My point with the cameras was not that they are not complex, but that the
hardware, firmware, and software are all made by the same company.  The
number of variables they need to control for are significantly smaller.  And
I may be way offbase, but it was not my understanding that camera companies
give periodic software/firmware updates to their existing camera owners that
significantly extend the functionality and useful lives of their cameras.

Even with routers, I don't think it's a fair comparison.  Yes, they have the
networking issues to deal with, and as far as I can tell they don't have a
spotless track record there.  Many friends of mine have had various router
problems, from spontaneous reboots/crashes to problems where a router from
company X would not work well with a NIC from company Y.  If you go read
router customer reviews on Amazon or newegg you'll see these sort of issues
for most routers.  This alone should make it unsurprising that the
Squeezeboxes have occasional network problems.  If anything I'm surprised
there aren't more of them.

The second thing that makes the router comparison bad (in my opinion) is
that they don't have a software component running on the user's OS.  The
fact that Slim Devices develops a software product that works on Windows
(various versions), Mac (various levels), Linux (various distros and
levels), and others (I've heard BeOS, Solaris, etc) is quite different.  Add
to that the variety of underlying hardware, and the fact that each user
configures it differently, and again, I am surprised at how well this all
works.

And finally, routers do not typically support and encourage third party
plugins, whereas these are a significant part of the Slim Devices product.

I don't think there are many (if any) consumer products out there that are
plug and play and which support the variety of hardware, software, and
networking combinations that Slim Devices does.

On Tue, May 6, 2008 at 12:19 PM, Howard Passman <
[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Mitch may be surprised to see what the new DSLR's can do and how
> compicated they've become.  It may not be a completely fair comparision
> so lets throw routers in there in place of Digital SLR's.  All the same
> issues Mitch mentioned yet, thankfully, a bit more nailed down than the
> DUET.  I have a fair amount of experience with CISCO routers so I don't
> feel this is a argument on the other side of this.  BTW, I'm not saying
> I'm good at CISCO IOS, just saying I have some first had experience in
> using it.
>
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