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.

@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!!!!

@Michael: Well I know how to fix Farnell's Pi support issues & support costs almost instantly:

1. Make Pi available ex-stock.  The vast bulk of support stems from nil stock.
2. Let the Pi community do its own technical support, with occasional input from Element 14.

They pretty much do #2 already.  Physical customer services are only needed for RMAs and account problems.

Regarding #1, I'm not so sure that they are focused on making pre-orders an unpleasant memory.  The rate of "continued production" does not appear to be very fast, just a few dozen K units per month it seems.  At that rate I don't expect availability ex-stock "ever", because the school year starts in September and demand is going to sky-rocket.

Morgaine,

you wrote:

>  Make Pi available ex-stock.  The vast bulk of support stems from nil stock.

while it is true that the backlog is putting a burden on the support staff,

it isn't inherently true.  If customers in the backorder queue have an online

page where they can check their estimated delivery date, and update their

delivery address or credit card details as necessary, there should be

essentially no burden on the support staff.

The burden seems to be caused by an inexplicable inability to merge the

orders into a single list, sort it by order date, and correlate ranges of

order dates with scheduled manufacturing batches.

If a company can give reasonable online delivery estimates, and the

estimates can be seen to be fair based on order dates, then that

relieves a lot of pressure to ramp production too rapidly, and it allows

time to fix early design and manufacturing problems.

coder27 wrote:

 

The burden seems to be caused by an inexplicable inability to merge the

orders into a single list, sort it by order date, and correlate ranges of

order dates with scheduled manufacturing batches.

Notwithstanding their "inexplicable inability to merge the orders into a single list..." etc, the fact remains that this would not matter if devices were in stock.  Customers don't need to check order status at all for normal in-stock products which are immediately assigned to them.  You can even see the stock level drop by the number of items you order, it's highly interactive and very reassuring for a purchasing customer.

This is one of the best features of Farnell's service I think, although admittedly my experience is of Farnell UK only.

Absolutely nothing will fix the perceived problems and reduce the need for support as effectively as making Pi available ex-stock.

Morgaine.

Michael Kellett wrote:

 

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.

Is that the ZedBoard or something else?  If it's the ZedBoard, $395 is pretty steep for building a community.

John Beetem wrote:

 

$395 is pretty steep for building a community.

Most boardmakers haven't yet taken that mental leap into the new pricing world of Pi and STM32F4-Discovery.

Nor into the needs of enthusiasts and the rising maker community.  And the phrase "open source hardware" is not even on their radar.  Democratization of the means of production still has a long way to go.

Although it's still pie in the sky currently, the ability of 3D printers to print proper PCBs really can't come soon enough.

Morgaine.

Morgaine,

  you wrote:

"Absolutely nothing will fix the perceived problems and reduce the need for support as effectively as making Pi available ex-stock."

If they had a proven design, I would completely agree with you.  But they don't. 

There was essentially no beta testing, just 10 betas auctioned as collector's items.

The "troubleshooting" forum at rpi.org has 323 topics at the moment, and rising quickly.

There is a support cost for dealing with returned boards, and boards that won't boot,

run hot, only work when cold, only work when warm, have non-working USB or ethernet, etc.

So one needs to balance the support costs of managing a waiting list if the ramp is too slow,

vs the support costs of product defects if the ramp is too fast.

Any reputable parts distributor should not have the slightest problem managing a waiting list.

They do it all the time, since products are routinely back ordered.  Any CEO who told their

board of directors that the company couldn't properly manage a waiting list, months after the

initial flood of orders, would be quickly looking for a new job, I would think.  Any CEO who

reassured their investors that next year's profits would likely be higher on account of leap year

would not be taken seriously, I would think.

Aye, can't argue with ithe actual hardware support issues that may arise or are arising.  I was referring only to the support issues related to preordering.

Well personally I think that the Foundation's choice of USB chargers as power supplies is a mistake, although that is only with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight.  Originally I too thought that it was a great idea, but reality has proven otherwise.  The average charger just isn't made to the right quality.

And the polyfuse issue is another hardware problem, which I believe is a misdesign which exacerbates the problem with poor quality chargers.  I think this should be fixed before many more boards are allowed out into the wild.

Both of these issues are going to add to the support requirement I expect.  I hope that that documented report of the RJ45 with the mis-inserted leg was a one-off, and that poor QA doesn't add further to the support nightmare.  This wide variation in operating temperatures I find particularly worrying -- http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=5898 .

Morgaine.