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The Other World – Episode 37

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The OWC Newsfeed provides the latest OWC, MacSales.com, Rocket Yard, and industry news, information, and announcements for your reading pleasure and shareability!
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10 Comments

  • Ouch Fandongo!

    That’s a really, really long month! I back up my entire music collection about once a year via dvd, just in case.
    I intentionally don’t count, somehow it doesn’t feel nearly as scarring if you don’t know the grand total.

    And thank you Grant for fielding Whoda’s concerns on behalf of all of us.
    I’d like to add if I may that the awareness that this is truly a tragedy, and not just a drive shortage is felt throughout the office. It’s safe to say that our hearts and thoughts and prayers go out to all of those who are truly affected by the situation at hand.

    Transparency is a difficult thing to achieve and a focus we do not want to lose with our customers. The only thing we can do in a constantly changing situation like this is to continue to update our customers to the best of our ability. We are terribly sorry if it came across even for a moment that we have lost sight of the human tragedy here or that we’re using it intentionally to drive sales. We are just trying to offer what ever we can to help get people through this.

    I can assure you that your feedback was not lost on us and thank you, as always, for sharing your honest opinion.

    • Ah right you are Laura…lost sight of the human side for a moment as I was too focused on the drive aspect!

  • Sorry but you guys have to quit using a tragedy like the floods in Thailand to sell your hard drives. One informative article as your business could be impacted is enough. Using globeman to remind us there might be a shortage for the 12th time… too much.

    By the way, there are still plenty of hard drives at almost every Best Buy you go to.

    Some how, if we all band together, I think we will make it… too many folks in Thailand can’t say that.

    • Hey Whoda:

      While it may appear we’re rehashing the same info..you’d have to be in our shoes. We continually get inquires everyday on this matter from customers unaware of the matter. And upset about the sudden price increases.

      And not sure where your Best Buys are at…but many are out of stock or severely restricting quantities of these products.

      The situation is so bad we’ve got brokers calling us offering prices for our prices far above what we’re selling for…and man, we could make a killing here. But we’ve never been about the short term.

      So…we are going to continue to update folks on this situation. And believe me, we aren’t using this to sell our drives…heck…we’re concerned about maintaining inventory until this issue is resolved!

      • Sorry Grant, been off line for a while. I get what your saying but I had to stop in and poke at your response a little….

        “We continually get inquires everyday on this matter from customers unaware of the matter.”

        Um, how do they know to inquire about a matter that they are unaware of?

        This drive shortage didn’t seem to stop the Black Friday sales on HDDs, why heavily discount something your afraid your going to run out of? I also see Seagate has introduced a new 4TB platter drive. You guys are by far, in a better place to see the big picture of this industry than arm chair quarterbacks like myself, BUT there definitely seems to be some mixed messages.

        And not that I expect a response from such an old post, but Fandongo…. please stop writing. Not just on this blog, but in general… just completely stop. And as I tell everyone that tries to perpetuate the lie that we are living in a free market, try looking up regulations and deregulations of industries in this country. Tens of thousands of pages, all screaming we are anything but a free market. The only way we could be less of a free market is if Vladamir Lenin returns from the grave and redistributes all of our wealth.

        (Just for fun, I am pro regulation by the way)

        • Hey Whoda….glad to have you back. Thought you might have gone on a honeymoon or something ;-)

          What I meant was people are/were asking why the prices have gone up. They didn’t know about the Thailand situation so they just thought we were priced unjustifiably high.

          Just talked to an IT guy today that had no idea of the situation and then got back to me after checking some volume suppliers and said, “wow…you were right…price for a 1TB drive nearly doubled!”

          In terms of discounting for Black Friday, we did start talking steps to secure as many drives as we could the moment we learned the flooding could impact supplies. So, we were able to pass on some savings during those key shopping days. I should point out that OWC Larry, our founder and CEO, was very instrumental in reacting to the flooding and making sure we had sufficient inventory to supply our customers for the short term.

          Bottom line is that from all levels here, we take your needs very seriously.

          • I love it, where else would I get a response on a post this old!

            It should be very clear to anyone that reads this blog, that you guys take customer service seriously.

            Unfortunately, I had to tell the wife no honeymoon, as I’m too busy saving up for OWC SSDs!

    • Wow! (so small) i wish i had that.
      My MBP was failing to burn dvds…
      i had to use an 8gb sd card over and over and over, to a working old pc dvd burner.

      It’s easy, as an American, to miss the idea of competitive advantage.
      The free market works, doesn’t matter where it comes from, it’s just the best for the consumer.
      try to make your own $3 car charger.

      Tron was relatively cheesy and all, but during the final shots – where the iso chick gets to see the sunset over the city.
      All i could see as the perfect final line would be “yeah, all this from stick and rocks”

      Whoda represents our greed, and our ability to say (editor revised comment) the heck with you.
      I get it, i’m pissed off in many things technology.
      frustrated with limited blu-ray.
      limited data plans.
      limited (0) thunderbolt accessories after 9 months.
      the separation of icloud vs UV digital copy.

      it seems profits are more important than people.
      and products.
      and those products that people need to use for their products.
      ie: 15″ MBP quad cores have one FW 800 port.
      audio devices still utilize 400 ports, which, in a daisy chain with raid HDDs, limit the whole damn thing.
      They swapped the express port for an sd input?

      And don’t get me started on the sata III port(s) :)
      I was honestly holding my breath.

      My friend and I got in massive arguments about perfection.
      of course, perfection in the personal computing world, is light speed.
      But as far as laptop computers go, 1gb/s in a portable workstation is (for all intents and purposes), perfected, at least for now. Not having that option for future upgrades is a major turnoff. Apple should heed that warning.
      Too many of us just end up waiting for the next thing.
      and waiting.

      This site has turned me on to big macs (no pun…) due to the turnkey programs.
      But thunderbolt is still a serious concern – since i know current, and especially future laptops will be phenomenal at managing first cuts.

      uhh anyway, my point – most consumers born before the 90s understand the concept of exponential growth.
      i hope the raising HDD cost and continued lowering price of SSDs helps imbue the transition.
      Sometimes it takes a tragedy (or recession) to realize our full potential.
      My hope isn’t just for Thailand, it’s for the world.

      We’re living in the past.
      until now.
      and now.
      and now.