Interestingly, that's one of the oft recurring query requests that comes to my site! It tells you what people are beginning to perceive, considering lack of updates, lack of meaningful updates, and continuing woes out there.
I don't think Notion Ink Adam is dead - I mean it's as good as, but as long as we keep reading clueless posts from their CEO Rohan Shravan (who, by the way, is again quiet for over a month after that "what was that" font post - and don't forget that not too long ago he promised posts once every 2 weeks, but then we know how good his word is)
Hey Rohan, or maybe a co-founder who values his words, can tell me again
What happened to Tactuslabs?
What are your 100+ employees doing?
Why are support mails going unanswered considering you said you had a large support team?
Where are HC updates - you did say that "frequent updates" were coming, but none so far that I see
Where are the updates for the "research" your team's been doing (You said, on July 27th, "We have done extensive research on these fields and will share it with you in coming weeks.Bye for know, will keep you posted!") It's been nearly 4 weeks.
Where?
Notion Ink Adam isn't dead, is it?
LOL... Indian IT company & "research".
ReplyDeleteIs right. Research means google.
ReplyDeleteDear freedune,
ReplyDeleteit is not "ok" to make fun of the company. Although, Rohan has made many failed promises,
it is not binding upon any CEO of any company to talk to his customers and fans through a blog.
What has not happened from their side is that there has been no official communication from them by any means. If I were Rohan, I would talk less.
But, they did present a model of global business today. Design in India, Manufacture in China, Export to the whole world.
I think their workhorses left them soon. Today, job seekers in India don't have patience to be with the small companies (mainly due to feeling of insecurity, fear, high interest and land rates in cities, wish to work in their state, better opportunities in MNCs etc etc). Also, there could be internal management issues as well, we don't know.
I guess, we need to just wait and watch and keep the community alive and keep Rohan and his team inspired
:)
Dear Radicalvision,
ReplyDeleteYour comment was to dune, but let me respond too.
It is hard to keep a community alive if the company does not care! It is not the job of customers to keep the company inspired - it should be the other way around. Any company that makes ambitious statements must also bear scrutiny. The global model you speak of is not new - it has been done my Indian companies and its IT providers (for hardware design) for years now. What Notion Ink did differently was try to get into a new exciting market and was an early entrant from India, but they did it very badly - to the extent that it's becoming a laughing stock. About people leaving the company/internal management issues etc. - they are everyday challenges that can't be used an excuse. Most companies manage these issues on a daily basis - If they can't, they should accept that they can't...and we should accept that they are a mediocre company that tried and failed. It can't be that we praise it for what it did not do!
I appreciate your support and a feeling that this young company can do better. I've moved past that long ago - it is a young company but with way too many clueless managers, an unskilled CEO, and arrogance that somehow because they're young the business will magically succeed - it doesn't.
you're right, radicalvision. If they make fun of their customers, they should be sued to hell and back. However, that would only mean more expenses for you and me and nothing to gain, so we choose the free version.
ReplyDeleteDear jksaur, freedune, and all readers reading this,
ReplyDelete1. Can you write down in this/your blog what exactly are you expecting from NI ?
better support, regular software updates, less of rant and promises, more on better build quality etc.
2. What business is NI into, according to you ?
NI sells you hardware. For some customers, there were some issues in it (as always). Somebody in the manufacturing line didn't care to test each item throughly. They changed the manufacturer. Older manufacturer shirked from its responsibility. And they have a screwed-up support mechanism to address to these hardware related issues. Agreed.
But, the point is, they have sold you the hardware. What more do you want ?
Now, are you expecting them to write the operating systems, modules to test and run all the sensors ? Productive Apps? Do you expect them to ship the device with a free GNU/Linux OS ?
If they have sold you some proprietary / licensed free or otherwise stuff, then you are entitled to receive the software that makes that thing work. For eg. If Intel sell you x86 board, they must release the instruction set and a user manual to make it work. When Apple sell you its device, it has to sell you its OS, because its chip and instruction set is closed source/proprietary. Otherwise, what's the use of the piece of dead hardware ?
So, the manufacturer has to depend upon other manufacturers, support from Board Support Packagers, OS developers, kernel module developers, apps developers etc.
The whole ecosystem.
Even there, these developers/ companies prioritise according to number of devices sold. So, there are more chances of Samsung sensor driver support coming up faster than that of NI.
When you buy a x86 based laptop, today you have a choice on OS. But, not so in the 90s.
Similarly, today, you do not have a choice other than Google Android on it. So, the onus is on the company selling the software. Google delayed releasing the GNU kernel too. This delayed others in the serial loop.
So, everybody is in their nascent stages and all trying to profit and stay afloat. Imagine, if Google backs out from its Android project all together ? What will you do ? Where will you go ? Will you sue NI ?
In some years, if you too help the developers of optional GNU/Linux, you may get the hardware thing working. But, they hate Android devs for not following the discipline, forking a kernel with no intention to merge into mainline, hard-coded kernel user space to make USB keyboards work impossible, not handling security properly etc.
3. Now, "CEO had a disaster on his birthday bash which got him stomach ache." This doesn't quite make a useful post for the NI customers (if you consider his blog as his official NI communication). That's why, it is a blog. It is a wishlist, a dream. So, any post or comment on that cannot be taken as black and white on stamp paper. So, please kindly do keep any reference to it out of this discussion.
4. Deleting posts from official conclave blog is basically offending the customer. It is unethical.
I agree with you and others.
5. Finally, NI might say, it is "pre-order" right ? the thing is under development. It was v0.1. You liked it. So, you had it. There are many development boards that nVidia, Texas Instrument sells on their websites. NI sold a piece with a gui and frame. Now, if you remember, according to Rohan, this device was supposed to be sold only to developers initially and not to users. I think it should have been the way. All pre-orders only for the kernel and app developers.
who are you and why should we point out the fallacies in your leading questions?
ReplyDelete-yawn-
With all due respect, radicalvision, I don't have a clue where you get those things. A mere hardware company?? Software to run the damn thing was included from the beginning. The initial red ribbon, one of the most eye-catching features in the entire design, including the complete notionink website: a software item.
ReplyDeleteNext you would like to look-up the meaning of pre-order. It means you order it before it is produced, not that you order something incomplete. And I don't see this communicated on the website.
And about the blog: it announces official release dates, it announces developments going on or being completed. Even more, it is the only communication channel used by the company so yes, this is official, whether it contains personal messages as well or not.
I would advise you to check the official forum, with the comments of many users and the lack of response of NI. I am convinced NI is dead, as will the shrinking community of believers in a couple of months time. The model of global business existed already; they have just confirmed that without proper sales, marketing and general management, cheap R&D and low cost manufacturing are set to fail.
right on. said everything I wanted to. I simply do not understand why one would discard what Rohan says on his blog - that IS the marketing channel.
ReplyDeletego Oogle ..
ReplyDelete