Fri Dec 07, 2012 11:08 pm
The firmware team are working separately to the manufacturing side.
Surely it's a positive thing that they are continuing to update and improve the camera dispite the hiccup to manufacturing.
BMD haven't said a single thing about the new firmware. It was me. I simply said there was some cool stuff coming on twitter. It wasnt an official announcement, and I'm not a BMD spokesman and am generally very restricted in what I can say. This however is not them running a PR campaign. It was me, being excited about where things are going with the privileged insight that I have working within the bounds of what I'm allowed to talk about.
If I'd said nothing, then BMD would simply release the new firmware and everyone would know about it when that happens.
BMD run a very closed and tight shop. In the way that Apple manage to keep most things secret, it is the way BMD "choose" to operate. You might hate it and disagree with it. But it's their company. And they aren't like other companies. They very much do things their way and that is their right to do so. If you don't like it then don't support them by buying their product. If they promise something that they don't deliver to you then cancel your order.
Yelling and screaming about what is "right" isn't going to change their mindset. I'm sharing this because I know these guys. The fact that they don't "talk" leads to suspicion about what's going on. I think they're ok with that given that this forum is one of the most hostile I've ever participated in. They let it all stand, for everyone to read. Right now, I can barely bring myself to even bother to respond here to those that have genuine questions about the camera because every response is turned into a discussion about shipping. Yeah it's frustrating. We all know and share that.
The fact is, they are working on stuff. Wheels are tuning. A new version of firmware shows this is the case.
BMD don't talk about manufacturing. You will never see a photo of the assembly line. No one even knows where the cameras are made. They will never ever say how many cameras they can make a week. You will never get this kind of information about this camera.
I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with this but explaining because BMD don't explain why they aren't communicating.
I'm just stating an undocumented BMD policy. I'm trying to explain that this is at the core of how BMD are. Whatever your expectations are of a customer relationship is, they have their way of doing it and this is how they do it. To jump up and down and demand answers won't change their way.
Quite frankly, I was amazed that Grant himself started posting. And when he does post, he goes into a lot of detail that I wouldn't expect from any regular "big" company. And he doens't even choose to respond when told he should resign from the company he built from the ground up.
They have been around for a long time. Clearly they have done well enough using this approach to become as large as they are today. These guys are different. They haven't gone to PR school or management school to learn how to do this. For better or worse.
What they are very good at is listening and innovating. They just don't look like they're listening. They just dont talk about it. They let the gear do the talking. So the fact they can't even do that right now means theres an apparent silence.
Look at the new firmware release and even the one that is to come. It shows that they are listening and that they can react very quickly, especially when all the processes are under thier control ( like software dev).
JB.
Last edited by
John Brawley on Fri Dec 07, 2012 11:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
John Brawley ACS
Cinematographer
Currently - Los Angeles