Birger Mount

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What I (and I think other people) are upset about is not that Birger is taking more time to perfect the product, it's that they continually put out hard release dates that they then renege on. It doesn't matter if a company is small or big, or how great their products are, EVERY company needs to be responsible and honest in living up to what they say publicly. If you're not sure you can release in February, don't say you will. If you're going to NAB and there's a chance you may tweak things afterward based on feedback, don't write on your homepage you're releasing in volume in May. If all you know for certain is it will ship sometime in summer 2011, say that.

It's great that the film community is loose and friendly, but should we excuse a company for being irresponsible or dishonest in their marketing statements? Eric/Birger, I say plainly that I'm looking forward to your product very much, but stop committing to release dates you fail to make! I'd much rather you give a looser date than a wrong one.
 
TwinCitiesShooter said:
What I (and I think other people) are upset about is not that Birger is taking more time to perfect the product, it's that they continually put out hard release dates that they then renege on. It doesn't matter if a company is small or big, or how great their products are, EVERY company needs to be responsible and honest in living up to what they say publicly. If you're not sure you can release in February, don't say you will. If you're going to NAB and there's a chance you may tweak things afterward based on feedback, don't write on your homepage you're releasing in volume in May. If all you know for certain is it will ship sometime in summer 2011, say that.

It's great that the film community is loose and friendly, but should we excuse a company for being irresponsible or dishonest in their marketing statements? Eric/Birger, I say plainly that I'm looking forward to your product very much, but stop committing to release dates you fail to make! I'd much rather you give a looser date than a wrong one.
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Dishonesty and not updating their website are two HUGELY different things. Birger has always been very bad at updating their website, and honestly, I cannot even say anything since mine hasn't been updated in a LONG time! :) That said, who's to say that these dates they've given aren't as accurate as they could be at the time they were making them. Do you honestly think it does Birger any good to miss them and think they don't know that? Things come up, they are a small company. But making accusations about them and their practices and their motivations is worse than them missing dates. Slips happen, welcome to engineering. Out of the hundreds of products I have worked on, maybe 1% hit the target dates. At least Birger is here being honest and up front with their decisions, plans, and future. That's a lot more than I can say for other companies.
 
snp said:
Yes. If you can't do that then buy a Kipon and quit whining.
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SNP, that's lame, especially coming from a senior (in more ways than one) member. Seriously, I read the post and expected that to be from a twelve-year-old. I made an argument, if you have one too, make it; if you just want to snipe, don't.

Rick, I hear your argument (and appreciate you making it respectfully). Sure, slips happen and unforeseen problems pop up, that's a given. But that's also the point of keeping release dates loose. I've bought a lot of new equipment over the years, and I've seen a lot of companies give vague release dates (e.g. "summer"), and that's fine. As a consumer, I'm telling Birger that I'd much prefer that than repeated changes. I absolutely do feel it's irresponsible to continually give dates you can't meet. Once - OK, it happens. Twice - that's pushing it. Three or four times? Come on, that's ridiculous, don't over-commit.
 
I agree, if release dates are unsure, keep it loose or you'll just end up disappointing a lot of potential customers.
 
Look - Birger is attempting to make a product. Do you think they're delaying it on purpose? Do you think it makes them happy to delay it? Do you think they're doing it specifically to piss off their potential customers?

Simple fact is -- it isn't ready. And if it isn't ready, you can't buy it. Period. There is nothing you can do about it, there is nothing they can do about it. You can be assured that they're working as hard as they can.

Maybe they will get it done soon. Maybe they won't.

There are many alternatives for those who need to work now. You can buy Lumix lenses. You can buy a Kipon. You can look for the Redrock LiveLens adapter. You can buy manual lenses.

But you cannot squeeze the Birger adapter out of Birger any faster than it will happen.

So what is the point of attacking and complaining? Isn't that rather like kicking someone while they were down? At least Birger's not out there loudly trumpeting that any competing product would be "a mistake" or anything like that. They're just keeping their heads down and their nose to the grindstone and attempting to finish their product.

If you don't like announcements and delays, then tune out and quit waiting for it. Pretend it doesn't exist and move on to one of the alternatives. Because - frankly, you don't have a choice. The Birger adapter has apparently been delayed again. So go with what will let you work now.
 
marlontorres said:
I agree, if release dates are unsure, keep it loose or you'll just end up disappointing a lot of potential customers.
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Sounds good. Except what are they supposed to say when a thousand users keep badgering them for a release date? Ignore them? Tell them nothing at all?

I can see the wisdom in that approach; with my products I try not to even pre-announce them until they're ready to ship. And that may need to be the way people approach product development in this hyper-short-attention-span-internet-age that we live in. But how is someone supposed to gauge the potential size of the market then?
 
Barry_Green said:
Do you think they're delaying it on purpose? Do you think it makes them happy to delay it? Do you think they're doing it specifically to piss off their potential customers?
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To answer your questions, no, no, and no. This is getting fairly heated, but I don't think it has to be. My entire point in all my posts is to let Birger know that at least one customer would like them to keep loose dates rather than repeatedly state a date and miss it - the latter serves no one, neither company nor customer. I have seen Birger videos and read their email and entirely believe that Birger is using this time to improve the product, and they want to get it out ASAP. That is not in contention by anyone.

Barry, I agree that if you keep a release date loose, you'll be badgered to be more specific. Nothing to do about that but say, we'll be more specific when it's possible to do so without being incredibly off-target. Whoever has a problem with that, so be it. Again, I think that's a much better tact than promising a date and not being able to meet it. And all the badgering gives a company an idea of how much interest their product is generating. I don't think you need to promise a release date to gauge that.

I think this issue is generating so much anxiety because unfortunately there just isn't a workaround that works even remotely as well as the Birger will (and yes, I have the Lumix and a cheapo Canon adapter). But Barry is practical and right, we just have to do the best we can for now.
 
Well, as far as I can see, Birger is doing what you said. They didn't even give a date in this latest update, right? The only people who are posting dates are those who are saying that their reseller is saying July, etc...

I'm not a fan of companies promising dates and missing them. But in reality, there's nothing we can do about it -- other than to just tune out. That's where I got to with Red, I just quit paying attention and just said "tell me when it shows up in red.com/store; anything else is just wasted breath." And it's been probably a year since I made that decision -- a peaceful year, I might add.

So for those who are upset about missed dates, there is a movement here to say "don't release any more dates." And for those who demand a date, sorry, it's obviously not a reasonable request -- they've tried to make dates and haven't been able to.

While we all wish that the Birger was available soon (and I've seen it demo'ed and do think it will be awesome when it's out), the fact is -- it isn't here now, and there's not a thing any of us can do about it. Wish we could, but we can't. So now you have to look at what it is that you CAN do, today.
 
Well said, Barry. I'm so tired of the negativity on the threads these days and yours is a positive, reasonable voice that speaks from experience.

Thanks for all you do.

Scott Nelson
 
TwinCitiesShooter said:
Correct, Barry, I didn't see a date in the Birger email, the July date was Rule's estimate. Amen to your other points.
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This thread is kind of hot, so I'll start by saying this is a non-critical statement. More like a question:

Im really curious about Sony and Panny's game plan when releasing these systems in the future. Birger is a tiny company trying to fill a huge demand that seems to be created by the larger companies.

If Panny's game plan was to be first to market, and let third parties fill in the gaps, is the AF100B gonna have a bevy of adapters and accessories with it? M43 and PL are great options, but have critical areas (price, system change) that after months have gone somewhat unaddressed.
 
When you have almost 15k invested in Canon EF glass, your next large sensor video camera has to be compatible with it. Reinvesting that amount in lenses + camera package means almost Red EPIC level budget. I want to purchase an F3, but without an EF adapter for it, it just doesn't justify purchase. I believe the same is true for many AF100 buyers and users.
 
Also, bitching isn't gonna change the release dates, so why don't we just humor ourselves and be positive. I'll start:

Me: "Have you heard of this tiny electronics company that's making EOS mount for the AF100?"
Everyone Else: "ya, Birger? They are f***ing awesome. I heard they also build stuff for the government"
Me: "Really?
Everyone Else: "ya, that's probably why they are the only company who have been able to even demo a *working* mount at this point"
Me: "Interesting, what else you think they are up to?"
Everyone Else: "Well, there was some talk that they built the stealth chopper that got Bin Laden"
Me: "the one that crashed?"
Everyone Else: "ya, unfortunate, I think Erik only built one. Imagine how much the Pentagon is gonna *****!"
 
Gosh! A big corporation like panny can't even stabilize availability of it's gh2 after 6 months or more...so let birger do it's thing and eventually everyone will be very happy.
 
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