But I understand that Canon did that for their marketing reasons.
After all they are a for-profit organization. They have just
followed a formula to maximize the profit. They didn't want to
create a product that compete against their more expensive models.
This is unavoidable when there is no real competition. I'm sure
Canon will be force to change that attitude once Nikon, Pentax and
Olympus start shipping their DSLR's in the same price range.
If I was the VP of marketing, here is what I would do.
Make the firmware open-source (except for some IP intensive
algorithms), and have enthusiast write their own firmware to
customize their machine.
That way, their camera will attract more fans because of the
potential for complete customization by an army of volunteer Net
programers -- much the same way that Palm got so popular. The
advantage of this strategy is that any shortcomings with the
firmware can be corrected by anyone who is willing to spend their
time and energy on it. This will make their product definately
better (instead of their small group of software engineers, they
can tap into potentially tens of thousands of talented
user-programmers). This will also allow them to focus on hardware
development.
Their current strategy of crippling available features to protect
existing products, IMO, is a backword and short sighted one.
My strategy will make a big hero out of Canon.
Now Canon, hire me!
I wrote the following letter to Canon and encourage everyone else
to do likewise.
This is the Letter:
I read where the Digital rebel has the ability to do FEC
correction, but the feature was not included on purpose by being
omitted in the user controls. I find that very offensive. To dumb
down a products ability is terrible. It has changed my feelings
toward Canon in general and I am considering making the move to
Nikon.
I have been a loyal Canon user for years, but I will no longer
recommend Canon to my friends. I preorderd the Digital Rebel on
Sept 7th and was a big fan participating on many forums and
encouraging people to spend the $1000 for your product. I will no
longer encourage anyone to buy this camera and look forward to the
D70 when it debutes.
Please notify me if and when you decide a firmware update will
correct this issue. I am not impressed at all with your companies
attitude to your loyal users.
Regards,
*********************
The email I used was
[email protected]
If enough people voice thier opinion, a simple firmware version can
correct the problem. I think it is work the time it takes and there
is nothing to lose.
--
Things that make you go HHHHMMmmm...
