the problems listed above may have been casued duing the final production, so maybe that the reason why they have brought forward Compliance testing. These problems could/maybe ironed out during this process. They maybe more news at the start of the week. I just going to relax, chill out and work on a case or another project using an Arduino until such a time comes when I get pre-order invite from RS Electronics.

Also belive an Element 14 staff member should pick up on this disscusion, as i'm not in a postion to comment further. It's going off topic on Morgane original question. about the failed relationship between her, Farnal and Element 14.

You're making stuff up Chris.  I've never had any post removed from anywhere.  There's no reason for it, my posts are all calm and polite and professional.  You've clearly got me mixed up with someone else.

What's more, I'm not complaining about delivery time here as you're suggesting, nor about the events of launch day which were unfortunate but my post above has absolutely notthing to do with those.  I purposely waited a few days before registering my interest, to give the parties concerned some time to regroup from the first-day problems --- that seemed like a reasonable thing to do, instead of increasing the load on their site at their peak time.  I like to take a reasonable approach to most things, it keeps everyone happier and tends to work better.

So no, you're not really replying to my post above, and indeed appear to be referring to someone else.

Here all I'm doing is wanting confirmation that my "register your interest" actually got registered.  That's not an unreasonable thing to want.  If Element 14 can confirm that everyone who registered their interest at the website should have got confirmation by email, then I will know that their systems have failed for my registrations (twice!).  Fine, I can't say I'm happy but I'll register a third time.

But unless they confirm one way or another, I can't possibly know if I'm in the queue or not.

PS. Element 14 staff have not responded so far, so I guess they don't have weekend staff online and this will have to wait until Monday.

Morgaine.

Hello Chris,

As you say this is getting well off topic so i''ll keep my comments brief and then say no more. I didn't mean to turn this into a foundation bashing exercise, I think they have created a marvelous product that is a real game changer, nor did I mean that your advice was bad, it is just that those communication channels you suggest are not used to their best effect. Logically, they should be the place to go. Currently they are not.

I am not stressed about getting a Pi, my order is in 'somewhere' and I have plenty of things to play with in the meantime. I also frequent the Raspi board on a daily basis, and do know how to use the 'speech bubble' as you call it. It is here that I see very defensive mods, who rather than admitting that information is scarce prefer to immediately jump on the defensive and come down hard on people that I think are asking justifiable questions. I am fully aware of all the problems they have faced, both previously and now. However, if you have frequented the boards for a while you will remember people questioning the original 'business model' (yes, I know they are not for profit) in the forums, to be told that the foundation 'are not noobs at this sort of stuff'. With the ensuing issues that they have had, both unavoidable and avoidable I'll leave people to draw their own conclusions as to whether this was a fair point by the moderator.

I'll say again, I think the Foundation have done a wonderful job in creating such a device, it should shake up the market in the same way apple did for mobile phones, but I think that the forums could be moderated in a little less authoritarian way.

Morgaine, I said you have had posts removed, not Chris, he was only responding to my comment. If you haven't had posts remvoed on the Raspi forums, you have cetainly had them locked, for example: http://www.raspberrypi.org/forum/general-discussion/discussions-about-raspberry-pi-are-not-off-topic

I am not sure what you mean by registering with element 14 to be honest, unless they are known as that wherever you live, although you say you are a customer in the UK of Farnell. I have registered both with Farnell in the UK and have had e-mail correspondence from them and also RS and I have received an e-mail from them, concering the additional testing that is mentioned on the Rpi site. I'm not sure where else there is left to register, unless I have missed something. Isn't Element14 just the community portal for Farnell in the same way that Dreamspark is for RS components ?

Morgaine, I said you have had posts removed, not Chris, he was only responding to my comment. If you haven't had posts remvoed on the Raspi forums, you have cetainly had them locked, for example: http://www.raspberrypi.org/forum/general-discussion/discussions-about-raspberry-pi-are-not-off-topic

I am not sure what you mean by registering with element 14 to be honest, unless they are known as that wherever you live, although you say you are a customer in the UK of Farnell. I have registered both with Farnell in the UK and have had e-mail correspondence from them and also RS and I have received an e-mail from them, concering the additional testing that is mentioned on the Rpi site. I'm not sure where else there is left to register, unless I have missed something. Isn't Element14 just the community portal for Farnell in the same way that Dreamspark is for RS components ?

@Morganie Maybe you could try register with RS as it's based within UK http://uk.rs-online.com/web/generalDisplay.html?id=raspberrypi 

the contact form is at the bottom of the page. Also I belive you had rough deal with element14 so it might be best to try the link above.

It's been badly managed and had it's far share of miscommunication of information from all sources, If you read the comments on the Rasberry PI website, you will see posts from Liz, with updates from the company. Just tonight I have seen a post thats states she on getting on a plane. I have also emailed liz about the Raspberry Pi relating to sellers on ebay, trying to sell the devices before anyone has one, which is against Ebay terms & conditions & distance selling rules. She is quick to reply and PR for the foundation. http://www.raspberrypi.org/contact-us

Im not having a go at the foundation, far from it's going to be a good device & I fully support it. It also needs to tested for compliance before it's shipped so everyone is waiting for one.

A wish you both well in the quest for a Raspberry Pi 

@Steve/Chris: Righto, looks like I got you two confused, sorry to both.  But yeah, I've never had anything removed, and the thread they locked wasn't about any of this stuff, but about inappropriate forum moderation of other people's threads.

The fact that Michael finally locked my thread as well (which had been totally calm and courteous) just proved my point perfectly --- the forum admins at raspberrypi.org are totally out of control, and unaccountable.  It's not being run as an open *community* forum should be.  It smells more like Apple's iron fists'R'us.

But that's not my topic here, so I'll just wait until Monday and keep my fingers crossed that Element 14 staff answer.

Cheers to both of you. :-)

Morgaine.