Sadly, I believe you are correct.

Post #28,856 by hnick 2/18/02 6:14:49 PM Reply	Sadly, I believe you are correct. Twenty years ago, or so, when I was getting out of engineering school, they were a struggling router company. They focused on absolute quality in their product and nearly got their ass handed to them. Now they focus on customer satisfaction and were doing quite nicely until the economy went crunch. I stand by my statement that the avowed purpose is to make the shareholders profit. Producing a product pleasing to the buyers is the means. I still take professional pride in my contributions to the product and therefor the end product. When I can't take pride in my work, it's time to move on. Whores can be fickle that way... The focus IS changing from doing a thing right because fine craft is a good thing to doing a thing in the manner that will product the most profit. I can't help regarding the transition without a sense of loss. Regards, Hugh
Post #28,903 by jb4 2/19/02 9:48:38 AM Reply	Putting the cart before the horse One can also "maximize profits" throught stock market manipulation[Enron], "cooking the books"[Enron, Micros~1], illegal marketing practices[Enron, Micros~1], monopolization[Micros~1, IBM, AT&T], lobbying to hamstring or outright outlaw your competition[any NTSA body shop], fraud[the list is too long to put here],...or by making the best damn product at a reasonable price and competing fairly in an open marketplace[ ]. (Notice the size of that list...) hnick, I wasn't in BigAssedRoutersAndNetworks board room (or in their marketing dept, thank Ghod), but I sincerely doubt that BAR&N "nearly got their ass handed to them" simply because they "focused on absolute quality". There were other problems in their bizniss plan if they "nearly got their ass handed to them". Perhaps they "nearly got their ass handed to them" because they didn't give a rat's ass about customer satisfaction, or their prices were too high, or their routers were a pain in the ass to keep working, or whatever. Your premise is just too simplistic to be accurate. jb4 (Resistance is not futile...)
Post #29,036 by hnick 2/20/02 7:07:44 AM Reply	Ok, you have a point I've been with the company about 2 years since we were acquired. I have no idea what the business plan or products were like in the late 80's. My statement was a short version of what I was told during an indoctination speech immediately after the acquisition. Yeah, it's simplistic. Your point. Hugh

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