Microtek M1 Scanner

[Aggie]

Hubby is a VP at IBM. If you think this chaotic happening is not normal, you are very wrong. Sales and Marketing could be interchangable. I've seen where sales will sell products as already at market, when they have only been intially talked about, not even engineered. You should see the crap behind the scenes with IBM and nissan which hubby oversees. No one wants to talk to any one else until the sh** hits the fan. Then the talk is all about who gets blamed for it not happening. IMO if someone refused to participate and talk to find out what was really going on, they should not be allowed to pass blame.

[Ken Lee]

I am very interested in the M1. I have a 2500f, and the M1 looks like a real improvement, at a far more attractive price.

Tests made with Ted Harris and Michael Mutmansky back in 2005 showed an overall resolution of 2299 ppi, with the Green channel resolving just over the stated 2500 ppi. Also impressive for a consumer flatbed, was a dMax range in the neighborhood of 2.85 to 2.95. Of course, I paid over $2K for it. Even so, they delivered what they promised, unlike other companies.

It seems that they plan to double the width of the high-res glassless portion, allowing an 8x10 scan at full resolution. That's great too.

On the other hand... I have been unable to eliminate soft lines from appearing in my scans. I have profiled the scanner, opened it up, and removed a hair - but stopped short of taking it completely apart. Although the scans are done beneath the glass, it is possible for dust to come into the unit, every time you insert a negative.

They ought to either seal things properly, or devise a way for the owner to clean the unit without toil and exasperation. If they do that, the world will beat down their door, and you can tell them I sez so. Would you buy a lens that you could NEVER dust, never mind clean ? I doubt it.

I also hope they improve the film holders. The ones for medium format require you to cut your roll film down to one image at a time. There's no way to insert anything longer than a 6x9 portion of film in the 2500. The holders for 4x5 are too small: cropping occurs, whether you like it or not.

I look forward to your review of the scanner ! If you would like to arrange for me to test one, that would be... even better !

[jetcode]

seems like a company that has developed as many product as microtek has would have project managers able to accurrately generate a gant chart.

i hope this is an indication of some new breakthrough technology or feature not yet seen on the microtek product line.

scott

Have you ever developed a product? I've been in the industry 27 years and it's a miracle any product ships on schedule. Case in point. My last contract sales was pushing for a end of year release (2006), management was behind the sales push, and I knew sales and management were living in fantasy land and sure enough the project took a year like I knew it would and sales had to wait. The good news is the product meets specification and the consumer is happy.

[jetcode]

Bruce, did you work for my company?

In my experience in IT, that's about dead on. It is of course worse in gov't contracting than in product development, because the gov't rewards companies that operate that way, and penalizes the ones that get their work done within budget and on time...

I contracted for 12 years in the Silicon Valley, it's the same dilemma for all companies.

[Rakesh Malik]

I contracted for 12 years in the Silicon Valley, it's the same dilemma for all companies.

At least when you don't work for the government, you actually have to ship SOMETHING. The government actually penalizes you on the off chance that you finish a project, especially if you get it done on time, within budget, and with few bugs

[James Bemus]

Hey Ted, any news on the M1?

[jetcode]

At least when you don't work for the government, you actually have to ship SOMETHING. The government actually penalizes you on the off chance that you finish a project, especially if you get it done on time, within budget, and with few bugs

I have some hammers for sale for a mere $12k each.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah sure, blame the engineers. In my experience as an engineer, the full story goes more like this:

1) Engineers come up with new idea for a better product.
2) Take idea to management.
3) Management says to scope it out, estimate time and materials, do a project plan, all that.
4) Project plan completed. Management says cut time in half. Keep all features. Cut budget in half. And by the way, keep up with your other projects. Engineers (who know better now than to say it can't be done) say they'll do their best, but won't commit to the new dates.
5) Engineers complete working prototype.
6) Marketing, who wouldn't participate up to this point because it wasn't their idea, now demands lots of changes. Feature creep begins in earnest.
7) Engineers push back, try to nail down features. All agree. Marketing publishes their specs anyway, and as a bonus publishes new date even tighter than the one before, that itself was unmakeable.
8) Engineers stomp into management offices as a group to complain. Management says "what can I do, it's already been published?" Now everyone pissed off.
9) Management meets with engineers one by one to tell them that they have a "bad attitude" and that they aren't "team players." Morale improves greatly of course. Passion for project fades. Resumes float. Leaders transfer to new projects if the can. Schedule slip is guaranteed.
10) When it becomes obvious even to management that the dates aren't even remotely possible, they want to cut features. Engineers explain that this is adding work to the project and is in fact pushing the date out farther. Management doesn't understand. Marketeers livid.
11) When the published date comes and goes, customers want to know what the problem is.

12) Marketing is genetically wired to deflect blame. Since it can't be their fault... BLAME THE ENGINEERS.

The best part is, the people who really get screwed are the QA people. They don't get their hands on a working production unit until well after the ship date. Every day they have the product is a delay in the ship date. Talk about pressure! And an abbreviated QA cycle = buggy product. So ultimately it's you and me who get screwed.

At this stage if I were seriously interested in the M1, I'd be looking to wait at least a year after it actually ships before buying one. I'm not big on being unpaid QA for anyone anymore.

And no, I'M NOT BITTER! I'm not. Really. And the truth is the truth, bitter or not. I'm just saying...

In my company, the marketing people take 2.5 years to decide what they want, then want the product delivered in 4 weeks, wjich is wholly unrealistsic and prevents all testing & QA. Then get get p*ssed when the product is late or has bugs.

[Ted Harris]

In this particular instance the marketing people made a very premature announcement of the product (much to their regret) so bad on them. OTOH, from all the information I have been able to gather, the engineers were not totally blameless this time around. I've worked on both sides of the fence and, while it is true that marketing always wants the product ready to go out the door instantly, it is also true that R&D frequently wants to continue to test the product for another ... month .... year ... fill in the blank before they release it for production. Trouble is that they are both right.

As for Microtek and the M1, I ahve a call into the product manager and with some luck will have an answer to post here today.

[Rakesh Malik]

I have some hammers for sale for a mere $12k each.

Fortunately, I no longer work for the government. I now work at a "small" bookstore.