Senior Member
My 2 year old Audi was called in for an Engine software update last month, apparently to improve tyre and clutch life, and to improve driveability in lower gears.
They washed and vacuumed it while it was in, and gave me a car to use for the day.
Didn't cost a penny. This is the kind of service that gets repeat business.
Doc's website
The Health and Safety Act 1971
Recklessly interfering with Darwins natural selection process, thereby extending the life cycle of dim-witted ignorami; thus perpetuating and magnifying the danger to us all, by enabling them to breed and walk amongst us, our children and loved ones.
Senior Member
I hesitated a long time before making this post. But I have difficulties with the view that some people are having on software and its updates.
As a IT consultant for more than a decade now, I've been thinking about these kind of things on multiple occasions.
In my point of view there was at a certain moment mamba 2004. Software with a certain level of possibilities. Then, at a certain moment they brought out mamba black. This mamba black was essentially the same software, but with more possibilities.
if this new version of mamba has a big impact on the things you can do with it, than it is a third version of mamba next to '2004' and 'black' in my opinion. If this is not the case, than it is just another update.
It is not because the internals have been rewritten from the ground up, that it is justified to call it a new version of mamba. Even microsoft rewrites windows core modules in it's service packs if they need to.
When it comes to charging I have the the following view on things. Updates that correct things that have been sold and do not add significant new features: free. New versions that include significant new features: payed.
Now, to conclude I would line to add just one little thing that's on my mind:
if you want to do bug fixing and new features, then don't do them in the same version.
First fix the bugs as a free update, than add the features and charge accordingly for it. This way, customers willing to upgrade can, but more important, customers who are pleased with the current set of features will have a final bug-free version (which they payed for).
Senior Member
jeejeedr, that's exactly what I wanted to say in my post.. I'm just not that good in expressing myself clearly in English
Senior Member
Jeroen, just call me JeroenOriginally Posted by JeroenVDV
jeejeedr, that's exactly what I wanted to say in my post.. I'm just not that good in expressing myself clearly in English
Senior Member
Jeroen, just call me Jeroen
Da's een stuk makkelijker!
(That's much easier).
Senior Member
Actually JoJo, you're right.
When we first started in this business, Laser Media was charging $27,000 just to digitize images. It was Pangolin, in 1986, who started the whole concept of "free updates for the life of the product". Back then, we were the small guys, so we had to do this just to get attention.
Since that time, people have migrated to Pangolin, for their own reasons... And also, since that time, other companies HAD joined along this same route. For the longest time, every laser software manufacturer also offered "free updates for life".
But it seems that recently this has stopped. I think Laser Animation was the first one to stop the "free updates" policy, much to the dismay of their customers. But who cares about customers when you can make more money, right?
So next we see other, ostensibly smaller companies like Mamba and Phoenix who are also not offering free updates.
Yes, JoJo, I guess you are right. How can a big company like Pangolin ever expect to compete with small companies. I mean, that's ridiculous.
Oh, wait a second, all of this is backwards. In the past, it was always the big companies that charged for their updates, and it was always the smaller companies who had to entice sales by offering free updates and good service. I can see that now, the world is upside-down.
Yes, JoJo, all of this makes complete sense now. Thanks for pointing this out. Yes, it is completely unreasonable for me to expect anyone else to offer service and support as good as we do.
Well, you're absolutely right JoJo. I mean, heck, how can ANY company stay in business by selling something only once, and giving away the updates for free from that point forward. Ridiculous.
Oh, wait a second, that's what WE do. Hmmm. I'll have to think about this more...
Hehe. I guess I'll leave it to you to do that for me. After all, you've done a bang-up job proving my point in this post!
Bill
Creaky Old Award Winning Bastard Technologist
Ok, I bought two copies of mamba lite for 175$ each plus 60$ shipping., one for me, one for my sometimes business partner and best friend. He used it for one or two gigs, as his amiga had died and he had no funds after buying uprated lasers. I used it as a backup to the Qm32 with teh hope that my friend, who does lasers full time, would crank out some shows.
Within a month my copy was obsolete and useless as it was processor serial number based . They came out with the dongle addition it would have been 75+25 shipping for each unit to upgrade to the dongle. That would have done us no good, as a few months later it was a expensive upgrade to black or nothing.
Oh wait, did I mention the dedicated 400$ identical 1.3 ghz PCs for both of us dedicated to MAMBA?
So I still have the PC setting downstairs, its the serial number for a par port version of the software with no shows. Show availabilty and compatability with Mamba Black was promised, but it didn't happen. what Peter promised and what happened were too different things,. Will it work with my new Riya USB, I doubt it, it was ment for easylase or riya PCI or something else, and 8 bit par port. Is it buggy, yes. Does it work, somewhat, not a graphics output issue, but timeline issues. I could squeeze a show out of it with a lot of work.
So, because they had leaky security, I was forced to consider 200$ in addons after spending 1100+$ total. I'm glad I built the dacs. Then even if I had spent the $$$, support of lite vanished., cost to upgrade, full cost of Mamba Black.
WOA....
Bought QM32 in what, 1999, got free updates. Have been known to wake Mr Benner up on his sundays,and once at 9 PM or so. Once at 2 am or so when we ran out of cues half way through programming a award winning show, Bill called us back from home. Something like 734 time line events in the first two minutes. Always get some sort of response even when I'm asking for help on a ancient old system or somebody elses system. QM32 is in the machine and still running, albiet with a minor blanking problem. Have more problems finding working ISA machines then with the QM.
Cant wait for new job to stabilize so I can get a upgrade to the QM2000, but will probably take 6 months before I have the cash.
I guess you get what you pay for. Mamba lite had a great deal of promise. Were shows available for it, at the time, I might have upgraded.
Steve
Last edited by mixedgas; 06-23-2009 at 19:29.
Qui habet Christos, habet Vitam!
I should have rented the space under my name for advertising.
When I still could have...
Senior Member
At least Bill is here on this forum having his say about the matter - more than I can say for other company management!
--------------------
My Brain urt's!
Continuously in Awe! of (H)Al, the Photonlexicon Font of Complete Knowledge - The (H)Al'PL Database of complete puss that no one needs to know or ever trusts as he ain't really got a Scooby doo about now't!
Time Out!
WHOA!!!! That is completely uncalled for, Joachim.
Bill didn't bring up Pangolin in this thread. Several other people did. Bill only joined to clarify his position on upgrades AFTER Jeroen made his comment about how Pangolin is "considering asking money for upgrades". At that point, Bill had every right to jump in and explain his company's position on the subject.
If you want to blame someone for turning this thread into a pro-Pangolin thread, then blame the many satisfied Pangolin users here who have commented about this. But don't blame Bill for giving people what they want!
Adam
Senior Member
liteglow, visit ExideGlow tomorrow and you can try out the Pangolinīs FB3Haha.. that is true
I sent it off today to him
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