Agilent Black Friday Oscilloscope Offer

[EEVblog]

I thought it was a positive experience and I like how the Agilent marketing people communicated. Sure, they're trying to buy eyeballs, but it's better than shoving a banner ad in your face and all those other stupid things marketing departments come up with.

Some people make a living from those banner ads 

Dave.

[aparlett]

Im worth you guys shpoould go to people that deserve it

I would really like to see Agilent work more with schools and university, something like Microsoft dose, with its MSDN, Its a great idea , it benefits both parties students get cheap software, and Microsoft gains market share. It would be awesome if Agilent could set up a student program.

[Mechatrommer]

"Quotes Of The Day" for me from page 5-7

Remember, thousands of people bought the 50MHz Rigol DS1052E scope because it is a damn fine scope and only costs ~$400... if you sell a 500MHz scope for $1000 - $2000, a lot of people will probably go for that instead, as an investment, plus the added bonus of it being a mixed-signal scope.  However, if you charge $10,000 for it, the average working stiff won't be able to afford it, and even if you only charge $5,000, the price per MHz is actually higher than the Rigol and there isn't really much incentive to pay that much.

most of the time winners can afford these scopes easily anyway.

Maybe. I have often seen that winners of such contests had no real interest in the stuff and were just reselling it at the first opportunity.

Not going to participate. Who needs a noisy 10k+ top brand, shinny with big screen oscilloscope after all...

and maybe eevbloggers are not the intention after all (in context of the contest). they (agilent) got some of the "eyeballs" here already. those winners that "i dont know who" just maybe the right person for agilent marketing, they maybe will speak for them in another side of the world, or simply maybe like BAW, hands down to another "delegate(s)" at very good price. but sadly, there will be no 3000X teardown fun for us here.

[slateraptor]

I would really like to see Agilent work more with schools and university, something like Microsoft dose, with its MSDN, Its a great idea , it benefits both parties students get cheap software, and Microsoft gains market share. It would be awesome if Agilent could set up a student program.

I doubt that'll ever happen on an individual level. Ask yourself a few questions:

How difficult is it to manufacture precision test equipment?
How often does an individual replace said precision test equipment, let alone own one?
How difficult is it to copy software?
How often does one upgrade software or replace a functioning computer?


You're more liable to see something like a student discount on a NI myDAQ, which includes a bloated software suite and a sorry excuse for an audio bandwidth USB DSO.

[Mechatrommer]

How difficult is it to manufacture precision test equipment?

it will be easy if you have multi millions dollar on your back, multi thousands equipments on your bench, and you are going to sell the equipment at 5 digit figure and you know there will be potential buyers for it. the difficult part is getting feedbacks from customers and responding to it appropriately.

[deephaven]

What I would like to suggest to Agilent is that they have a giveaway on some of their scope options to any members of the EEVblog forum. The options don't cost Agilent anything other than a little bit of admin. It would give Agilent scope owners that feel good factor that Agilent reward their customers.

[Kiriakos-GR]

I like to believe that any offerings at one specific forum,
it is a event that counts more in the public relations between the forum owner and the what ever company.

If the point is to award the local contributors , every one with a post counter over the 300 mark, is an regular visitor in my eyes.
And a true contributor is at the 600 post in his counter or more.

Those numbers comes from the fact that the EEV are two years old, and so those estimated numbers are a good proof of who is who. 

[Balaur]

^^^ I value the SNR more, but maybe that's just me.

[alm]

Why not set the minimum at 3400 posts, moderators not eligible?

[BravoV]

A bit of advice, scope with that capabilities and price point is a serious tool, these are not some common gadgets like computer, camera, phone or other cool & trendy electronic gadget.

If I'm not mistaken, one of the purpose of this marketing activities is to bring product awareness to the "right audiences", and its just doesn't feel right if the winner probably can't appreciate what it does, or worst doesn't even know what a scope is, which is very possible by the way this event was made. Surely, the "right audiences" will feel a great disappointment knowing this precious gadget might fall into the wrong hand instead to one of them.

Why not do it better next time like making a quiz to test the contestant's product knowledge, and in depth if needed, so its not enough just by briefly browse or read your product's brochure or data sheet, but actually they will have to go through in detail and understand your product's strong points and competitive edges, and who ever came out 1st with the right answer wins it.

Believe with this kind of contest will be quite an effective filter leaving out only the right audiences as the right target, and hopefully will be better served than those people that only have big & fast network or script kiddies.

[Kiriakos-GR]

Why not set the minimum at 3400 posts, moderators not eligible?

One such suggestion with out a smiley next to it, its like an act of war ... are you ready for one ? 

[Uncle Vernon]

Why not set the minimum at 3400 posts, moderators not eligible?

Include multiple posts about waiting for the postman and any fool can qualify.

[Kiriakos-GR]

Agilent please give to the above lurker a red crocodile test clip, but not the black one too.   

I like to see him scratching his head for life, of why he did not get and the black one as pair !!   

[EEVblog]

Why not do it better next time like making a quiz to test the contestant's product knowledge, and in depth if needed, so its not enough just by briefly browse or read your product's brochure or data sheet, but actually they will have to go through in detail and understand your product's strong points and competitive edges, and who ever came out 1st with the right answer wins it.

Believe with this kind of contest will be quite an effective filter leaving out only the right audiences as the right target, and hopefully will be better served than those people that only have big & fast network or script kiddies.

I think Lecroy did exactly this recently.

Dave.

[Bored@Work]

Rohde & Schwarz did something like this when they introduced the RTO oscilloscopes and they have a quiz http://www.scope-of-the-art.com/en/community/downloads/

[joelby]

Haven't Agilent already given scopes to two members of these forums? How many more should they give away?

[Uncle Vernon]

Haven't Agilent already given scopes to two members of these forums?

They have? Do elaborate!

How many more should they give away?

It's not exactly a give away when offering equipment for review. As I understand it the reviewedscopes from Agilent were returned. Not so for meters and smaller items. Consider the amount of work done in producing a decent review and a free multimeter is actually a pretty cheap purchase of a substantial chunk of skilled labour. Hardly giveaways.

End of the day what Agilent  (or any manufacturer) benefits most from these exercises is to gain communicationwith their market and brand/product awareness. The facebook and eBay chooklotto exercise is a poor way to achieve this, sure the numbers can be staggering, but for most the impact is fleeting.

I don't think anyone here is demanding more freebie, but more than a few have rolled their eyes at what is the point of sending desirable gear to casual ebayers.

By contrast consider the impact of the reviews done by members here, there has been a substantial amount of detailed user interaction, and a hell of a lot of real life feedback. Recent reviews by Dave, John and even our renowned Mediterranean loon have shown to be detailed, accurate and without undue vendor influence.Any manufacturer who has belief in his own product should see the forums as an excellent path for exposure and user feedback

[PetrosA]

Considering we're on page 8 of this thread, I imagine someone at Agilent is happy

[ivan747]

Considering we're on page 8 of this thread, I imagine someone at Agilent is happy

I bet this thread will keep going on for another week. It will keep going on for 2 weeks if there is another post-war because of contest fairness, better ways of getting more customers or the usual suspects criticizing Kiriakos and his replies.

[RCMR]

Considering we're on page 8 of this thread, I imagine someone at Agilent is happy

Even more than they might expect...

I wrote about this in my column last week:  Penny-wise, dollar-foolish with social media advertising so they reached about another 5,000 people through my column and goodness knows how many through the newspaper that reprints it.

[EEVblog]

I wrote about this in my column last week:  Penny-wise, dollar-foolish with social media advertising so they reached about another 5,000 people through my column and goodness knows how many through the newspaper that reprints it.

Good post.
Great idea for the AirNZ contest thing, not surprised they didn't take it up. And the reason is exactly as you say - some smart arse marketing person wasn't paid huge dollars to suggest it, so it can't be any good an idea, right?

one of the worlds best electronics forums.

Far too kind, but we'll take it! 

Dave.

[firewalker]

Negative comments are far better than no comments! 

Alexander.

[Kiriakos-GR]

Considering we're on page 8 of this thread, I imagine someone at Agilent is happy

I bet this thread will keep going on for another week. It will keep going on for 2 weeks if there is another post-war because of contest fairness, better ways of getting more customers or the usual suspects criticizing Kiriakos and his replies.

How true ...  I have pay with hard earned cash all my tools , and among them four Fluke multimeters, that I have posted pictures of how I got them and in what condition, and how I had rebuild some of them, and I still get tricky comments about be a beggar or something.
I do not take seriously any comments from young ones, who does not aware my past, but I was never expected an such of word from an old contributor.

[ivan747]

Considering we're on page 8 of this thread, I imagine someone at Agilent is happy

I bet this thread will keep going on for another week. It will keep going on for 2 weeks if there is another post-war because of contest fairness, better ways of getting more customers or the usual suspects criticizing Kiriakos and his replies.

How true ...  I have pay with hard earned cash all my tools , and among them four Fluke multimeters, that I have posted pictures of how I got them and in what condition, and how I had rebuild some of them, and I still get tricky comments about be a beggar or something.
I do not take seriously any comments from young ones, who does not aware my past, but I was never expected an such of word from an old contributor.

I didn't intend it to be criticism. I am sick of people posting comments against you. I have read some of your reviews and I actually like the teardowns. Also you post about multimeters that aren't well-known, so you let us know about different brands.

[Kiriakos-GR]

I didn't intend it to be criticism. I am sick of people posting comments against you. I have read some of your reviews and I actually like the teardowns. Also you post about multimeters that aren't well-known, so you let us know about different brands.

The Bullet it was not for you .. 
Even if I had use your message as reason to reply.