Green moves to greener pastures

Awwww.   I think Harriet's bubbling enthusiasm must have contributed a lot to Pi's standing in the group.  Such enthusiasm is very infectious.

Fingers crossed that Laurence also has a soft spot for Pi and understands the long-term value of promoting technical education in the community.

I'm hoping that the new boss will focus more on customer service than fashion  - I found HG's 'bubbling enthusiasm' for the next exciting thing less than impressive.

I hope that LB deals with the RPi on its merits (or otherwise)  and wish him luck with the new job.

Michael Kellett

@Michael: Be careful what you wish for.

Both Pi manufacturing partners are in the business of making profit through shifting technical product, not in the business of losing profit on support services.  Support is  a necessary underpinning when you have customers, but if a product requires more support than it provides in profit, a money-focused beancounting CEO could be tempted to cut it.  It would be their duty in looking after the company's health.

For all we know, Harriet's 'bubbling enthusiasm' might have been the key driving force in taking on the Pi, and Laurence may see Pi as all pain, very little gain, and a distraction from core business if it requires a high level of support.  We'll just have to hope that it's not so.

Morgaine.

Morgaine,

  You used the phrase "money-focused beancounting CEO".

According to linkedin:

Education: Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland               

                   The University of Glasgow

I think there are ways even a beancounter could increase the RPi profit. 

For example, the basic accessory bundles apparently aren't available yet.

They should be selling lots of approved power supplies, SD cards,

powered hubs, wifi dongles, etc., and maybe even multimeters.

They could also reduce their support costs significantly.  Apparently

Newark alone gets dozens of support calls per day, mostly from people

who would rather check a FAQ to see what batch they are in based on

the time of their order or the range of their order numbers.

They were expecting the RPi to give them lots of new customer accounts,

but I think instead they have gotten lots of people who are determined

never to do business with them again, based on lack of communication,

differences between policies in different countries, and lack of strict FIFO

deliveries, etc.

Hello Morgaine,

I don't see customer support and making money as mutually exclusive - I always offer Microchip as an example of good and even inspired customer support succeeding despite all the disadvantages they started with. Farnell  and RS both differentiate themselves form cheaper competition by offering  a better (but more expensive) level of service and I expect that to continue. I would rather that Farnell had not got involved with the RPi if it distracts them from the core business - I think they are probably big enough to cope so it should be OK.

I do agree that some bean countiing CEOs are far too focussed on the short term and I hope that LB is more Hewlet Packard than Carly Fiorina

BTW - and nothing to do with this thread - I went to the Xilinx X-fest and the Zynq does look pretty good - there's a $395 dev kit which should be available in June.

Michael Kellett

@coder27:  Oh dear.    It was purely a hypothetical.  I definitely do not want that to be proved right!!!!

@coder27:  Oh dear.    It was purely a hypothetical.  I definitely do not want that to be proved right!!!!