Hello,
I'm the head of the electronic laboratory of the cyclotron resource center (CRC) at the university of Louvain la Neuve in Belgium.
In fact, the CRC is a little different from a standard part of a university. The cyclotron used to be used in research and medical, but now it is used to harden electronic chips and to make micro-porous plastic films. The CRC is full financed by private customers, so it is like a company within the university. We are fully self-financed by private customers (Atmel, Infineon, Airbus...). But, being into the university site, we are a part of the university and using its IT , so we have the its mail domain.
A few times ago, I had an account to the TI-E2E forum that worked and suddenly, I was unable to post anything. After searching about this, I got the answer : no mail address from private people or university are allowed to use TI-E2E.
So, as a private company, we can not use the TI forum because we have a university mail domain.
First, why universities can not have access to a online forum is already unjustifiable. No other chip manufacturer would dare to do so. We pay the components the full price, we don't have any advantages and, on the opposite they are very keen to autorise us to create an account on the web shop, make orders and, of course taking our money. They are very efficient and open for that, no mail domain filtering.
Secondly, using the mail domain as a filter is so stupid that words fail me. How could they decide that a mail domain is OK and an other one is not ? Especially in this case where universities can host a lot of different structures, like the CRC, that are private societies.
So, I opened a ticket and, being quite irritated, I ask for the the hard questions in order to get real explantations, not corporate bullshit or automated answers.
To make things shorts, I finally got the autorisation for my own mail (and only mine) to post on the TI-E2E forum. So, victory !
I tested it, and it worked.
A few weeks later, I had a question about a chip and tried to post something : denied. My mail address is a university one, so it is rejected.
They remove the autorisation, without any notice (which is particularly rude) and with no reason. So I had to open a new ticket (a multi-billion dollar company, in 2024, can not reopen an closed one) and the answer is :
Hi Jerome,
It is with this regret to inform you that your request to have access on E2E forum has been declined by the E2E moderator.
I understand that you are working as admin on your university but due to the fact that you still using university domain @uclouvain.be, this is denied. Refer to this FAQ:
• [FAQ] New posting requirements for E2E Support Forums
Apology for this inconvenience.
End of the story.
How this is possible ?
How such moderation incompetence can exist ? Exactly like an IT would forbid all network cards on all computers for your security. It works, but it is stupid. What I can see here is a lazy moderation team.
I'm disgusted when I see such behavior from a company, spitting on their customer face like that. They don't seem to understand that they make segregation based from the mail domain, probably the worse way to do this. Even if i could prove we are a private company, they don't care.
Shame on you TI, now I'll take all my chips at AD or Microchip.At least, they respect their customers.
Jerome.