I think you hit the nail on the head. Everything we've seen about cambium says that they're purely driven by a spreadsheet.

Just think how many more 450 SM's they could sell if the AP price were $500 instead of $2000. Even if the SM price went up slightly (Hey Cambium, I said SLIGHTLY!) In reality, why isn't it buy 25 SM's get a free AP? Oh yea, the spreadsheet has a column for that $2000/ap and it would disappear if that happened, nevermind that another column would significantly go up.




On 12/5/2014 8:08 AM, Mark Radabaugh via Af wrote:
I forgot to include the connectorized SM options - we carry those around as well.

Cambium decided about 8 months ago to get rid of the distributor/VAR model and make all the VAR’s distributors. I suspect the idea was that Cambium would keep the profit margin they pulled from the distributors, and to force the VAR’s to carry a lot of inventory to temporarily push up sales numbers.

Combine the 3 familles (FSK, 430, 450) x the 7 potential frequency bands (900, 2.4, 3.5, 3.65, 5.2, 5.4, 5.7) x integrated/connectorized x 4 speed tiers = 168 items to stock (and I didn’t take into account DES/AES in the earlier product lines). Get rid of speed keys and that number is 42.

Cambium wonders why there are product shortages and difficulties with distribution.

The next brilliant idea was to make it much easier to purchase/manage speed keys. This is going to be really interesting since Cambium’s reason for keeping the (useless) 4Mb SM is that they sell a lot of <$200 4Mb 450 product overseas, and they don’t want to give up the profit margin. There are a couple of things wrong with this:

    Cambium can obviously make money on a 450 CPE at less then $200.
     You wouldn’t justify keeping a money losing product.
    North America is subsidizing the bottom line - nobody in the US is
    buying 4Mb CPE in any quantity.

As Ken pointed out a while ago - if Cambium is smart they are not going to make the key process less painful. If I can stock only one part number (4Mb, <$200CPE), and easily move/buy keys I’m going to quit buying 20Mb CPE and purchase keys only when I need them. That will save me a lot of money.

Make a $200 CPE without speed keys and the money you save on managing 42 part numbers versus 168 and the much greater market share for 450 will more than make up for any loss of margin. Unfortunately Cambium can’t figure that out.

Every now and then I get a wild hare up my ass and think going back to school for a MBA would be a good idea, and then I look at shit like this.

Mark


On Dec 5, 2014, at 8:18 AM, Josh Luthman via Af <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:

Cambium wants to make it more difficult than Motorola when it comes to part numbers, too. I'm told the new ptp850 had 700 part numbers to inventory. That's just flat out stupid. EPMP has some insanely stupid part number problems as well. Oh well.

Josh Luthman
Office: 937-552-2340
Direct: 937-552-2343
1100 Wayne St
Suite 1337
Troy, OH 45373

On Dec 5, 2014 8:14 AM, "Gino Villarini via Af" <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:

    +1000



    Gino A. Villarini
    President
    Aeronet Wireless Broadband Corp.
    www.aeronetpr.com <http://www.aeronetpr.com/>
    @aeronetpr






    On 12/5/14, 8:39 AM, "Tushar Patel via Af" <[email protected]
    <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:

    >It is getting difficult to carry lot of radios on each truck.
    >
    >Regarding keys, I agree with you 100%. But cambium is not listing.
    >
    >May be we should invite one of the person who came up with idea
    to spend
    >1 month and let them see how cumbersome it gets managing this
    stupid keys.
    >
    >Tushar
    >
    >
    >> On Dec 4, 2014, at 11:26 AM, Mark Radabaugh via Af
    <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
    >>
    >>
    >> That¹s one of the reasons we settled on 450.
    >>
    >> Having to carry 900FSK, 2.4FSK, 5.7FSK, 5.2FSK, 5.4FSK, 5.7
    430, 2.4
    >>450, 3.65 450, 5.7 450, 2.4 ePMP, 5.7ePMP, 3.65 Wimax, NanoBridges,
    >>NanaStations, Rockets, UbiquWhatevers was getting really truly
    ugly.
    >>
    >> And then Cambium wants us to keep track of speed keys on radios.
    >>That¹s still completely dumb, but they are stuck on it.
    >>
    >> Mark
    >>
    >>> On Dec 4, 2014, at 12:10 PM, Nate Burke via Af <[email protected]
    <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
    >>>
    >>> I got spoiled.  When Cambium introduced the multiple color code
    >>>support in the SM's, I no longer had to send my installer out
    with 3
    >>>different radios for the different towers he might need to
    connect to.
    >>>It was so nice to program a radio and know that it was going
    to the
    >>>customer.  (because inevitably, the extra radios ended up
    staying in
    >>>his truck, until he would come and dump a pile of radios back
    in the
    >>>office).  Now I'm back to sending out 3 radios again, He might
    need to
    >>>connect to the tower that only had FSK, Only EPMP, or Only 450.
    >>>
    >>> If only there was a single SM that could connect to any of
    the AP's.
    >>>Ah well, I can dream.
    >>



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