#Hard Drive Compromise
5 messages in this thread
Wayne,
A significant number of CIS members have said NewTek owes current Flyer owners
fair resolution of the hard drive mess. I recall such comments from Michael
Miloff, Hank Teller, Michael McBride, Fred Berney, Jerry Saperstein, yourself
and perhaps a few others. I couldn't agree more.
You are the first to publicly post an idea of what that "fair resolution" might
look like and it looks pretty fair to me. (Thanks for taking the plunge.)
However, those who bought drives direct from NewTek at grossly inflated prices
may have a lot of difficulty only getting "fair market value less
administration fee" for their trade-in's. Seems to me that NewTek's pricing
for drives was completely unfair and needs to be taken into account.
[Aside: I still don't understand why the price gouging on drives. Until then,
NewTek had prided itself on price breakthroughs. It must have been some pretty
serious cash flow problems that led to such bad business decisions, including
inflated pricing for the beta Flyers (wherein pre-order discounts were not
honoured) and premature release of the Flyer.]
At this point in time, I think NewTek will continue to duck the hard drive
issue (if they can) until they've fully explored the extent to which they can
fix the problems with current drives through software. (That's from reading
between the lines in Chuck's recent posts.)
Well, if 4.1solves my stuttering, audio hiccups, chroma soup and image softness
with Standard quality, I could probably live with my 9-gig Seagates. However,
I'm not very optimistic on that front.
After 4.1, I think a lot of us will be looking to drive a hard bargain on hard
drives.
Regards
Mark
Mark,
See recent post on hard drive arrays. Maybe that's our solution.
How's your big decision going?
Michael
Mark,
As I undersatand it, NewTek was not the beneficiary of the inflated HD prices –
at least not totally. Apparently there were third-party packagers who were
doing the certifacations to NT specs, and in some cases, I was told, modifying
firmware, in order to earn the NewTek approved seal. Now, one might argue
that, since these 3rd parties were working th NewTek specs they are not liable
for any "make-up", and since NewTek didn't actually pocket the boosted price
dollars, they are not obligated to make up for these premiums.
Now, I don't necessarily subscribe to those arguments because I don't even know
it the information is true or not. So the idea was to avoid that issue
altogether and try to get somthing to soften the blow of the new drives
regardless of which plan they were purchased under. For those that did get the
stickered NewTek drives, however, maybe something like a free updates for the
next two "charged" upgrades, or free LW standalone for Windows NT might be
anice jesture.
wmc – via Autopilot!
Mark –
You suggest that you ordered a Flyer pre-book last June '94 for $3500, but when
it came time to take delivery, you paid the full $5000 price. If this is so,
you should still have a gripe, as Nt has honored all pre-book prices that I
know of.
Hank
Videology, Inc Where you always get P.O.M.P. and
Service under all circumstances
Hank,
Sorry if I implied that I paid full price for my Flyer. It's a long story, but
in the end, I got a pre-booked .94 Flyer at the reduced price.
Here's the Readers Digest version of that story. (I know you're dying to know
;>)). First, all excited, I applied to be a Flyer beta tester in April/May '94
(not knowing there was going to be a premium price for the privilege). When no
word had come and the pre-book deadline was fast approaching, I asked NewTek
for advice. They said to pre-book in case my "beta application" was turned
down. I pre-booked.
Next, NewTek advised me that I was accepted as a beta tester. However, I was
shocked to find out it would mean paying full price for the Flyer and inflated
prices for the drives. After a lot of agonizing over the decision and delays
in shipping my beta Flyer, I cancelled my beta order in January '95 and
reverted to the pre-book order that was still on NewTek's books.
I finally got my pre-booked .94 pre-release Flyer in late March at the pre-book
price and paid market prices on my 9-gig Seagates. So I have no complaints
about the pricing; just the performance of my approved drives.
Regards
Mark