It certainly is a difficult situation for the dealers/vendors. Those people are the ones on the front line.
The manufacturer should re-consider its position and come up with a fix. Force feeding a software to customers is not the best business idea.
I just can't imagine any line of business where, "Sorry, it broke, it was defective, it was our fault, but we're not going to fix it, so just buy another one from us" would fly. If Sony made a line of Plasma TVs that all stopped working the same day due to an internal issue, they'd be all over it like flies on s##t to get the issue resolved and save face. "Sorry, just buy another one" wouldn't and shouldn't be an acceptible response.
Hopefully, some class action lawsuit will be put together that costs Trimble a hell of a lot more than it would have to fix the bug ....
Dear Customer:
On September 14, 2011, it was discovered that the building we staked for you was mistakenly placed on your neighbors lot. The failure of the mistake was not anticipated due to the fact that both employees have been terminated (Bill was terminated on December 31, 2010). The exact cause of the failure is unknown. The problem is limited to your new building being on your neighbor's lot.
Other surveys we performed on or around that date did not suffer from this failure.
At this time, we do not anticipate a fix.
However, we will stake any new buildings for a discount. Call now as this discount is only available for 30 days. We greatly appreciate your understanding and patience on this matter.
Sincerely,
ACME Surveying
Beautiful!
That press release is a cold way to treat your customer.
Besides what does the product having been discontinued have to do with not anticipating the failure? If the product was still being distributed they still would not have anticipated the failure.
Do you mind if I copy and paste this on our state forum? This is too good to pass up.
Yes I have tended to be a "silent" Trimble basher myself in the past. This situation definitely does justice to that.
It would not affect Trimble in the slightest to help people with this. I think it could not be more short-sighted.
Trimble Geomatics Office (TGO)
> Trimble Business Center Advanced (TBC Advanced) is $2995; I think (not sure) that annual maintenance is optional. GrafNav/GrafNet is $6500, plus required annual maintenance.
>
> I'm sure the latter is great software, but that's a tough $$ differential to swallow.
See today's post about GRAFNAV/GRAFNET for temporarily reduced pricing.
Jim Frame
I honestly have no idea what is happening here with TGO/TBO/Whatever...
But it is clear to me that Jim Frame has rendered the SC & BL dot com community a great service in contacting Novatel regarding GRAFNAV/GRAFNET.
Kudos to you Jim Frame