Digital BW, The Print

I've kind of been waiting for this to happen, and now it has been
confirmed. The guys at Colorvision are going to have a good time with
this little tidbit. I have been trying to get some help with my old
Spectroscan/Spectrolino and had a couple emails with Xrite. Well now
that things have settled down, they no longer care much about their
users. Once upon a time, Xrite was willing to help just about anyone
that owned and used one of their products, now that they own Gretag
and have taken all the high priced competition away, they no longer
care. Basically if you bought something from Xrite or Gretag used, you
are out of luck!

This is from Bruce Wright in Xrite support:
"I'll also let you know that we offer full  technical support to the
original owner of ur devices. Any repurchased devices by way of eBay
or the like, we offer technical support limited to what we have on our
webpages."

Which is very little for most of the Gretag devices.

Really makes me think I tossed a lot of money down the drain for the
Profiler Platinum software that I own if they are going to give me
grief when I ask about any devices that I may or may not have
purchased new and want to use with their software.

Anyone thinking of buying a used device on Ebay better think twice
about the price that they are willing to pay. Probably better help
spread the word of these changes so that no one over bids on things.

I'll have to dig through old emails to see if I can still find people
higher up the food chain to express my disappointment with the way
things have turned out.

On Feb 24, 2009, at 1:24 PM, Greg wrote:

> I've kind of been waiting for this to happen, and now it has been
> confirmed. The guys at Colorvision are going to have a good time with
> this little tidbit.

Its a tough economy, and we are all trying to find the best way to  
continue to be viable, and meet users needs. At Datacolor, for  
example, we have chosen to discontinue phone support, as our web-based  
ticket system provided the best results, as well as being more cost  
effective and more flexible. This will cause dissatisfaction from a  
few customers, who want a real person to talk to (maybe even shout  
at), right this minute, but those who want real answers to technical  
issues will understand that the support system was always the  
practical route to advanced assistance.

 From my perspective: X-Rite made a couple of daring acquisitions  
right before the market changed, and as a result has had to make some  
pretty radical changes and reductions, first to eliminate the  
redundancy caused by the mergers, then to deal with the current  
recession and drop in sales, which required refinancing to service  
their rather extensive debt. Our company looked carefully at the same  
possible acquisitions at the time, and chose to pass on both of them,  
which left us debt-free and cash positive. At the moment that  
certainly seems like the right answer, but only time will tell.

The other factor is that our Digital Imaging division has continued to  
sell product at about the same rate as last year, so we can continue  
to offer service, since we have not seen a drop in sales. If the  
circumstances were different, we might be significantly reducing  
intangibles as well. I had too many friends in a number of countries  
at (I have to take a deep breath to type up this long list): Logo,  
Gretag Macbeth, Monaco, Sequel, Pantone, and X-Rite to make light of  
the current difficulties of the combined organization, or that of the  
rest of the world economy, for that matter.

As for the Spectrolino, it was the standard for our industry for many  
years... but that was quite a while ago. We certainly are not offering  
continuing support for products that have been off the market that  
long; though of course our products are not designed for recalibration  
and repair, quite the way a Spectrolino was; given its higher price  
point. So, if you expect me to make fun of X-Rite on a product, don't  
choose Spectrolino support; I'd suggest ColorMunki sales instead... ; )

C. David Tobie
Global Product Technology Manager
Digital Imaging & Home Theater
CDTobie@...


  ----------



Datacolor
www.datacolor.com/Spyder3




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

C. David Tobie-



I'm taking time to respond to your post in hopes that you might find an appropriate opportunity to pass my opinion up the ladder at Datacolor (or elsewhere).




I've been a working photographer for over thirty-five years, a university instructor and program director for twenty-eight years, have taught and been associated with a variety of national and international workshop programs and organizations, and currently own K2 Press, Inc., a digital fine art printing business in Austin, Texas. I have been, and continue to be, responsible for a good bit of both soft and hard inventory purchases.




What is absolutely infuriating to me is the money and effort companies spend on trying to market excellent customer support, rather than investing the money in actually providing excellent customer support. This business strategy has never made sense to me, and never will. It definitely effects the purchasing decisions that I make or have influence over.




Do companies really think that customers don't notice when:

- PC connections are eliminated from camera bodies

- Ink is left in cartridges that read "empty" by OEM print driver software

- Products never tested by photographers are sold to photographers

- They cannot get a human being on the telephone in a reasonable amount of time

- A company hides behind it's web site, instead of providing real customer support

- Companies make executive decisions to change the way color management is implemented in their software

-=2
0"Experts" are rewarded by companies to ghost-post on forums and lists (a good or bad thing, depending on how transparent the experts behavior is; David, you have always been transparent. Thank you.)




The list goes on and on. If I were King for a Day, I'd tell companies to start viewing their R&D and Customer Support departments as being the same thing. Some of the very best smaller companies (Inkjet Mall and BetterLight come to mind) do exactly that. It works and I make purchases through them as often as possible.




Bill Kennedy

K2 Press, Inc.

Austin, Texas

-----Original Message-----
From: C D Tobie <CDTobie@...>
To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 1:10 pm
Subject: Re: [Digital BW] Changes at Xrite


























    

            


On Feb 24, 2009, at 1:24 PM, Greg wrote:



> I've kind of been waiting for this to happen, and now it has been

> confirmed. The guys at Colorvision are going to have a good time with

> this little tidbit.



Its a tough economy, and we are all trying to find the best way to  

continue to be viable, and meet users needs. At Datacolor, for  

example, we have chosen to discontinue phone support, as our web-based  

ticket system provided the best results, as well as being more cost  

effective and more flexible. This will cause dissatisfaction from a  

few customers, who want a real pers
on to talk to (maybe even shout  

at), right this minute, but those who want real answers to technical  

issues will understand that the support system was always the  

practical route to advanced assistance.



From my perspective: X-Rite made a couple of daring acquisitions  

right before the market changed, and as a result has had to make some  

pretty radical changes and reductions, first to eliminate the  

redundancy caused by the mergers, then to deal with the current  

recession and drop in sales, which required refinancing to service  

their rather extensive debt. Our company looked carefully at the same  

possible acquisitions at the time, and chose to pass on both of them,  

which left us debt-free and cash positive. At the moment that  

certainly seems like the right answer, but only time will tell.



The other factor is that our Digital Imaging division has continued to  

sell product at about the same rate as last year, so we can continue  

to offer service, since we have not seen a drop in sales. If the  

circumstances were different, we might be significantly reducing  

intangibles as well. I had too many friends in a number of countries  

at (I have to take a deep breath to type up this long list): Logo,  

Gretag Macbeth, Monaco, Sequel, Pantone, and X-Rite to make light of  

the current difficulties of the combined organization, or that of the  

rest of the world economy, for that ma
tter.



As for the Spectrolino, it was the standard for our industry for many  

years... but that was quite a while ago. We certainly are not offering  

continuing support for products that have been off the market that  

long; though of course our products are not designed for recalibration  

and repair, quite the way a Spectrolino was; given its higher price  

point. So, if you expect me to make fun of X-Rite on a product, don't  

choose Spectrolino support; I'd suggest ColorMunki sales instead... ; )



C. David Tobie

Global Product Technology Manager

Digital Imaging & Home Theater

CDTobie@...



----------



Datacolor

www.datacolor.com/Spyder3



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]





 

    
  

    
    


    
    
    
    


    


    
    
    
    
    


 






[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

On Feb 24, 2009, at 3:17 PM, BKPhoto@... wrote:

> Do companies really think that customers don't notice when:
>
> - PC connections are eliminated from camera bodies
>
> - Ink is left in cartridges that read "empty" by OEM print driver  
> software
>
> - Products never tested by photographers are sold to photographers
>
> - They cannot get a human being on the telephone in a reasonable  
> amount of time
>
> - A company hides behind it's web site, instead of providing real  
> customer support
>
> - Companies make executive decisions to change the way color  
> management is implemented in their software
>
> -=2
> 0"Experts" are rewarded by companies to ghost-post on forums and  
> lists (a good or bad thing, depending on how transparent the experts  
> behavior is; David, you have always been transparent. Thank you.)

I'd go along with you on almost every point... I can hardly argue the  
last one : )

But the "human on the phone" item I'll offer a different view on. The  
people that are available for phone support can't answer anything but  
basic questions from a script. When we used this system ourselves, our  
goal was to have these people answer the simplest of user questions,  
and herd everything else to the ticket system. It gave people someone  
to commiserate with, but it certainly didn't offer advanced support  
via phone. Getting your support ticket vetted, the right questions  
asked, and the right person lined up to answer it sounds like "real  
customer support" to me. I certainly don't consider our web ticket  
system to be "hiding behind our website"... though I don't even know  
if thats what you had in mind in stating that.

C. David Tobie
Global Product Technology Manager
Digital Imaging & Home Theater
CDTobie@...


  ----------



Datacolor
www.datacolor.com/Spyder3




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, BKPhoto@... wrote:
>
> 
> 
> What is absolutely infuriating to me is the money and effort
companies spend on trying to market excellent customer support, rather
than investing the money in actually providing excellent customer
support. This business strategy has never made sense to me, and never
will. It definitely effects the purchasing decisions that I make or
have influence over.
> 
> 


This is exactly why I bought the Profiler Platinum package. I had
great support from Xrite for stuff that was old and out of service for
far longer than this Spectroscan (which went end of life about 2-3
years ago). It was that support that made me drop the significant cash
to buy that software, and the Pulse package (up to almost $6000 now in
Xrite stuff), I really do expect a little better. Email support is
fine by me, I'm not asking for anyone to drop everything and help me
get it going again like if I called the 800 number, I do understand
the differences. Hell even Gretag was helping me with this device back
before the purchase, it was part of the way the game was played to
help keep customers buying your products. Having dropped that kind of
money I definitely feel betrayed now.

I've also had decent support on my ancient PrintOpen 4, another
product now long dead.

Also I didn't think Colorvision would make fun of the situation, but I
can almost bet that somehow this will end up changing the way that the
CV products are marketed. You said no more phone support, but that
email/support ticket is possible, this is what Xrite just cut off and
on very expensive items. And with the economy what it is, I can almost
guarantee that CV sales will increase and Xrite decrease, at least at
the hobby/low to mid range Pro level as the end users are trying to
keep costs down. Also personally I will not buy that stupid Munki
product! It is only slightly better than that stupid i1 Design product
that Gretag sold that used 45 patches for a profile. I own that one
because it was the easiest and cheapest way to buy the i1pro at the
time. I tried it, I called it JUNK (which it truly was). I also
suggested to Xrite that they kill it, which they did. Not sure why
that stupid Munki was brought out, just a variation on a poor choice
of design features. I won't even use the EasyRGB for fade testing, not
enough patches to do the job, I use the 135 target in PrintOpen for
this, seems to work fairly well for the kind of data I need. Works
pretty well to profile things like printable CD/DVD disks too.

But in the end this post was mostly just a huge warning to anyone that
is buying a used Gretag or Xrite item, you will be left in the cold,
no matter what that item is. So please pass the word around. I assume
that they will still take your money if you want it to be recertified,
but after that I have no idea about the support status of that item.
Since I never registered my Pulse system (why bother, I had a better
software option) I guess I'm SOL with it too.