> >1. There are MANY out there still. I have many and have sold many.
>
> Not really. And *definitely* not compared to ANY other unit we sell.
> Off the top of my head you are the only PM-11 booster I have heard of.
Ive probably seen 50 flow thru our office from 3 or 4 different
sources. I guess I am just a PM 11 magnet. How many of them did you guys
make and sell, anyway? Maybe they are less rare than you think . As you
sell more PM2's, there are bound to be old PM products being sold on the
USED market.
> >2. They still work pretty well and are good for backups and shell
> >services.
> Yeah, they still run and work ok. Just dead end technology.
I found a way around that.
> >I should think that the fact that an old product that your
> >company makes still being in demand makes it something worth supporting if
> >only to gain further sales.
>
> Return on investment. You know that we've about doubled in staff in the
> last year? Half of the people here sort of vaguely remember we once
> made something called a PM-11... Let alone the IR-4.
Gee, you make it sound like something your company made 20 years ago and
only the old foggies remember it. Like I was saying, Id be proud if I had
an old product out there that people still used and Id say, "yes that pm
11 was ours. It was the first term server with Radius, etc... and now we
have the new line of PM 2s, 3s, etc. which do more... blah blah"
Im selling PM 2's to the people that liked the PM 11's. They say, "Yah
that PM 11 is nice, but now we wanna get something that can do ISDN,
115200, etc... run authentication".
> Hell, I was baffled the first time I got a question on one a little over
> a year ago. They are very rare beasts. Which is why we encourage trading
They cant be that rare if I have been getting them from several sources.
And thats fine to encourage customers to trade up, I do. You missed the
point of my message. My point was, dont you think it would make Livingston
look better to potential customers if your customer service at least
rememberd what a PM 11 was? If I sell a PM 11 to a start up ISP or some
tech at an ISP who uses Ascend for example (which I did) and they play
with it, and like COM OS, then they might be more interested in the newer
and BETTER PM products.
You dont have to REALLY REALLY support it. I just suggested to sort of
support it (or Ill support it), rather than just giving a potential
trade-up custmer an answer of "NO".
> them in, so that we can't finally be done with them. In a perfect world
> we could support them forever. But when you are trying to just keep
> everyone one trained on the new features (we have a weekly class for the
> support folks just to cover all the new stuff out and coming out) it
Hey thats great. Thats more than some people do.
> doesn't seem wise to train people to deal with the old ones. And when you
> have people clammoring for new things, should we divert engineering to
> make things work for the PM-11?
Well, if they are so rare, then you could just have 1 guy (the pm 11 guy).
Or tell em to call me. ;-)
You didnt read that right either. I specifically stated that I am not
suggesting that you spend time and energy modifiying PM console to work
with a PM 11. I said that I was happy that it worked as well as it did
with the 11.
> Like PMconsole. People want a new version that is more up to date. They
> want bugs fixed. They want new features.
>
> Are those things more important that making it work with a unit most people
> have never heard of and fewer actively use? I think so. So would most
> customers. I think they would be ripshit if they founf out we had an
> engineer making it work on the PM-11 when he could have been working on new
> features.
So dont make it support the PM 11 then. I just suggested that it was
possible, but then said that I wasnt suggesting that you actually spend
time and do it. Id rather that you make a better version of PM console
that supports your existing products too! And the new stuff. Send me the
PMCONSOLE source, Ill do it for free.
> >Final note: If you need me to supply you with a PM 11, I can. Also, I
>
> We have them. There is a stack of them sitting up on the top shelf out
> back getting dusty. I think the rest were scrapped. We just don't bother
> to keep any running here, no use for them.
I have called Livingston Tech support probably 3 or 4 times about the PM
11 when I was investingating them and the answers I received were, "No we
dont support them. We dont even have any. We havent seen any for years."
I hope it was only that they didnt know that they were there, but I could
have sworn I got an email from you saying the same thing.
Oh well. Maybe Im just going senile.
Say...
Why dont you send me those old ones then if you dont need or support them
anymore. I support them for myself and my clients and could use spare
parts!!!!
And thanx for the response.
~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~
Jake Messinger 713-772-6690 jake@ams.com
Advanced Medical Systems, Inc. 800-324-8594 jake@uh.edu
Houston, Texas http://www.ams.com/~jake
~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~
(Don't steal my squigglies)