Apologies for resurrecting th etopic once more, after such a dormant period but, having come across this thread by accident I felt compelled to read it through and found the comments extremely enlightening.
As an ex-Viglen employee of approximately 8 years from 2000 to 2008, and, as a senior member of staff, covering the geographgical areas concerned, am very familiar with the experiences described.
I am not a disgruntled employee (I have really enjoyed my time at the Company), and I am not here to defend Viglen but I hope you might like to hear it from the persepctive of the Supplier.
First of all, I am not denying any of the expereinces described previously, if you say they happened, then I am not presuming you are wrong.
I would like to say however that, just as in your own working environments, you could pick out individuals who are excellent at what they do, and you would support them when asked to do so. Viglen is no different, it is a Company full of people who do their utmost to ensure the customer is happy, and would like nothing better than to hear how happy their customers are with the products and the services supplied but, just as in all commerical environments, they can only work within the boundaries that they are permitted.
I find that (and this is purely a personal opinion) that many people who operate within the Education system do not give fair consideration to the commercial aspect of their demands on suppliers. In my experience and, not unnexpectedly so, schools demand the best, for the least cost.
When bidding to win tenders etc, the biggest factor that determines winning or losing, is the price. If the price is too high, the supplier fails and, ultimately, goes out of business.
I suppose, what I am trying to say is that you, as the customer, are victims of your own policy's. If the only way to win is to reduce the price, this can only be acheived by reducing the cost which, in turn, results in the supplier seeking lower priced products, and reducing resource (support personnel??) whilst attempting to maintain as high a standard as possible.
I can assure you that no-one within the Company is deliberately going out of their way to source inferior products, it is an ever changing world and, from time to time, mistakes can occur, despite all efforts to test the products beforehand.
If I may refer to one specific subject mentioned earlier i.e. DLink wireless:
At the time these products were provided, it was at a very ealry stage in wireless technology. The first products provided by Viglen were Cisco and Intel but as everyone knows, Cisco are expensive, and Intel withdrew from the wireless market. In order to try and provide a more cost-effective solution (in response to customer demands to reduce costs) Viglen moved to DLink but, as your experiences have shown, this was found to be an 'inferior' product, and it was not long before they moved to 3Com.
You may argue that Viglen should have done more but, if I recall, considerble effort was spent investigating the problem and, by the time the diagnosis was complete, the 'damage' was done.
I guess I should stop now, didn't mean to go on so much, I guess that what I ma saying is 'Yes' Viglen have made mistakes, but that is by no means peculiar to the individual Company, it happens to everyone.
It always seems easier to criticise than to praise but, in my experience, the good that is done does, on balance, actually far outweigh the bad.
Thanks for listening.........
