Peter, update please sir!

The "model" that a certain computer / consumer electronics maker has of being highly secretive and then having a "Major Annoucement" followed by lines around its stores and hundreds of thousands units sold in a single day must surely be a fantasy for most folks that run other consumer electronics firms...

The unfortunate side effect of any announcement that comes before products have passed successfully through a beta test and into "full production" is that many buyers become disillusioned. There is a drift toward alternative products and more than a little "sour grapes" when the desired product finally does ship.

It does not take a super skilled MBA Marketing Genius to understand that once a firm adopts a model of "open communication" they need to to continue to provide feedback that will keep shoppers excited and "on the bus" instead of jumping ship to competing products.

Of course there are very real challenges for any audio company working to meet the demanding specs of current HDCP / HDMI handshake protocols and the risk that one runs in talking openly of those challenges is that not only might potential buyers be worried as to the number / size of the hurdles that come up but competitors and industry licensing programs might use such disclosures in an anti-competitive manner.

I fully understand why "the big guys" have in house lawyers to vet all such communication and I hope that even Outlaws can figure out a way to soon send up some "white smoke" about when the big container ship might reasonably be expected in port...

I agree and to carry this a little further, it has a lot to do with what you are selling.

That "model" that you mentioned is selling a product that covers almost every age group because they are selling phones, computers, iPads/Tablets and all these products are exciting and must have's to a lot of people especially the young folks. Receivers, prep/pros are not that exciting to most people and certainly are not must have's. I would imagine that the majority of people walking down the street would not know what you are talking about.

That brings us to the "open" or "secretive" strategy. I think that Outlaw has been open about the 978 and to be fair it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to keep repeating "we're working on it". I'm sure that they are having issues with the software as well as compatibility. That stuff is going to take some time. Which leads me to believe that when the 978 is set to go, they will make an announcement and possible start preorders at least a couple of months in advance or maybe longer. Too keep silent until the warehouse here in the good ole U.S.A. is stocked doesn't seem wise to me because every month your losing sales with people giving up and purchasing someone else's product. I would tell the last remaining loyal followers that it's on the way...soon.

I agree, keep your potential buyers and past "loyal" buyers informed. When there is silence people tend to give up and look elsewhere to make their purchase. I for one would like to support a made in the usa product, but I really don't want to wait till...who knows when till it comes out. They need to bring it to market before it becomes obsolete and outdated.

Do you think the 978 will be made in the U.S.?

^^^

No, of course not.



As much as some of us would like to see that.


And I shall repeat: I personally don't think you can over-communicate with your (potential) customers, but that doesn't seem to be the tact that Outlaw is taking for the 978 unfortunately.

One would think that if there was anything positive to report after the field trip to China a MONTH ago, we'd have heard about it by now.

My bad, maybe that was wishful thinking that they would be building it here in the USA. It is almost impossible to find anything made here anymore.

The rather negative presumptiveness "that no news == bad news" is not really based on any reality.

The various hats that the Outlaw staff have to wear could be reason enough to cause some delays in communication -- there have been hints that some units have been in a limited beta, and the "kinks" that had to be worked out overseas might have involved a wider range issues beyond technical gotchas. Everything from shipper reliability to vendor extoration negotiations can impact the ability to have sufficient product en route to let followers know the timeline...


I want the bugs worked out, and I want to know what is a realistic shipping date, but I don't need to hear that there was an outbreak of dysentary or whatever that idled product for weeks.

For the record, so far all the news on the 997/998/978 hasnt been what I would call good news.