Today is the last day of May!

[Riocaz]

I don't think thats altogether fair.

If memory serves:Capturing the professional market was always Irex's core business plan. It was only later when they realised the interest that they took the decision to sell to the public at large.

[oliverbogler]

Originally Posted by CommanderROR

I'm with you on almost everything oliver...BUT:

Whatever the trouble is, the one thing they HAVE to do is tell people what's going on. i'm not talking about taking us every step of the way or something...just stating the correct reason for the delay and giving an approx. on how long it might take (make that conservative...)

It is absolutely unexcusable to wait till the alst day of April, telling people that the device is ready and will launch in April and then suddenly delaying, giving a very unconvincing reason, and not only for a couple of days (delays like that can happen easily) ub tby more than 4 weeks.

This is very unporfessional behaviour and not to be tolerated. .....

Yes - I agree. They could have handled the communication much better. I think that unexpected things have happened though, and I wonder how professional it would have appeared to post successive reasons on the site for each delay? For example: the "pdf reader isn't ready" and one week later "the power management software isn't ready" etc etc. Do you see my point? I think that companies now tend towards monolithic silence and this is perhaps why.

However, now that they have created expectations, I totally agree with you that they should post a statement giving us a feel for the reasons and the time frame. This would only make us less upset. In any case, the uncertainty in this community is not working in their favor...

[VillageReader]

Originally Posted by High 5

It's big and heavy.
Definitely not a device to carry around with you all day.
Clear and crisp reading but at a price: you need a small powerplant to go with it.
I must leave it plugged in to the power every (!) night.
the device resets if the battery runs out (about 1 to 3 hours).
It is impossible to read the backlit screen outdoors if the sun shines.
Apart from that, it can handle quite a lot of textformats and the after sales service is very, very good.

It has all sorts of nice features that you'll never use.

Yeah, power was the big concern when I saw it. International flights are the norm for me (I travel 3-5 times outside the US every year, maybe 1-2 times in the US by air). SO, my 'minimum' requirement I've defined as acceptable is 14 hours of time with at most 1 battery change. But the pictures look nice and I like Mobipocket (the library uses that format). Sigh...

[Riocaz]

Originally Posted by oliverbogler

Yes - I agree. They could have handled the communication much better. I think that unexpected things have happened though, and I wonder how professional it would have appeared to post successive reasons on the site for each delay? For example: the "pdf reader isn't ready" and one week later "the power management software isn't ready" etc etc. Do you see my point? I think that companies now tend towards monolithic silence and this is perhaps why.

However, now that they have created expectations, I totally agree with you that they should post a statement giving us a feel for the reasons and the time frame. This would only make us less upset. In any case, the uncertainty in this community is not working in their favor...

Indeed which is why I have been pushing for a generic response from them.

I don't expect a "this isn't ready yet" or "We will launch at 3:27:43 on the 18th of June" just a "We know you are anxious and we are working on it"

I can understand they are leery of making a definative statement. But I don't think anyone expects them to make one. We just want something.

[Stuart Young]

We could always slip HenryCat a few cans of Stella.. An ask him to find out where their warehouse orstorage facility is.. Just a thought. Charlie Crocker did it in the Italian Job and all it took was a couple of Mini Coopers. I don't anticipate many problems with the Italian Mafia.

[ereaderusa]

Silly me. I postponed replacing my tablet for two months now hoping I could trust a corporate marketing department. I guess I'll have to settle for another lousy (heavy) tablet PC.

[High 5]

Originally Posted by CommanderROR

@High 5

would you mind calling irex and trying to get a statement from them (end of May and stuff...)
as I said before, I think somebody who can talk to them in their native language could do the best job of dragging an answer out of them...possibly...

Just got home after my last posting.
I'll try and call them tomorrow, CommandeROR.
Wring the truth out of them, grill'em, "where were you on the night of 31th may" kind of stuff.

Mind you, Loeki is very likely telling us the truth that she doesn't know when the Illiad will be ready.
Also, from the point of view of the company, it really, really isn't that important if this device will come on the market today, tomorrow, next week or next month.
Us geeks will probably get one anyway and the general public couldn't care less.

[Snappy!]

Well, guess their MarComm (Marketing and Communications) department should be sent for training or fired.

This reminds me of a Dilbert strip and also of my time working as a software engineer in R&D.

It goes like this:

Marketing decides that May is a good time to launch a product, possibly because then they can apply for a month long vacation in June/July to enjoy the sun.

Engineering and research requires six more months for production ready. So they inform management that product would be ready only in October, possibly early 2007. But MarCom has trigger-happily sent out press releases to everyone declaring May as release date.

Engineering continues to slog and rush.

Beat.

Marcom plans for holiday ... and forgets to update the website.

Corporate relations get tons of call regarding release. Someone calls up Marcom folks who is basking in the sun somewhere in Hawaii. Marcom folk calls up engineering team to help change website to inform of delays.

Engineering updates website. Mobileread forum users grunt!

[Riocaz]

Originally Posted by High 5

Us geeks will probably get one anyway and the general public
couldn't care less.

Oi I resemble that remark.

[Drops]

Originally Posted by CommanderROR

hmm...the lady at irex told me that the b2b part is already open...so you should have received positive feedback when asking them as representative of your company...very strange that.

She really said that it has been released for business customers already...I always thought that it was only used in trial runs, but her words seemed to mean something else..but os course there is always room for (mis)interpretation.

Our email were not answered at all, calling there just gives the usual answer: "Will be released in May". Now they are talking about September or October. Really "great" company.

They've just lost us as potential customers. (> 100 devices).

[TaKir]

Originally Posted by Snappy!

Marcom plans for holiday ... and forgets to update the website.
....
Engineering updates website. Mobileread forum users grunt!

I know of course, many reasons can lead to delays of a product.

BUT...
As we know, Irex is not simple able itself to do something with it's site - they said, their site is served by a third company.

So, they should ask this third company to do last changes at their site at least several days ago.
But at the same time they were telling a barefaced lie about "couple of days web-shop opening". THAT is very bad, but not the delay itself.

[Snappy!]

Originally Posted by TaKir

I know of course, many reasons can lead to delays of a product.

BUT...
As we know, Irex is not simple able itself to do something with it's site - they said, their site is served by a third company.

So, they should ask this third company to do last changes at their site at least several days ago.
But at the same time they were telling a barefaced lie about "couple of days web-shop opening". THAT is very bad, but not the delay itself.

Yeah, I agree with you. Having a delay is not so good. Lying about it is outright bad! greee