MOTUnation.com

Just emailed MOTU and they said that they are not shipping the complimentary upgrades (i.e. the free upgrade for people who bought DP5 after 1/1/08 ) until after all the paid for upgrades have shipped. Kind of makes me a bit miffed that I am being forced to wait despite placing my request on the day that the upgrade was announced.

Oh well........

I am not surprised that orders for people who are giving MOTU more money are being prioritized.

MOTU Customer Service Email when DP6 was announced wrote:Complimentary upgrades will be processed in the order received when DP6 begins shipping; we expect this to occur within the next several weeks.

Not quite the same as "the complimentary upgrades will begin shipping after everyone who has paid for an upgrade gets theirs". Pretty poor show IMHO. I haven't even had a dispatch notification yet. And I bought 5 specifically to be near the front of the DP6 upgrade line.

Why would this even be an issue? Surely they had a good sized stock of DP6 upgrade packages pressed and printed in anticpation? I wouldn't think that they are pressing DVDs and printing manuals in an on-demand fashion?

Cashflow. Get the money in the door asap to recoup all the outlay for DP6 production, advertising, trade shows, etc. Whilst I understand the realities of business, as a customer I am not impressed.

dmacintyre wrote:Cashflow. Get the money in the door asap to recoup all the outlay for DP6 production, advertising, trade shows, etc. Whilst I understand the realities of business, as a customer I am not impressed.

Maybe not, but if I ran a business that's how I'd do it-- wouldn't you? You'd rather delay that income stream a couple of weeks? In this sort of economy, that's NOT going to happen. Fact is, if they did it the other way, I'd question their judgement. It sucks if you're one of the people waiting for the free upgrade... no question. It just isn't surprising. Quite opposite as you have said.

James Steele wrote:

dmacintyre wrote:Cashflow. Get the money in the door asap to recoup all the outlay for DP6 production, advertising, trade shows, etc. Whilst I understand the realities of business, as a customer I am not impressed.

Maybe not, but if I ran a business that's how I'd do it-- wouldn't you? You'd rather delay that income stream a couple of weeks? In this sort of economy, that's NOT going to happen. Fact is, if they did it the other way, I'd question their judgement. It sucks if you're one of the people waiting for the free upgrade... no question. It just isn't surprising. Quite opposite as you have said.

Of course, of course. It just sucks to be on the receiving end (and know you are).

D.

dmacintyre wrote:And I bought 5 specifically to be near the front of the DP6 upgrade line.

i like to think that i purchased DP6 back in march, and that i received a complimentary copy of 5.13 to play with in the meantime.

i don't see myself as being more deserving of a copy than a longtime user with cash in hand, but you would think that they would have pressed enough copies initially to appease numbers that they were anticipating from sales and pre-order figures.

but i could easily see manpower being a delaying factor in shipping, i wonder what kind of volume they're actually dealing with right now.

anyway, i'm not in a huge rush to get my copy, and i don't want to seem impatient or pessimistic. and this is exactly what i expected to happen, anyway.

who knows, maybe they will have released 6.01 by the time the "free" upgrades go out, and then there won't be as many people whining right off the batt about bugs and what not.

that also could be their strategy, as there does seem to be a bit of whining going on.

Oh I think I might have the right to cry harder than most. I bought DP 5 December 14th 2007!! Missed the free upgrade by what 16 days or so. I called them and they said 'sorry'...which I do understand but was hopin' they'd have a little mercy on me. Ah well such is life, right!?

I know this kinda doesn't have to do with what this thread is about but I thought I'd share

csiaudio wrote:Oh I think I might have the right to cry harder than most. I bought DP 5 December 14th 2007!! Missed the free upgrade by what 16 days or so. I called them and they said 'sorry'...which I do understand but was hopin' they'd have a little mercy on me. Ah well such is life, right!?

I know this kinda doesn't have to do with what this thread is about but I thought I'd share

Like my old granny used to say when I was feeling sorry for myself : "just remember that there's always someone worse off than you". Usually this was followed by a "so straighten your face".

I'm actually content to wait it out, what with all the talk in the other threads. Plus I'm still really learning DP 5.1.3 Once I'm real cozy working in that, I'm thinking it's gonna be an easier to move up......

I think it is a little silly for MOTU to keep 5.13 free upgrade customers waiting. In reality, the cost of the DVD and manual are about $10 to $15. That's all they ever place on my invoice for customs as replacement value. Plus, the customer is paying the shipping... Doesn't make a lot of sense to keep them waiting. Fuels bad feelings. Aren't we as musicians a little more "feely" than other markets. Our feelings get offended and hurt easily - we're the creative type - prone to madness and genius.

What does make business sense (but crappy for us customers) is to ship a not fully debugged version - raise capital funds - and then have the cash to pay the programmers to fix the broken original software. I kinda think this was something in the "pre-order" page they had when they were taking $$ with little intention to immediately ship.

I really wish MOTU felt warmer than they do. They feel cold - like our Prime Minister here in Canada who shook his 10 year old boy's hand at a photo-op outside of the kids school rather than hugging him. Creepy.

This board is amazing (for us and MOTU) with all the free information they can receive about bugs and fixes. It also serves kindly as a tech support that they get for free. I hope in a way the board doesn't facilitate them having to skimp on tech support.

If I were MOTU, I would hire someone just to scan this list constantly. That person could report bugs, be PR, post often, keep us users hyped about upcoming products, simmer the fires, give indication about updates and fixes, look for market product demand, find high profile users, blah, blah blah, advertise. We could feel like part of the MOTU family - so to speak.

Honestly, here is a ton of users of MOTU software and hardware. We will be the people buying the upgrades and the new gear. Listen to your existing market place and you'll sell a ton of stuff!

CC

dmacintyre wrote:Just emailed MOTU and they said that they are not shipping the complimentary upgrades (i.e. the free upgrade for people who bought DP5 after 1/1/08 ) until after all the paid for upgrades have shipped. Kind of makes me a bit miffed that I am being forced to wait despite placing my request on the day that the upgrade was announced.

Oh well........

If anything, I'm impressed with their honesty. Ordinarily, you'd be hearing some corporate doublespeak about strategic prioritizing of asset management or some similar piffle. Either they're not smart or devious enough to come up with something more creative, or they just cannot tell a lie.

I understand that hind teat woudn't be your favored status, but you gotta' hand it to them for their forthrightness.

Maybe?

.

conleycd wrote:I think it is a little silly for MOTU to keep 5.13 free upgrade customers waiting. In reality, the cost of the DVD and manual are about $10 to $15. That's all they ever place on my invoice for customs as replacement value. Plus, the customer is paying the shipping... Doesn't make a lot of sense to keep them waiting. Fuels bad feelings. Aren't we as musicians a little more "feely" than other markets. Our feelings get offended and hurt easily - we're the creative type - prone to madness and genius.

It doesn't take much any more to fuel bad feelings. MOTU has always been pretty much damned if they do, damned if they don't, by a very vocal contingent on this board and others that waste no opportunity to let the world know when they feel slighted or neglected.

The cost of the DVD has nothing to do with it. If MOTU does not charge someone's credit card until they SHIP the upgrade, then they don't get those funds until they ship. Frankly, given the state of the economy in general I'd do exactly what they did and bring in as much $$$ as possible first. It just makes sense. I'd have to deal with people like you and others being upset with me over it, but I'd know that you'd get over it. I never promised you you'd get yours first, etc.

I acknowledge that people are bummed about having to wait, but that's obviously just how it is. More discussion on it needs to be moved to the "Group Therapy" forum which I may need to create before much longer.

Group Therapy..................James you're a riot.

I love it