If it hasn't been clear in my previous pokes at your profession (as well as acknowledging that I'm barking at the moon), it's all meant in a good spirit, ala sibling rivalry, if you will. I'm well aware of the fact that the payroll account gets filled by the S&M guys. Wait, that didn't come out right..
I didn't take anything as rude. In different parts of the business where people are pushing and pulling, there's always some level of tension. That can be healthy, but of course not always.
As for the Stage, and I say this with much love for the Kemper guys, it's an excellent example of the downside of get-there-itis ("we're going to ship on the xyz date come hell or high water!"). It creates problems that just didn't have to happen.
It's worth noting that the Stage was never previously announced. If anything could have waited, it was the Stage. Obviously internally they have their own reasons for its release, but I don't understand the logic with all the software and hardware problems that keep creeping up. It's the one thing people did not have expectations for.
lso, since this is the editor thread, I think that everyone who's questioned a Stage without an editor has an excellent point.
100%. For a floor model, that's an absolute must.
An alternative approach would be to have a) waited until the Stage was fully baked and the manufacturing process was sufficiently vetted and tested, and b) there was a stable, release version of the editor to go with it. Once both of those boxes were checked, the release of the Stage would have been a much bigger bang.
I agree. All the problems really killed the hype in short order. There were a lot of forgiving loyal Kemper users on this forum that were patient with the problems, but I've seen other places where people aren't nearly so understanding. You do expect a new product to work out of the box.
But let's not forget that when the Kemper was released back in 2012, it had both been delayed before launch, and after its launch came with a number of promises because it was missing several key features, like Performance mode. I believe that even took some time to be available. In a way, people in Kemperland are more used to pre-mature releases than consumers of its competitors.