Re: [FRC Blog] 2016 Radio Update
 

Only people associated with FIRST will go on Chief Delphi though...so only FIRST teams will be seeing the price. Not the public.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2016 Radio Update
 

Chief Delphi is openly accessible by the public. Plus, this very thread appears near the front of some google searches relevant to the device.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2016 Radio Update
 

Im excited to see that we are getting a pair in the KOP this year.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2016 Radio Update
 

Ours were delivered this morning. Definitely are small :)

Re: [FRC Blog] 2016 Radio Update
 

A pair? As in 2? Where did you see this info?

Re: [FRC Blog] 2016 Radio Update
 

I think he meant pear. As in, the fruit. ;)

Why are we hiding a $30 dollar discount? With the whole don't mention discount thing is this thread I was expecting the thing to be $50.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2016 Radio Update
 

It's what OpenMesh wants. They're doing us a huge favor by providing the discount. The least the can do is honor their wishes and keep the discount to ourselves.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2016 Radio Update
 

Perhaps this thread should have been called "2016 Radio Special Pricing Update."

Re: [FRC Blog] 2016 Radio Update
 

I dared hope that people would get the sarcasm in this post, but alas...

That's where I lost you "huge favor" yes I know when your talking about thousands of teams $30 adds up but, it's also going to be tax deductible for them. My 10% off best buy coupon could do something similar granted on a much smaller scale.

I really don't want to seem rude i just think it's a bit ridiculous for them to act like they are giving us a huge discount when all they are doing is putting a slight dent in their profits for publicity and tax sake.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2016 Radio Update
 

Or maybe they didn't want to hear complaining about how small of a discount they were giving.

I don't want to seem rude either.




As far as I'm concerned, the companies involved didn't seem to want the discount amount posted. If I see that, I'm going to respect their wishes, and not post. What could happen if I were to post? Complaining from various people about various aspects of the discount. Somebody figuring out how much profit the companies are making on the device (which, mind you, could be pretty minimal, depending on a lot of factors that I can guess are present but that I know nothing at all about). And if I don't post? People wonder what I'm trying to hide (to which, my answer is, "nothing, I'm honoring a request"). I didn't sign an NDA on this matter, so I can't get in legal trouble for posting* the discount. But if the companies don't offer the discount again because someone posted what it is... that kind of hurts other teams.

Personally, if someone asks nicely, and there isn't a reasonable reason NOT to do what they ask, then I'll generally do what is asked.


*Lawyers, feel free to disagree--but be aware, I have no access to the price myself, other than what others have posted.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2016 Radio Update
 

/Sigh. It would take more than one of your "10% off Best Buy Coupon" to get the same deal. Always sad to see engineers that can do stuff to the nearest "thousandth" get tripped up by simple discount calcs.

And you don't know what the discount does to them. Lets assume that they make $45 on each unit, so now they are making $15. Thats a pretty big hit when you then look at 4000 teams buying 2 of these. Thats pretty close to a quarter of a million dollars in "slight dent in their profits for publicity (to a little known robotics competition) and (what may not be a big help in their) tax sake." (comments in the parens are mine).

This is why we don't have nice things. A vendor shows up with a really nice piece of gear, cuts a ~30% price break and their only ask is that you don't tell anyone about how much you paid. Now that the world knows you can get these things for cheap, why wouldn't everyone ask for the price. So now rather than loosing a quarter of a million dollars on some podunk robot group nonsense, they loose $30 in sales on every unit. That ends up being real money in selling 200,000 units.

Lets all go "Hey NI, I want to outfit my mega company process control line with these roboRIO things. I know you sell them for pennies apiece to some insignificant robot group, I want that price. Oh yea, I want the free Labview seats like they get too." How well would that go over?


And yes, I've very deliberately poked at FRC. We are 4,000 small time customers that quite frankly can be a huge PITA. I've yelled at people in the past for abusing suppliers like AM here in the forums. We have dozens of suppliers that offer great deals, great service and ask for you to pay your bill and treat them with some level of respect. This vendor came, offered a deal with a request and it took less than 2 days for FRC to discard their pretty minor request like a used kleenex. Wonder if they will be a 2017 season supplier? Ever wonder why it's just dozens of suppliers and not thousands?

[/rant]

Re: [FRC Blog] 2016 Radio Update
 

I understand why they don't want pricing information getting out.

I do, however, find it silly that information would be posted in such a way that a large group of people can access it, and still wish and expect for the information to stay out of the public eye.

What exactly was stopping FIRST from delaying the blog post until the season began?

You said in your post that we are insignificant and then said now the "world knows". If we are indeed as insignificant as you think then why should we worry about someone posting a price on our own forum.