For you an I, a hundred grand of reinvestment in the product and business makes perfect sense. Make a good product, you will sell more of it, the customers win, the business wins, the shareholders win. For those who ascribe a different line of thinking, a few hundred grand of reinvestment in the product means THEY DIDN'T MAXIMIZE SHAREHOLDER VALUE FOR MY 0.02% OWNERSHIP , TIME TO FILE SUIT! On Tue, May 26, 2020 at 10:22 AM Mike Hammett <nanog@ics-il.net> wrote:
Kind of OT for NANOG, but stock value is a terribly inaccurate way to measure if a company is "excelling." Wall Street knows nothing of how to run a company, prioritizing quarterly profit over long-term success. Not hiring additional staff makes your quarterly numbers look good, but it isn't good for the long-term attractiveness of your product. A good business doesn't just target new suckers, they also keep existing customers happy. Eventually you run out of suckers and all you have is a bunch of burned bridges in your wake.
I subscribe to several feature requests in their community that are YEARS old with little to no response from Ubiquiti. Some of them can't be hard for Ubiquiti to implement because they're running on the exact same hardware and underlying OS and some of them you can configure in JSON files, but they just aren't available in the GUI. They just don't care. They'd rather push out Flavor Flav cameras or lighting.
They came out with a new product in a particular family and opened a new feature request section for it. I commented something similar to, "Start with feature parity with the existing product, then start working through the years of feature requests there. Come back when you're done."
This doesn't just afflict equipment manufacturers. Network operators are in the same boat. Both groups have companies profiting hundreds of millions or billions of dollars every quarter, can't spare a few hundred grand a year for a couple dev-ops guys to just bang out automation or features. Yes, I understand you rarely get twice the work from twice the people, but there are opportunities to make this better.
----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions <http://www.ics-il.com/> <https://www.facebook.com/ICSIL> <https://plus.google.com/+IntelligentComputingSolutionsDeKalb> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/intelligent-computing-solutions> <https://twitter.com/ICSIL> Midwest Internet Exchange <http://www.midwest-ix.com/> <https://www.facebook.com/mdwestix> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/midwest-internet-exchange> <https://twitter.com/mdwestix> The Brothers WISP <http://www.thebrotherswisp.com/> <https://www.facebook.com/thebrotherswisp> <https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXSdfxQv7SpoRQYNyLwntZg> ------------------------------ *From: *"Matt Hoppes" <mattlists@rivervalleyinternet.net> *To: *"Mike Hammett" <nanog@ics-il.net> *Cc: *"NANOG list" <nanog@nanog.org> *Sent: *Tuesday, May 26, 2020 8:28:52 AM *Subject: *Re: Contact at Ubiquiti Networks?
Except, you could argue they are exceling. Stocks are going up up up, and folks buy the product.
I really wish stock holders would ask the proper questions in the quarterly calls.
On 5/26/20 8:53 AM, Mike Hammett wrote:
That is a big problem. In terms of their UniFi product line, there are no reasonable alternatives.
Upper management is the biggest problem. They have severe ADD.
A ton of companies have these kinds of issues. They just plain don't hire enough people in the right areas to really excel.
----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions <http://www.ics-il.com/> <https://www.facebook.com/ICSIL><; https://plus.google.com/+IntelligentComputingSolutionsDeKalb><; https://www.linkedin.com/company/intelligent-computing-solutions><; https://twitter.com/ICSIL> Midwest Internet Exchange <http://www.midwest-ix.com/> <https://www.facebook.com/mdwestix><; https://www.linkedin.com/company/midwest-internet-exchange><; https://twitter.com/mdwestix> The Brothers WISP <http://www.thebrotherswisp.com/> <https://www.facebook.com/thebrotherswisp><; https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXSdfxQv7SpoRQYNyLwntZg> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *From: *"Ben P" <bp@list-subs.com> *To: *"Mike Hammett" <nanog@ics-il.net> *Cc: *"j k" <jsklein@gmail.com>, "NANOG list" <nanog@nanog.org> *Sent: *Tuesday, May 26, 2020 5:01:36 AM *Subject: *Re: Contact at Ubiquiti Networks?
Agree 1000% with the sentiments expressed by Mike.
Unfortunately despite much research I’ve been unable to find a suitable replacement vendor. All the other vendors seem to want to ram cloud-management down your throat which I absolutely do not want. My network, my control, not under the auspices of someone else’s magic cloud.
On 25 May 2020, at 21:21, Mike Hammett <nanog@ics-il.net <mailto:nanog@ics-il.net>> wrote:
The company has mostly fallen apart. Their sales are going up, but their responsiveness and customer support have been declining over the last five years.
----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions <http://www.ics-il.com/> <https://www.facebook.com/ICSIL><; https://plus.google.com/+IntelligentComputingSolutionsDeKalb><; https://www.linkedin.com/company/intelligent-computing-solutions><; https://twitter.com/ICSIL> Midwest Internet Exchange <http://www.midwest-ix.com/> <https://www.facebook.com/mdwestix><; https://www.linkedin.com/company/midwest-internet-exchange><; https://twitter.com/mdwestix> The Brothers WISP <http://www.thebrotherswisp.com/> <https://www.facebook.com/thebrotherswisp><; https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXSdfxQv7SpoRQYNyLwntZg>
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*From:*"j k" <jsklein@gmail.com <mailto:jsklein@gmail.com>> *To:*"NANOG list" <nanog@nanog.org <mailto:nanog@nanog.org>> *Sent:*Monday, May 25, 2020 3:16:36 PM *Subject:*Contact at Ubiquiti Networks?
Does anyone have a good contact at Ubiquity Networks? Finding a pattern I don't like.
Joe Klein "inveniet viam, aut faciet"^ --- Seneca's Hercules Furens (Act II, Scene 1) "I never lose. I either win or learn" - Nelson Mandela