the unofficial Bookeen Blog

[gerraldo]

Originally Posted by K-Thom

gerraldo, it's the same in Germany. And as long as you don't boast about it or distribute the DRM-stripped file nobody will know (or care) anyway. "No plaintiff, no lawsuit".

Sadly I'm not so sure about the "nobody cares"-part...

[emellaich]

Well, its not a promise of delivery, but if you want to know how long Bookeen has been 'working' on folders, here is a post from their blog.
==============================================
Friday, January 25, 2008
Best wishes 2008
First of all, with almost one month late, best wishes 2008 to all of you.

[snip]

We have also noted all the remarks of our first customers : folder support, delete key, better sound interface and our dev team is already working on them. Please note that, even if we are not very responsive, we always read all your emails and take in account your feedback.

Since our creation in 2003, Bookeen has always tried to keep in touch with its customers and to offer a reactive and efficient customer support. Concerning this part of our job, we clearly have not met our quality imperatives for the Cybook Gen3 release. We are now making all the necessary decisions to have a customer support department running properly.

[GeoffC]

One cannot rush these thing tha ken .....

[K-Thom]

Sigh ... sorry, no more (french indeed) red wine left, and there's nothing more I could say.

[Skyrunner]

Originally Posted by emellaich

Well, its not a promise of delivery, but if you want to know how long Bookeen has been 'working' on folders, here is a post from their blog.

(...)

We are now making all the necessary decisions to have a customer support department running properly.

Definitely not a promise .

[GeoffC]

[Quote=emellaich
Well, its not a promise of delivery, but if you want to know how long Bookeen has been 'working' on folders, here is a post from their blog.

(...)

We are now making all the necessary decisions to have a customer support department running properly.[/quote]

Originally Posted by Skyrunner

Definitely not a promise .

To be honest they didn't commit themselves to a timescale with that statement, did they ?


First, they have to think about the issue, then set up a probing committee to take that forward to an action committee, and then an implementation committee. Then they will have to approach the committee resonsible for the blog, who will have to inform the responsible persons who deal with the web-site....

First there will have to be an agenda, which has to have its own meeting to decide on that, followed by wine and biscuits, and an agreement to bring the topic up at the next meeting, and so on and so on and so on ....

As you can see, it's not an easy process ..... in between early morning coffee, mid-morning coffee, lunch, mid-afternoon wine and biscuits and then the ........

[Abelturd]

Keep banging. Keep banging on the walls of fortress Bookeen.

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by Abelturd

Keep banging. Keep banging on the walls of fortress Bookeen.

you missed an opportunity there ......

[Abelturd]

Sorry? What opportunity?

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by Abelturd

Sorry? What opportunity?

the emoticons .....

[Abelturd]

Aaaah! Right, banging . Didn't know there was an emoticon for that, at least not here, in such a respectable forum.

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by Abelturd

Aaaah! Right, banging . Didn't know there was an emoticon for that, at least not here, in such a respectable forum.

and the "flogging a dead horse" .... very apt under the circumstances ....

[GeoffC]

I've sent another missive to Bookeen to see if I get a Friday response .....

[Snuffi]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

Name me a company where things NEVER goes wrong... Hey why do you think secrecy in big company exists ? Don't say anything, if things goes wrong, customers won't know it anyway.

Better a company who take the risk of saying someting, even if they are most often wrong, than a company saying noting at all.

Who talks about NEVER? Let's turn the question around: Give me one single announcement from Bookeen where they did keep their word and did deliver on time.
Not even the list of improvements was delivered as promised. That has nothing to do with patience:
If they tell me it'll take till late 2010 for them to type a list of improvements, I'll wait and be patient. But if they fail their customers over and over again, that's just bad CR.

On your question about buying from Bookeen: I will rather buy from someone with better customer interaction and if there is no one around I will carefully consider if it wouldn't be a better statement if I do not buy at all. If more customers would direct their money more wisely the companies would have to take the customers more seriously as they hit them where it hurts: money. As long as people complain but then go out and buy the cheapest stuff again and again there will be no change as companies have no incentive to invest in good customer relations...

[Snuffi]

Originally Posted by GeoffC

Patience guys.
Rome was not built in a day, nor the Earth in 7 (despite what you read).

I have asked Bookeen for an explanation as to what has gone wrong, but there has been no reply. [**]

Surely we can expect that there has been something to 'stop' the release on Monday (18th My 2009). One HAS to accept that, perhaps, an unforeseen bug, or doubt about the software has surfaced.
Do you want them to rush out a firmware update that is 'dodgy' just to placate us ? - better safe than sorry.

**Yes, they are poor communicators; but honestly they are not the worst I've come across...and they haven't "taken the money and run" like at least one company I could mention.....

And yes, Jon, I would buy another Cybook - my current one does what I want - despite the wish list of what would be 'nice' to have. It is reliable and I, personally, haven't found any similar device that has made me change my opinion of what is a good product.

I must remind you, though, that all that was announced for last Monday was a list of improvements, at least that's what you told us. No word of a release date.
And I would be hard-pressed to come up with a plausible explanation for what could go so wrong that I cannot type a list with a couple of improvements within in a week.
Especially when they botched every single date so far, I would expect a little more care when announcing yet another date and that they would really try to meet it this time, especially when it's as simple as a publishing a list they must already have somewhere on their blog.