[sdiy] Those darned Casio chips!

[Richard Wentk]

At 17:07 24/11/2004 -0500, The Old Crow wrote:

>   Until 1998, Yamaha actually kept a large stock of parts for every
>keyboard they made since the late 1950s.  In 1998, they sold the parts
>inventory to a place in Westminster, California (can't recall the name of
>the place offhand as I rarely look at their parts list) and they sent off
>the stock of manuals to service bureaus.
>
>   I think there has been what they call a 'paradigm shift' in the keyboard
>manufacturer industry: the old one was "keep the customer satisfied," the
>one that replaced it is "keep the customer buying our stuff."  So, it is
>not in the manufacturer's best interest to keep your old machine running
>forever--they want to sell you a replacement.

I had some contact with Yamaha R&D in the UK for a while, and as I 
understood it their policy then - it may not be their policy now - was to 
cycle managers between divisions.

Which meant *all* of their divisions. So someone who was selling toilet 
bowls last year would be in charge of MI this year.

So you wouldn't expect them to understand that if someone's old CS80 breaks 
down permanently, they're not going to rush out the next day and replace it 
with something from the Motif range.

Having said that, if you want a DX7 you can buy a Motif and add a PLG card. 
Although I'm not convinced that some who can spend $200 getting their axe 
repaired is going to spend $3000 to replace it when repair stops being 
possible.

I think in many ways this thread is about the fact that some managers are 
cretins. Their heads are full of MBA BS about 'cutting costs' and 
'increasingly profitability' on a quarter by quarter basis, and they have 
absolutely no sense of long term customer loyalty or the bigger picture.

It's true, the business used to be technology led, and now it's business 
led, and I don't think it's any better for it.

It was around the time that the business mentality took over that almost 
all new commercial development stopped. This is not a coincidence.

Richard