#State of the Art?
13 messages in this thread
This is a completely unsolicited message regarding my early foray
into the world of CD-ROM. In short, if any businesses related to consumer
CD-ROM are reading this: Pay attention. It's a mess out there. If I did
not have both a strong stomach and a strong desire to get "into" CD-ROM,
I'd have given up a long time ago.
There are one or two retail (mail order) sources who claim (their
own words) to be the "definitive source on CD-ROM." These places could not
even answer the most basic questions regarding the products that they
carry. I made repeated phone calls and had the same experience every time.
There is very little walk-in retail information available here in the L.A.
area (not a small market, I presume). The one store, COMPUSA, that I
walked into, could only tell me the basic price and the brand name of the
units they sold. Not much else. As for DAK, well —
The average consumer, interested in CD-ROM, would find him/herself
lost amidst bad advice, inaccurate information and difficult to obtain
product.
If all this isn't bad enough, the software situation seems even
worse. There's a lot of software out there masquerading under different
names and different versions. If you try to compare what you're getting
from one "bundle" to the next — good luck. Are you getting the "Guiness
Disc of Records" or the "Guiness Disc of Records (Multi-media)." Are you
getting Compton's Family Encyclopedia with a Sony interface? The Compton's
family encyclopedia with the Brittanica interface or the Compton's
Multimedia Family Encyclopedia. Three separate products, according to
Brittanica software. Are you getting Grolier's Illustrated with sound? Or
Grolier's Illustrated without sound? Or the Software Toolworks version?
[More…]
There are 2 Replies.
[Continued from message 13634]
The top-of-the-line NEC drive, the 73, is touted as one of the best
multimedia CD Drives around (by the so-called experts). In PC Mag (and my
experience) it can't handle the motion picture video supplied on some
discs.
One of the "definitive sources" actually logs onto this forum from
time to time. I've phoned them and written to them here on the forum and
received no response.
In short — it's caveat emptor time for CD people. Perhaps we're
more in the pioneer stage than I realized. But for you folks in the
industry, to whom this is directed — you're really treating the customer
pretty badly. If the growth of CD ROM is to garner health and pick up,
there will have to be a radical change in the way the product is
distributed and marketed.
There is 1 Reply.
I agree completely… I recently went through the process of buying a
CD-ROM drive, mostly for medical database use and reference, but I wanted
one that would be MPC-compatible. The companies that sold them were useless
in terms of conveying information about products, if not downright hostile
when you ask questions. When they did answer questions, it seemed they
would say anything to sell the drive. Some of the people who log here on
seem mostly interested in soliciting business; one company who shall remain
nameless (their initials are EPB) were virtually impossible to get any
technical info from before purchase, despite long periods on hold after
calling the company, or messages left here. They lost the business I was
desperately trying to throw in their laps. When I finally get a drive, NEC
CDR-83, I find that despite the company's (admittedly not NEC) reassurance,
it would not run multimedia apps well. I now find this confirmed in PC
MAG. Overall an extremely frustrating experience, moreso than any other
computer/electronic purchase I have made.
There is 1 Reply.
It's funny, John (well, not laughingly so) but I've been involved, as a
consumer, in some pretty extravagent electronic purchases. Everything from
my home theater and surround sound to computer "tinkering." I'm with you
-this CD-ROM thing is as confusing and misleading as it gets. I'll make
you a wager that none of the current "biggies" in the field will still be
in business if and when the technology takes off.
Though I didn't go into it in my last note, some of my "unanswerable"
questions were the likes of — "What's a really good and fast MPC drive?"
"Can you tell me the titles of some dazzling discs; ones that show off
multimedia to its best?" (These are toughies, aren't they?) One of the
places I called (funny, you mentioned initials in your note, didn't you?)
swore up and down, that a particular brand drive was without a doubt the
best. This went on over a period of three weeks (and they were unable to
deliver this drive on every phone call.) When the PC Mag review came out,
they were lauding this drive and I asked about the review. "Oh," they
said, "go with the Sony. We didn't know it was better." So much for
expert opinions.
And, like you, I was (am) TRYING to throw money at these people. What a
business. FWIW, stay away from TIGER SOFTWARE. They claim to be the NEC
CDROM experts. They are terrible. The support they promise is
non-existent. It's lucky that they even manage to ship anything to the
right address. Oh well — I guess these folks are lucky there's no
competition right now. They'd drown in a sea of even mediocre competition.
Larry
Larry,
If Compton released three confusingly similar of their Encyclopedia, you
should be blaming them for the confusion, not the distributors ("retail
outlets") who are just trying to sell the product. Likewise, distributors
don't create or analyze MPC specs nor do they have the time or staff to
test every possible hardware/software configuration. This job belongs to
the hardware/software developers.
For example, the stores that sell the new Sony drive/bundle know ZERO about
it — I've asked in several local stores. But I can't blame them. You
simply can't expect distributors to become expert-level users of all these
products. Microsoft has 900 programmers and 7000 beta testers working on
Windows. We don't.
Consider Egghead stores (I buy a lot of stuff there) — how could the
average salesperson master hundreds of Mac/PC software products? They
can't. The same is true of the mail-order companies you mention. We think
CD-ROM technology is fabulous – that's why we sell it, but we don't claim
to have a byte-level understanding of how it all works.
Just like a guy pumping gas doesn't understand the refinery process.
Doesn't mean there is anything wrong with the gas — it's just that the
refinery process is a highly specialized part of the supply chain handled
by someone else. Consumers deal with the retail businesses because they
don't have the resources, knowledge or need to buy in huge quantities
directly from the factory.
Hopefully, you have based your buying decision on technical research you've
done prior to entering the retail store. For serious technical questions
you should call the hardware manufacturers or software developers directly.
They would be the obvious choice for difficult questions since they are
intimately familiar with their own products. Also, do some homework before
you buy: read magazines, newsletters, attend user groups, compare prices
and specs.
Bryan/DAK
There are 3 Replies.
Bryan,
I agree with everything you said — but -"DAK, well — " I was not lynching DAK in my note. I don't do business
with DAK because so much of Drew's inventory are cutouts and his own brand
stuff (BSR *is* DAK, now, for all intents and purposes). I was at the
showroom, but left without buying from you folks. No sideways glances, cast
— just not my cup of tea. Though the breadmaker's fabulous.
It's true that a retail outlet cannot know *everything* about *everything.*
But that's a far cry from knowing *nothing* about *anything.* The Bureau
of Electronic Publishing claims to be one of the definitive sources on
CD-ROM. Try calling them with a simple question (I dare ya <g>). If I walk
into a stereo store and say what's the best — Money's no object — they'll
point me to their high-end stuff and start discussing pros and cons. They
don't expect me to walk in, armed with research, and tell them *exactly*
what I want to buy. I turn to them for information. Of course, I might
find that they disagree with some of the experts, but they will have an
opinion, and, if I'm lucky, it will be their honest opinion.
To walk (or phone) into a CD-ROM dealer who just shrugs and says, "I
dunno," is a far cry from competence. I'm a major consumer and I'm old
enough to know this is unusual. BEP kept hocking the Hitachi drives. The
first time I called they couldn't deliver the interface. The second time I
called, they couldn't deliver the drive. The third time, they couldn't
deliver either. But that third time after they claimed, by their own
tests, that it was the best and the fastest, the salesman starts reading to
me from the PC Mag review. "I guess you should buy the Sony." He didn't,
for a moment,
[More…]
[Continued from message 13661]
offer an explanation. He knew *NO* more than I did. C'mon, Bryan, this is
hardly professional. If I had asked how the Hitachi compared to the NEC
and the guy told me he never compared them head to head, but he still
*loves* the Hitachi — fine. He can't test them all. I wasn't asking in
depth questions.
As for the confusion regarding multiple versions of the same software — I
never said it was a retailers problem. I think the retailers should be
*aware* of it (hell, I've been in CD-ROM for two weeks and know more than
most of the "experts") but my message was directed to the "industry at
large." I fault the software publishers for this confusion. But the
retailers are captilizing (with their bundles) on this confusion. If I see
Grolier's Illustrated Encyclopedia with Sound and Pictures and the whole
shebang advertised — then I see the Groliers bundled with some drive — I
would expect that that's what I'm getting. Not so. As a retailer — I may
not be the root of the problem, but I'm the one getting stuck with the
public's reaction.
I think if you reread your note to me, you'll find a touch of defensiveness
in it. Asking a dealer to recommend a product (yes, even the guys at
Egghead might be able to give you some overall pointers on WordPerfect vs
Microsoft Word vs a Windows word processor) is hardly the same as asking a
gas station attendant to explain petroleum chemistry. I'm not asking about
manufacture — I'm not asking where the components are assembled — how
they are assembled — I'm asking for suggestions and pointers. Next time
you go to buy a car (with money in your pocket) and ask the guy what kind
of car to buy — tell me if you don't think it's strange when he looks at
you and
[More…]
[Continued from message 13661]
says, "who knows, buddy — I don't know anything about 'em, I just sell
'em."
Larry
P.S. Try the chocolate chip bread, it's fantastic.
There are 2 Replies.
Larry,
I agree with all of your comments. I lucked out and got the sony 541 drive
and have bought about ten cds. The BEP has been very little help. I got put
on hold so many times trying to get info that I got rude with them. I
finally said "LOOOK I WANT TO BUT ABOUT 2000$ WORTH OF CDS ". Then they
listened. But it took that to even get through. They were all but worthless
in helping buy a drive and so they didn't get the business.
Things will change in a few years with a little bit of good old healthy
competition.
Dave
Larry,
As you have probably discovered, companys don't put rocket scientists on
the customer service phone lines. In DAK's case I feel the overall company
has an exceptional knowledge of CD-ROM, but that doesn't mean that all 100+
support people have gotten up to speed yet. You would not believe the
number of complex programs (and hardware) these people have to deal with.
This includes not only the products that we currently sell, but all those
we USED to sell! Frankly, I couldn't do it. I'd go crazy. We do have
ongoing training sessions, however, but I agree with you that many other
companies know little or nothing about what they sell.
Incidentally, I have never met a car salesman who knew anything beyond page
1 of the brochure. Those guys make software retailers look like angels.
And the repair department is worse — the news is always the same: "We'll
have to replace the most expensive part of your car".
As David Horowitz would say, "Be an informed buyer". Salespeople often
have "hidden motives" for steering you to "the best TV", for example. It
might be the one with the highest profit, the highest commission, an
overstocked item, or one that is currently part of a store-wide brand
promotion — or the salesperson could actually be telling you the truth.
Hey, one out of five ain't bad!
So tell me, which CD-ROM drive did you decide to buy?
Bryan/DAK
There is 1 Reply.
Bryan,
Initially, I purchased the NEC CDR 73. Because of the difficulty it had
with the full motion video, I returned it and purchased the Sony Laser
Library. I've had that drive up and running for a few days and all seems
well. I just hope now that the quality of the software can make some
rapid advances and catch up with the stuff we're used to in the non-CD
field. Probably the most dazzling thing I have is the Sony Demo.
Impressive.
It's an adventure.
Larry
Bryan, I purchased the DAK CD-ROM package. I am very happy with it. I got
a good price and a good selection of disks.
Best of all, I didn't even need to call for technical support. The entire
installation process went very smoothly. I really appreciate the effort
that went into the installation software and the documentation.
I am really very happy with my purchase.
There is 1 Reply.
Mark,
Thanks for your comments. Glad to hear that you're enjoying the product.
Bryan/DAK