Motorola losing customers?

[kayn1n32008]

Ya that part about OTAR is great….. for agencies that have radios with that capability.

Re-read the first sentence in my post:

This isn't a problem with encryption, it's not planning ahead and having the capability.

 

[kayn1n32008]

Harris has picked up quite a bit of business in Arizona outside the greater Phoenix metro hellscape. In New Mexico, Motorola has the DTRS contract but EFWood subs are all over the place and spreading. Our dealer now maintains a serious inventory to cover demand.

Our province wide system is Harris. While there are still brand snobs here, many of the small volunteer agencies are low tier Harris, EFWood VP/VM or EFWood NX.

There are some situations that if price is not an issue, Motorola makes sense, but really, it's just some very niche situations.

A major one is mobile repeaters. There really isn't a more seamless user experience than the Motorola/Futurecom DVRS and APX subscribers. No double vocoding, and it's transparent for portable RID/emergency and maintains end to end encryption.

Pyramid just seems bushleague when operating in a trunked P25 environment.

 

[Golay]

Take this from someone who used to buy radios. The vendors (and this goes for any vendor whether the product is pipe fittings, radios or hydraulic hose or anything else) wine and dine the buyers. If you think that's not true, ask the people making the purchasing decisions.

 

[WB5UOM]

Yes, get them drunk, get that signature at any cost

 

[KevinC]

Take this from someone who used to buy radios. The vendors (and this goes for any vendor whether the product is pipe fittings, radios or hydraulic hose or anything else) wine and dine the buyers. If you think that's not true, ask the people making the purchasing decisions.

Just ask Timmy Vasquez...

Former San Angelo Police Chief indicted - radio related

https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndtx/pr/former-san-angelo-police-chief-indicted-bribery

forums.radioreference.com

 

[mmckenna]

Take this from someone who used to buy radios. The vendors (and this goes for any vendor whether the product is pipe fittings, radios or hydraulic hose or anything else) wine and dine the buyers. If you think that's not true, ask the people making the purchasing decisions.

Yeah, it happens.

But purchasing rules at large organizations/agencies/municipalities are getting tighter than they were in the past. Especially when there are active RFP in process.

Seriously, I'm in the middle of this right now and any of the vendors or manufacturers showing up and offering me anything would have to be very carefully analyzed and approved. Accepting that would be a risk to my employment. Not saying it doesn't happen in the real world, but it's not as common some want to think. Just like "low bid" isn't the only decider. These things are complex….

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

Take this from someone who used to buy radios. The vendors (and this goes for any vendor whether the product is pipe fittings, radios or hydraulic hose or anything else) wine and dine the buyers. If you think that's not true, ask the people making the purchasing decisions.

Very true.
Proof would be in my AMEX card used to wine and dine a client at a rooftop bar/restaurant in Charlotte. I spent well over $800 in 1990's dollars. But that was small time. The big extravaganzas were the trips to Chicago, steak houses, Party vans stocked with booze, baseball games with catered meals in skybox, Chicago River tours.

Motorola actually had a old timer salesman whose sole job was wining and dining customers. He was a pretty big drinker and I can tell you I was nervous when he was at the wheel. When he passed away he was talked about as a soldier for the company.

 

[mmckenna]

Very true.
Proof would be in my AMEX card used to wine and dine a client at a rooftop bar/restaurant in Charlotte. I spent well over $800 in 1990's dollars. But that was small time. The big extravaganzas were the trips to Chicago, steak houses, Party vans stocked with booze, baseball games with catered meals in skybox, Chicago River tours.

Not Motorola, but holy **** the stories I could tell about the 90's/early 2000's and some of the meetings, trade shows, user groups, etc.

Motorola actually had a old timer salesman whose sole job was wining and dining customers. He was a pretty big drinker and I can tell you I was nervous when he was at the wheel. When he passed away he was talked about as a soldier for the company.

I remember asking someone if the marketing lady was OK and if someone should make sure she got back to her hotel room OK. Reply was "She's a professional, she's fine". Sure enough, next morning she was down in the lobby feeling much better than I was.

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

Not Motorola, but holy **** the stories I could tell about the 90's/early 2000's and some of the meetings, trade shows, user groups, etc.



I remember asking someone if the marketing lady was OK and if someone should make sure she got back to her hotel room OK. Reply was "She's a professional, she's fine". Sure enough, next morning she was down in the lobby feeling much better than I was.

A lot of professional drinkers.

I never had the constitution to keep up with the "pro's" One year about 1984, Motorola had this "Winds of Change" campaign and I was volunteered to go to Oshkosh where I was introduced to "Black Russians" and I also noted the local water had a disturbing taste of jet fuel to it. I stumbled back to my room to collapse and 20 minutes later one of the gals was knocking on my door announcing a pizza run. I did not go. Just that word pizza had me hurling. The next day in the exhibit hall was like a fog.

 

[WB5UOM]

Yep, mid to late 80's when I worked for CECO ( pretty big GE dealer) the main Salesman had more gold on him in necklaces, watches,rings , you name it than ft knox...
his motto was...."get em drunk and get that signature"

 

[12dbsinad]

I hear it time and time again, MANY users do not want a radio that doesn't know if it identifies as a smart phone or a 2 way radio. Grant money is out of control, City's and Town's bonding millions of dollars due to brand loyalty, taxpayers are just taking it on the chin as these prices have just gotten out of control and M just doesn't care as their name is worth more than the product itself.

That's fine, eventually it is going to bite them in the a**. Now, with that said, they do make very good products. But so don't many others.

 

[OnYourSix]

Is everyone here a member of MTUG? Great place to be able to vent directly to Motorola representatives. Sometimes it actually helps.

Home - Motorola Trunked Users Group

MTUG brings together Motorola Solutions and the Public Safety and Public Service agencies that use Motorola radio systems to promote the development and sustainability of products and services

mtug.clubexpress.com

 

[lenk911]

In the 1970's. I was a factory rep for a major land mobile manufacturer. I was assigned a sales territory of 1/2 of a mid western state. The feds flooded states with grant monies to update police communications nationwide. In my territory, we bid 23 counties, were low bid in 17 and never even got a phone call. Never asked to come in and present our bids--sell them why we were their best choice.

I was naïve think I was just out-sold that is until a heavily armed US Marshall darkened my office door with a subpoena. I had to appear before a Sub Committee of the US House of Representatives. Seemed the Feds noticed a nationwide trend! I called my boss and then the legal department. All of them were deadly quiet. I saw a vision of new employment in my future!

I motored over to a county seat in my territory to the formal hearing in a court room. I was shocked, the Feds had all my bids, communications and even expense account reports. Right then I was glad I never got a bid because they had the same for the winner of all 23 counties--poor soul. Ugly, the sales tactics were just as stated above. He quit or was fired right after that hearing.

Each year to get a raise, all employees of my company had to sign two certificates. One they never bribed anyone and two they never colluded with the competition. Even after the investigation, I was asked by a county commissioner for a TV set. I refused. Ended up only selling two counties but sure glad I was squeaky clean!

 

[TampaTyron]

Bribes are terrible, but it is how MOST of the world works (I have spent an unreasonable amount of time in Africa, Eastern Europe, Asia, and Middle east).

I refused to do it then. I can tell you it hurt me in relation to job performance/promotions in those parts of the world. Don't care. I may be a whore, I am not that kind of whore.

I still refuse. Sure, I can toss you some swag like branded shirts/hats/pens and occasionally dinners, but little else.

TT

 

[KevinC]

Speaking of schmoozing customers...I got chastised by my boss once for not buying lunch for the customer. I have no problem paying for the guys I'm directly working with once in a while, but in this case it was lunch time and I noticed a lot of cars pulling up to the shop. It was the whole company, many employees family members and I don't know who else. One of the guys asked where are we going, I told him I was driving through somewhere and I have no idea where everyone else is going. Word got back to my boss and he told me customer lunches were "built in" the contract. I told him good, let the PM or account manager buy them lunch. Lunches like this are never an hour lunch, between travel time to and from and ordering/eating/BS'ing it's always over 2 hours. I have work to do and over 2 hours of my day sets me back and I'm already 600 miles from home and want to be home on Friday.

 

[AM909]

Bribes are terrible,... I refused to do it then. I can tell you it hurt me in relation to job performance/promotions in those parts of the world. ...

One time (not at band camp) I thought it was going to hurt me for real. Like corporally. The "handler" later pointed out that the "armed security", with whom they were haggling over a "parking security fee" of about $5, had no ammo.

 

[noderaser]

I run a small single site trunking system, average daily users 80-100 with a total of 400ish subscriber units registered. We just replaced our old Harris core with a VIDA Excite last year, and are looking to have the RF site (currently MASTR V) replaced soon as well, waiting on funds. Most of our subscriber units are still Motorola (XTS/XTL 2500, APX 7000, 8000, SRX 2200), with some Harris (XG-100M, XL-200P) scattered in that were purchased by functional managers for our various activities.

Looking towards the future, our plan for the near term is to stick with the Motorola APX ecosystem for subscriber units because we already have a lot of the gack, and some of our sections "need" Moto for interoperability with the city/county system that won't "support" (give up control of/pay software licensing for) anything else.

My experience with Harris and their vendor (Eastern Communications) during the core replacement was not great; we will probably use them for the RF site as well just to rip the band-aid off and get it done. We tried looking at alternate vendors, but the costs ballooned. For subscriber units, I am not a fan either; when I first arrived, we had XG-75, XG-100, XL-200 portables and all three had different batteries/chargers, and 2/3 used the same antenna connector or programming cable. We've phased out everything but the XL-200, and the failure rate is much higher than the Moto counterparts so they will probably go away eventually as well. The XG-100M is also a PITA to key/program when they're buried in a vehicle console, whereas everything can be done from the control head on a Moto.

However, if the current APX series goes away in favor of the N/NEXT, then we'll be at a crossroads where we can entertain non-Moto subscribers for the users that don't require interop, if we have to buy all new stuff anyways. We don't need smart-phoney features; on our SRX 2200s, we got Model 1.5 with top display only; some of the users who had APX 7000 Model 3s didn't even know they had front displays because they never pulled them out of the holsters. Interop users would probably need at least a basic front display, for system/zone and scan functionality.

I've used iCom and Kenwood at another agency and was happy with them, and we do have one user group with EF Johnson on site using conventional frequencies. I'd like to try them on the Harris system with OTAR, but the big obstacle is getting our system key in whatever format is needed for their programming software. I tried contacting EFJ/Kenwood but they never got back to me. I would need to have samples in hand to confirm all the functions work with our system before even thinking about a purchase decision, since Harris will only offer support for Harris and Moto subscribers.

 

[AM909]

I've used iCom and Kenwood at another agency and was happy with them, and we do have one user group with EF Johnson on site using conventional frequencies. I'd like to try them on the Harris system with OTAR, but the big obstacle is getting our system key in whatever format is needed for their programming software. I tried contacting EFJ/Kenwood but they never got back to me. I would need to have samples in hand to confirm all the functions work with our system before even thinking about a purchase decision, since Harris will only offer support for Harris and Moto subscribers.

For EFJ/Kenwood, should just be a matter of ordering a system key, software, cables, and radios from them (probably via the manufacturer's rep in your area). They might comp some or all of that to get you interested. Where are you?

 

[talviar]

I've used iCom and Kenwood at another agency and was happy with them, and we do have one user group with EF Johnson on site using conventional frequencies. I'd like to try them on the Harris system with OTAR, but the big obstacle is getting our system key in whatever format is needed for their programming software. I tried contacting EFJ/Kenwood but they never got back to me. I would need to have samples in hand to confirm all the functions work with our system before even thinking about a purchase decision, since Harris will only offer support for Harris and Moto subscribers.

First question---- Are u the system owner? or work directly for the system owner as some one on the radio staff. If that is the case- locate the MR (Manufacturers rep) for Kenwood that covers your area.

That person is invaluable- Depending on size of system (ie # of actual subscriber radios) and # of radios looking to purchase or swap out (still purchase but replace vs add)- the MR should be able to get you a demo unit or 2 along with the system key to program.
If you are an end user that merely has authorization to program as programmer/user underneath the system owner, you will have to go thru them. Calling Kenwood direct unless you are already an established customer or already registered as a system owner probably won't get you far.

 

[mmckenna]

I've used iCom and Kenwood at another agency and was happy with them, and we do have one user group with EF Johnson on site using conventional frequencies. I'd like to try them on the Harris system with OTAR, but the big obstacle is getting our system key in whatever format is needed for their programming software. I tried contacting EFJ/Kenwood but they never got back to me. I would need to have samples in hand to confirm all the functions work with our system before even thinking about a purchase decision, since Harris will only offer support for Harris and Moto subscribers.

I've been a Kenwood customer for a long time, and I can echo the two posts above. For system level stuff like that, you need to talk to the manufacturers rep, not a dealer. I've found the reps to be extremely helpful.