XavierItzmann wrote:

The weird news:

«we hope you can appreciate that this was a human error at our production lines in Denmark and is not a reflection of the quality of the product you have in front of you»

Look, I couldn't care less that my phone's boxes state "Country of origin: Czech", a wonderful Republic of which I was 20 kms away just a couple of days ago.  It would be interesting, nonetheless, to visit the BeoCom 5 production lines in Denmark, don't you think?

When can we expect the beocom 5???

And they key here is that the factory in the Czech Republic was built and is being run by B&O directly.  It's on the European continent, which has more of a history in manufacturing, and electronic manufacturing, along with being in that part of Europe which has a history of people known for innovation, especially in electronics.  Think Tesla. 

This is unlike other products from other manufacturers that are outsourced to China, where factories are under contract to churn out goods, and are often not directly owned, or controlled by the main parent company.  And then when they are owned and somewhat controlled by a Western or European company, the plant is located thousands of miles away, so quality control suffers. 

I am a big believer in the proximity of a manufacturing plant being close to where the products are developed, considered for marketing, and most importantly available for good oversight of the quality control.  Many factories in Asia churn out products in which they have no real vested interest as to their quality or failure rate, since it's not often their brand name on the product.  They are often more interested in only getting the product on the boat, so they can get their letter of credit paid by a Western or European bank of the manufacturer. 

I just hope that B&O does not move in the direction of Asian outsourcing, other than maybe some products from Japan, possibly.  No disrespect intended for Asia.

Sorry to be so long winded about this, but many people often have little idea what's involved in manfacuturing.  The bottom line is that you pay for what you get.

>>It would be interesting, nonetheless, to visit the BeoCom 5 production lines in Denmark, don't you think?<<

They still do have some operations in Denmark that are used for testing and product development. 

That said, I know some do not favor the move east however as times and market environment changes they need to make many uncomfortable moves to survive and this one most customer will not worry about.

When you poke around here, I do see mostly software or electronic component related issues - I rarely recall an assembly related issue.

My wife is somewhat mortified because on the one day a week when she works from home she is unable to conduct conference calls with the wireless BeoCom 5 speakerphone, and must instead rely on the wired BeoCom 3 speakerphone —and the wired phone is not in one of her preferred locations.

I called the dealer today to see if by any chance they had already received the updated software —hey, I know the letter said "after January 25th," Monday, but I figured they may have received their upgrade box already today; maybe we could schedule an appointment for this weekend?

waltoninn wrote:

I just hope that B&O does not move in the direction of Asian outsourcing, other than maybe some products from Japan, possibly.  No disrespect intended for Asia.

Well - The BeoVision 8's are all produced in Taiwan and the Earset 1 Home is to my knowledge partly or fully produced in China...
Having said this, the products still go through a strict quality control in Denmark.

I believe the labels on at least the BV8's are stating "Made by Denmark" instead of "Made in Denmark".

Update today: my dealer tells me the software the dealer received for test purposes... did not really work.  So they are waiting for Struer to send a further revision.

Funny comment from the gal with whom I spoke: "you know, these Europeans don't know anything about how our phones work.  They know about sound, but not about our phone system".  

🙂

XavierItzmann wrote:

Update today: my dealer tells me the software the dealer received for test purposes... did not really work.  So they are waiting for Struer to send a further revision.

Funny comment from the gal with whom I spoke: "you know, these Europeans don't know anything about how our phones work.  They know about sound, but not about our phone system".  

🙂

I hope that B&O soon fixes the problem and we can buy the phone here in Europe; if it works on those crappy american networks without problems, it should work everywhere! :-)

Update today... dealer called and advised:

1.  SW Version 1.7 is being tried by dealers but has not been approved for U.S. customers.  The software addresses most concerns, but two problems remain:

1.a Voice cuts in an out randomly.  Turning phone on or off provides relief for a while.

1.b BC3 sometimes cuts off calls for no apparent reason or restarts itself.

2.  B&O is feverishly working on an update

3.  Once the final update is ready, which is expected during March, I will receive a call and someone will come to my home to update my telephone.

4.  The (smart) chap took advantage of his conversation to try and sell me a BV-10 which will be available in the U.S. from July onwards.  I'll go visit his store once he puts it up on a wall.

Update today... Since the dealer never called back and it's been over five weeks since they last called me, I went ahead and called them.

1.  The dealer received a sw update version, they had expected this version would work, alas!, it failed to address a couple of concerns the dealer had.

2.  "B&O is making it «interesting»"

3.  Dealer expects resolution in a couple of weeks, but dealer also says this «may be optimistic."

I am left with several thoughts:

(a) The behavior I have seen from B&O regarding this debacle is eerily similar to that of technology firms at their last gasps.  Promises made, promises broken, deadlines missed, little progress towards resolution.

(b) It is quite possible B&O understands very little about modern software development.  Modern, successful companies today ship sw and update it based on customer performance on an as early-as-possible basis, learning more on each cycle from the wide customer base and their thousands of unique scenarios and circumstances.  B&O's failure to provide even interim, intermediate steps and improvements is baffling or archaic, or both.  One is tempted to predict the final version will be quite imperfect due to lack of a broad base of users.

(c) It's been over 160 days since my purchase.  I like to think as myself as unusually patient.  One wonders about the damage being visited to the brand.  Is it possible the management thinks that because this is a soon-to-be-dead telephone division this does not impact consumer's perception of the core audio/video reputation of the company?