Bottom line is, the Marketing Folks are wanting to have it both ways... cheap and quick release of the lower-end product, while NOT paying for the cost of actually MAKING a different product, or even differentiating the products in any reasonably secure manner.
For starters, it's the customer that pays. The customer is the one who wants the world in a product for a penny price - and the manufacturers are merely adapting production processes to deliver. The customer is also demanding convenience and immediacy in addressing after sales matters, such as support, warranty, repairs and upgrades.
But I smell hypocrisy...
While the marketing folks, bean counters, management, designers, developers and warehouse might want to have it both ways - it is the customer who is DEMANDING to have it both ways.
You use the word 'lazy' - but that is not what is being described. The correct word is efficient - producing the maximum result for the minimum expenditure of resources. If you honestly want manufacturers to make truly differentiated products - will you be willing to pay for it? (I can hear the screams of outrage already...)
My personal opinion is that those are IMAGINED profits, and one cannot hold someone responsible for IMAGINED losses, only REAL ones.
Oh, the losses are real, alright. It's just that they are not easy to measure. Doesn't make them any less relevant.
EVERYTHING you've stated here is a matter of opinion or conjecture, no less than you claim MY statements to be.
On the flip side, they could, and probably are, making money hand over fist... enough to drive Tek and HP out of the business with substandard gear that leaves the end-user to do their own quality control and bug-fix.
YES, I WILL pay for it... or I WILL buy the less expensive, lower featured product... or I will buy USED Tek gear to do what I want to do. The ONLY reason to buy the Rigol is BECAUSE it has this readily "hackable software". PERIOD.
Yes, those profits ARE imagined. But that extra $160 / scope whether the customer USES that software or not is NOT imagined. I JUST SHOWED IT in black and white.
Yes, they DID have to develop some plugins for the *NIX HAL, and the GUI must have taken all of a week to come up with... that is real and unique R&D that should be recouped. And it IS... in the base price of the cheapest models. As is the cost of the extra RAM, and the cost of the special switching hardware they use to attenuate the scope above the "Paid For" feature level.
Bottom line is, the Marketing Folks are wanting to have it both ways... cheap and quick release of the lower-end product, while NOT paying for the cost of actually MAKING a different product, or even differentiating the products in any reasonably secure manner. Or at least, so say those who keep taking the side of the Stef Murky set. My personal opinion is that those are IMAGINED profits, and one cannot hold someone responsible for IMAGINED losses, only REAL ones.
Wow, what a load of BS. How you do know if, say, Rigol makes a profit at all, currently? Do you do their books? Do you know their payroll? Taxes? Leases? Loan/interest payments? All their costs of operation? Any given company at any given time can be losing huge money on any given product. Huge.
Xbox... huge loser for Microsoft.
Amazon... years and years of huge losses, buying market share.
Any given year, some scope company may go out of business. At any given time, competing companies may be waging a war of attrition on each other. Or they may be selling some of their product line at a huge loss (at least for the foreseeable future) in order to gain market share while making a bigger profit on other products... Anyhow, the long development cycle being what it is for a scope, the actual profit/loss on any given model is really not applicable. It's more like social security. The current sales are paying dev for today's payroll, marketing, support, and others costs of operation, and hopefully some left for R&D future product... Sale is sale. Money is money. It could be many thousands of units before they will turn a book profit on a scope. They may NEVER make a profit. There will be some winners and some losers. A company might have spent a couple years designing a sweet 4 channel 50MHz scope for the bargain price of only $600.00 range.... only to find out they're up against Rigols latest bargain scope at 50% less. Again, not that it even matters if THIS specific product makes profit or not.
In business you are either making money or losing money. There's no in between. There's nothing wrong with maximizing profit on a particular product (if there is even any to begin with).
Scopes are so cheap and quick to design, this is why Tek is now selling rebranded scopes instead of making their own, of course... No, they're doing whatever it takes to remain relevant and in business.
As for your real vs imagined profits? I was never going to pay for this music and movies, anyway, right? So I can watch it on a torrent and I'm not hurting anyone?
Lets not even get STARTED on the RIAA and their socially, economically and ethically retarded stance that even in the age where the CUSTOMER provides and pays for the production and DELIVERY of their product, THEY still have the right to DEMAND to get paid on the antiquated "Pay for Play" business model. They keep trying to pervert the law to the point that they can essentially have the deal they USED to have in the '40-60s; where somebody ELSE paid for a jukebox, paid THEM for the media, and then paid them AGAIN for every damned time that media got played. And THEN did everything they could to pay the artist ONCE, hourly. As cheaply as possible.
GOOD Scopes are expensive... but not everybody NEEDS a good scope. We're only having this conversation because Rigol And Hantek, et al have put together some "good enough" scopes... and have sold them cheaply enough, long enough to drive Tek and Agilent out of everything but the domestic Lab and Engineering markets.
Yes, those losses ARE imagined. As is their "Right" to set multiple prices for the same damned product.
In America, the LAW is that you have to "aggressively defend your IP" or you by default you lose the right to it. THIS is why you constantly see Apple, et al suing over EVERY LITTLE THING that the Chinese knock-offs steal from their products; this is why we have such a thing as specialists in "Trade Dress".
These manufacturers have EXPLOITED that law to their benefit; EVERYTHING about their product is a copy of designs created by companies like HP and Tek, who actually did the R&D, figured out WHAT TOOLS WE NEEDED, and then FIGURED OUT how to make a usable tool to DO THOSE THINGS, and figured out HOW that tool needed to work to be usable. They CREATED and DEFINED the market, AND the tools that were needed.
HP and Tek did NOT "aggressively defend their IP", and now they're essentially only niche manufacturers in a market THEY CREATED.
And you're RIGHT... there's nothing wrong with maximizing profits... as long as you're willing to accept the COSTS of YOUR CHOSEN METHOD of maximizing those profits. In this case, the COST of that maximization is that a certain percent of Rigol's product is going to be hacked, because they DID NOT bother to pay the initial costs of effectively differentiating their base product from their upscale product. In FACT, they have continued to grow BECAUSE of that fact.
You try to paint them as losers in this deal; they are not. They are WINNING to the tune of $160/unit. EVERY. SINGLE. UNIT.
The law of supply and demand is fulfilled; they win, we relative few who can "hack" our scopes win, and they gain market share BECAUSE their scopes can be "hacked". That "Hackability" IS A FEATURE. It is one they've used to take away market share from the big names. And CLEARLY they've been making a profit at it; they've been doing it for 2 decades.
When and if they do implement security measures to prevent that hackage, we will vote with our feet. We will buy what we can afford that meets our needs; we will buy from another manufacturer who offers more features, or whose product is still "hackable" for more features, or we will buy used product from Tek or HP that DOES meet our needs. Up till now, my own hobbyists needs have been met by a Tek 2465 and 2230 that I bought when I was in the industry and could afford them. Even NOW, a decent, calibrated 2465 from a reputable vendor sells in the range of $600-800 on eBay.
THAT says a lot about the relative values of these products, and who REALLY is losing every time we buy one of these "good enough" scopes.
You are trying to paint "hacking" as a "Black vs White" issue... when like everything in business, it is all shades of grey. And Rigol, Hantek, et al have carved a niche for themselves in this market BASED ON PLAYING those shades of grey against each other; as has every damned corporation that has EVER existed. In business, illegal or not doesn't matter unless you get caught; and even if you DO get caught, it doesn't matter unless it costs you REAL MONEY, and enough of it to outweigh the profits you're making breaking the law. Rigol, Hantek, et al... even the big names are playing this game.
Why should we end-users be the only ones who DON'T benefit from the game they're already playing against US?
YES, those losses ARE imagined. Especially since Rigol is WINNING to the tune of $160/unit, while Tek's best value lies in used gear that has changed hands a dozen times. Shall we now consider every scope that sells to anybody but Tek and HP/Agilent and Le Croy and Fluke and Rodhe & Schwarz, to be REAL losses to them? Shall we feel sorry for Tek and HP and all the others who've defined what a modern scope is; shall we defend THEIR IP the way you expect us to defend that of Hantek, Rigol et al? ESPECIALLY since the basic nuts and bolts of ANY modern scope is essentially THEIR IP?
Of course not. This is BUSINESS. And real profits trump imagined losses EVERY. DAMNED. TIME. And Rigol, et al are taking those real profits directly to the bank.
mnem
Gimme a fu**ing break.
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