Interesting thread... The bottom line is, as someone pointed out in an earlier post, the internet is a great way to allow the consumer to uncover these devious marketing strategies and make a conscious decision based on that knowlege. If Logitec are smart about it they will react and make sure that the EU (and everywhere else for that matter) gets the same treatment as the US market PDQ or they will be punished (i.e. lose sales and get a bad rep).
I simply don't buy the bland capitalist argument 'let the market decide' as over the years I have heard this phrase banded about (not least by a certain M Thatcher hundreds of IT years ago) and seen it proven to be no more than horse manure. As long as any company has a niche (as most companies do by definition), or in other words a monopoly in a certain market area, the 'rules' of market forces simply don't apply. The Squeezebox range is pretty unique in its capabilities, so it is effectively a monopolistic market, but it wont be long till someone thinks, "Hey, I can make a box that does all that and more, looks better for less money" and then you might see 'Market Forces' at work. And only then, if you abolish all copywrite and patent laws, which inevitably skew the market. Capitalists seem to want it all ways these days. But while all this amateur economics is quite interesting to read, none of it is relevant to the OP; the point is that us Europeans are pretty darned miffed about being treated as fools, made to wait longer than ONE country in the world without any clear reason and then expected to cover the loss they lead in that country. Why is this necessary, if all the units come from China anyway? Well, its not, its just the usual short sighted and foolish marketing strategy of a multi national corporation. (Most of the suits in corporations appear to have never heard of the internet it seems - see Music Industry). Bad PR is very costly, so moaning in a forum like this /should/ make a difference. I wouldn't be very surprised if they didn't read them, to be honest, but they absolutely should if they care about PR. For goodness sake, its FREE MARKET RESEARCH DATA!!!! This is exactly the same kind of data which they pay the likes of Facebook millions of dollars for; possibly even more concise and useful. The point is, Logitech should sit up and listen before some clever person comes along with a better product for less money and blows them out of the water, but until that guy comes along, they will screw us Europeans simply because they can. Cheers Jim (PS: Touch is still NOT available anywhere for purchase in Holland, via Logitech's own discriminatory extortion rackets or not) -- squeezyjim ------------------------------------------------------------------------ squeezyjim's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=34525 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=77371 _______________________________________________ Touch mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/touch
