| Products > Test Equipment |
| Keysight 1200X series "no replaceable parts are available" |
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| Fraser:
What bothers me more than hardware failure support is licenced software support. As an example I own a very clever and expensive piece of data analysis equipment that is really 50% hardware and 50% PC software in terms of how it does its job. The marketing strategy of the manufacturer was very clever…. You bought the hardware and it came with the software but you need a licence code to install the software. To obtain a valid ‘time limited’ licence code you need a support contract with the manufacturer. The licence was an annual renewable and covered software updates. If the licence expired, the software did keep working on the PC but no updates could be downloaded. Fair enough….except….. if you wanted to use your data analyser on another PC, a new Licence code was needed and this was only available if you bought a years support contract. Fair enough many would say. Not unusual really. However, when the manufacturer is bought by another company and your particular product is deleted from the range with zero support…. You are stuffed. No more support contracts or software installation licences so you cannot ever install the software on a new PC. I should add that the support contract licence that permitted software installation was not a simple design and involved serious levels of encryption that incorporated variables from the host PC and the hardware data collector as part of the encryption seed. I contacted the new owner of the company that made my data analyser and they stated that I was out of luck as they did not hold the required information or software to assist me. It was deleted upon product discontinuation. I thought I was SOL but managed to contact a service tech in the company via other means and he agreed to help me. He had been an employee with the company that made my unit. He had the required activation licence software on an old PC and created a new multi PC support contract licence that lasts 10 years. I can now install the software as many times as I like. I got lucky. Others may not be so fortunate with other equipment. The thought of perfectly functional and useable equipment being rendered effectively useless by a time limited support contract that cannot be renewed annoys me somewhat ! With the modern trend for ‘subscriptions’ for anything from TV streaming to software and hardware use is not a happy future in my opinion. Too much like the Inkjet Printer scenario where you buy a printer and pay through the nose for ongoing use via DRM protected inkjet consumables. Fraser |
| xrunner:
--- Quote from: Fraser on June 12, 2022, 01:30:24 pm ---Xrunner, That policy against hobbyist sales confirms what I was thinking about the current HP/Keysight support strategy. Not wanting to be mean or too general in my comments, but I have had many manufacturers tell me that the profit to support cost ratio of ‘consumer/hobbyist’ sales is very poor compared to that of ‘Professional/Industrial’ sales. Some companies ditched their consumer orientated products as they found the support costs unacceptable for that market segment. There are some real horror stories I could tell, but they are discrete cases and not representative of most consumers or hobbyists. Operating in the consumer electronics/test equipment market segment requires significant customer support capacity and sometimes, highly skilled customer support agents to ‘deal’ with difficult support cases. Fraser --- End quote --- Hello, Oh I don't think you're being too mean. The original company - Hewlett Packard, which I admire greatly, is a distant memory. I have lots of the older hp gear and I treasure it all. It's from an era that will never return. :( |
| tautech:
--- Quote from: Stray Electron on June 12, 2022, 12:31:02 pm --- That's a solid YES. This isn't HP's first non-repairable, and completely unsupported product. IMO if HP wants to market this kind of schlock then the buyers might as well go buy Siglent or other piece of non-repairable junk. --- End quote --- Get in the right century will ya ! :P Now tell us how something might be repaired at board level and maintain calibration ? Any current production model we have absolutely no issues getting parts and recently received rectifiers for a board level warranty repair along with a calibrated control board so to all cover bases to get the unit up and running again. A customer blew the 50 Ohm input in his scope and Siglent sent me the production drawings and specific part numbers of components to replace…..that’s instruction of how to fix a $ 900 PCB ! Now you’ve had your rant about Siglent tell us of other manufacturers that might do this in 2022. :blah: |
| Porama6400:
--- Quote from: Bud on June 12, 2022, 01:31:00 pm ---Replacing encoders is totally feasible at home, i would not worry about that. --- End quote --- That's fair. I exaggerated a bit. There's many other stuff that can fail which is not as easy to replace though. --- Quote from: Fraser on June 12, 2022, 01:47:08 pm ---What bothers me more than hardware failure support is licenced software support. As an example I own a very clever and expensive piece of data analysis equipment that is really 50% hardware and 50% PC software in terms of how it does its job. The marketing strategy of the manufacturer was very clever…. You bought the hardware and it came with the software but you need a licence code to install the software. To obtain a valid ‘time limited’ licence code you need a support contract with the manufacturer. The licence was an annual renewable and covered software updates. If the licence expired, the software did keep working on the PC but no updates could be downloaded. Fair enough….except….. if you wanted to use your data analyser on another PC, a new Licence code was needed and this was only available if you bought a years support contract. Fair enough many would say. Not unusual really. However, when the manufacturer is bought by another company and your particular product is deleted from the range with zero support…. You are stuffed. No more support contracts or software installation licences so you cannot ever install the software on a new PC. I should add that the support contract licence that permitted software installation was not a simple design and in loved serious levels of encryption that incorporated variables from the host PC and the hardware data collector as part of the encryption seed. I contacted the new owner of the company that made my data analyser and they stated that I was out of luck as they did not hold the required information or software to assist me. It was deleted upon product discontinuation. I thought I was SOL but managed to contact a service tech in the company via other means and he agreed to help me. He had been an employee with the company that made my unit. He had the required activation licence software on an old PC and created a new multi PC support contract licence that lasts 10 years. I can nowinstall the software as many times as I like. I got lucky. Others may not be so fortunate with other equipment. The thought of perfectly functional and useable equipment being rendered effectively useless by a time limited support contract that cannot be renewed annoys me somewhat ! With the modern trend for ‘subscriptions’ from anything from TV streaming to software and hardware use is not a happy future in my opinion. Too much like the Inkjet Printer scenario where you buy a printer and pay through the nose for ongoing use via DRM protected inkjet consumables. Fraser --- End quote --- that sounds really bad, how is that even legal! |O |
| Fraser:
Porama6400, The EU decided it wasn’t and made the company release free ‘open licences’ to permit use of the software. Sadly my unit was not provided with an ‘open licence’ as it predated the EU decision and the company was bought by another soon after. Once the new company discontinued the data analyser the issue went away for them, which may be why it was discontinued. This was why the support tech was able to legally give me a 10 year licence for my unit. He broke no licensing rules. Fraser |
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