On 07/08/07, Harald Welte <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi all! > > I tried to stay out of this entire discussion (like most non-technical > discussions) for a long time. > > But I think there is just a big misconception of how and what at least > certain people percieve and what is actually going on. > > First of all, OpenMoko is a very small company. We have 19 full-time > employees in Taipei, plus something like seven external people, mostly > developers, not all of them full time. > > Now think about this. 19 people to do everything, from sales through > software R&D, distribution, logistics, webshop, system administration, > handling all external inquiries, business development, and so on. This > does not include the hardware R&D team inside FIC Mobility, which is > smaller than OpenMoko.
Sounds like a herculean task - I'll continue to wait quietly. Keep up the good work. -Pete Everybody in that team works overtime, for many months - even way before > starting the 'phase 1' sales. > > So starting to sell those developer previews is something that drains > every last resource that we have (and don't have). > > So please remember, this is an extremely small team, everyone doing the > best he can, trying to create a completely new class of mobile device. > > Starting to sell those units to _interested developers_ who want to help > building this device is something that puts a lot of additional load on > us. The community has been pressing us to release those devices as > early as possible, and that's what we did (after many mostly hardware > R&D delays). > > So if you have any kind of inquiry, remember that you are one of more > than 1000 other people who ordered in a very short timeframe. It's > almost impossible to give any reasonable response. And if every of > those > 1000 people inquire on the status of their order every day, then > we don't get anything done (especially not processing the actual orders) > but to respond to those status inquiries. > > I know this is a very insatisfactory situation. But please step back > for a minute and think about this consumer-like attitude of complaints > like "oh, you don't have the business process to handle orders". > > Yes, we don't have the business process. Yes, we don't have the people > and/or resources. But: Yes, we're still doing it. Selling unfinished > products to interested developers. Developers who have an idea how > difficult this project is, and who want to help us moving forward with > this project. > > But please don't think you're dealing with a multi-billion international > company with a sales and customer support department. You are dealing > with a bunch of [mostly technical] people who have a strange idea about > what kind of difference they could achieve in the world of mobile > devices. > > We have something like > 700 of your inquiries that nobody hasn't even > had a time to look at yet. I'm not even talking about the > 800 > inquiries that are somewhere being processed and have at least received > one response. > > Oh, and don't think that hiring more people will help. Think about how > long it takes for any new person to understand the process, and how much > time you need to spend to teach them. The outcome would be visible at > a time that phase-1 for GTA01 has long been finished. > > We're crazy because we're trying to do the impossible, with an > impossibly small amount of resources, and an impossibly small team. > > So please understand that it's also impossible for us to respond to > individual inquiries. You can place an order, you will get an order > confirmation. We charge the credit card, you will get a confirmation > that the payment has received. And you will get another message as soon > as your shipping has been made. You can cancel at any point in time > before the item is shipped by mailing CANCEL on an otherwise empty line > to your ticket. > > But please don't try to change addresses, inquire about the status > (which is clear based on the last mail you received), change the product > quantity, credit card number, or whatever. Any such inquiry is bound to > be responded in a way longer than acceptable timeframe, and will > probably not have a satisfactory answer anyway, plus it will delay > everythign else. > > Yes, this is no industry standard customer care. But hell, we are > selling to developers inside our own community, not to end-users !?! > > Thanks for your understanding. > > -- > - Harald Welte <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > http://openmoko.org/ > > ============================================================================ > Software for the world's first truly open Free Software mobile phone > > _______________________________________________ > OpenMoko community mailing list > community@lists.openmoko.org > http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community >
_______________________________________________ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community