Products > Test Equipment

Keysight officially lost the plot - don't buy if you're a hobbyist

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SilverSolder:

--- Quote from: bson on January 13, 2022, 07:12:06 pm ---
--- Quote from: SilverSolder on January 13, 2022, 02:17:14 pm ---Keysight appears to have reached the conclusion that they can't afford to offer a "forced" 2 year warranty on all their products to non-professional users.

--- End quote ---
It's a LOT more than just a 2-year warranty.

[The]  period for consumers to pull out of any distance purchase (e.g. some-thing bought online) or off-premises purchase (such as when a seller visits the consumer’s home) is extended from the previous minimum 7 days, to a uniform 14 days across the EU. These 14 days start counting from the daythe consumer receives the goods, and the consumer has the right to can-cel the purchase for any reason. When a seller hasn’t clearly informed theconsumer about the right to cancel the purchases, the return period will be extended to a year.

In other words, you can buy a $150k instrument for a project, use it for a week, and then return it for a full refund.  If Keysight doesn't inform you that you can do this, then you can keep using it for a year and then return it.  If you receive a demo, maybe that's also a "sales visit" to your home?

Consumers will now also be allowed to pull out from purchases after solicited visits from sellers and from online auction purchases from professional sellers.

I.e., applies to eBay as well even if flagged "as is".

Traders must refund consumers within 14 days of cancellation, including standard delivery costs. Regarding goods, the trader can postpone the reim-bursement until the goods are returned by the consumer or the consumer provides evidence that these goods have been sent to the trader.

Free rentals, now with free shipping!

Traders wanting consumers to pay for the return of goods after cancellation must clearly inform them beforehand, and give at least an estimate of the cost for returning bulky goods.

I.e., operate under the assumption instruments actually will be returned when the renter is done using them.

--- End quote ---

Pretty onerous! All of those problems go away if you sell to a professional user / business instead of a regular consumer. 

Surely that has to make a significant difference to the price that you charge in each case?

kcbrown:

--- Quote from: nctnico on January 13, 2022, 08:47:30 pm ---These are Keysight's own direct sale T&Cs. Again, come up with a document which explicitly prohibits a reseller to sell Keysight equipment to non-commercial customers. And those resellers are bound to the warranties & services they provide to their customers so getting no service / warranty as a non-commercial user is just FUD.

--- End quote ---

Yeah, you may have missed my edit, where I recognize that it says "customer", and that this might not be applicable to resellers.

If it's not applicable to resellers then it's just going to depend on the contract with the reseller, and I've got nothing that indicates what Keysight's position is on resellers selling to non-commercial customers.  And absent such indication, I have to presume that resellers will be able to arrange warranty repairs on any equipment they sell, even when that equipment is sold to non-commercial customers.


ogden:

--- Quote from: kcbrown on January 13, 2022, 09:34:28 pm ---Yeah, you may have missed my edit, where I recognize that it says "customer", and that this might not be applicable to resellers.

--- End quote ---

Resellers has their own agreements. "Terms of sale" is always about end user of the "Products, Service, Professional Services and the license of Software by Keysight Technologies, Inc".

rsjsouza:

--- Quote from: SilverSolder on January 13, 2022, 09:05:31 pm ---Pretty onerous! All of those problems go away if you sell to a professional user / business instead of a regular consumer. 

Surely that has to make a significant difference to the price that you charge in each case?

--- End quote ---
And that is where the whole core of this discussions stands - how much price overhead an A-brand can carry to have a financial net positive while honoring warranties and service agreements for a market segment that expects the lowest retail price? Sure, in a specialized forum such as this one, there will be many voices that are willing to value quality and services from top tier brands, but I am pretty sure it is a drop in the ocean when compared to the bulk of the market.

Specifically for Keysight, I see two things that might be going on:

- Since the first inception of the incredibly bold Keysight month marketing campaign, I always had this question in my mind: how many years were given for this division to invest in the broad mass market? Where is the ROI, given the B-brands are quickly catching up in broad reach (through e-commerce), quality and features at a lower cost? Will longer warranties, service contracts and spare parts availability be enough argument to attract customers to buy their products? After a few years into this, I suspect that someone recalculated the ROI and decided to de-emphasize direct sales as the marketing campaign alone did not return a net positive.

- With the introduction of the entry-level product line, myself (and many others around here) also asked how successful will this be in face of the quite popular low cost brands. The DSO1000X series uses the praised Keysight ASIC that differentiated their other product lines for many years, thus at first glance would be a slam dunk of usability when compared to others - however, whenever someone from the mass market asks on a forum like this for an opinion, rarely sees their products suggested due to a perceived low "bang-per-buck" ratio. Sure, the other brands have other features deemed more useful (and quite a few of them are), therefore I can't help but think that Keysight realized this might have been a miscalculation on their part - at least for the mass market (education might still be fine). 

You can bet they are yearly calculating their ROI on both fronts and the shifts this year might be a reflection of a negative ROI - or a change in management, which would just change the threshold for providing investments on this front. A change to the rep/disty business model will carry forward higher costs to the end user, thus potentially killing this product line altogether.

Not working there I can only speculate but, based on my experience, that is not something that would surprise me.

HighVoltage:
After so many years of amazing grassroots efforts by many great Keysight employees on this platform, it surprises me a lot that we have not had one official (or in-official) comment from anyone at Keysight.

It seems like they are throwing away the wonderful effort of many years of hard work.

I can only imagine that some of these great Keysight people are shaking their heads in disbelieve but have been forced to no longer post here on eevblog.

Maybe Dave can bring some light to this and ask Keysight directly?
But maybe even Dave is instructed to not say anything, even if he knows.

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