These Harte Hanks, or should I call them “Hard at Wanks” guys are shameless. I (and a few others) could not contact them or get any information whatsoever on the shipping status for the MSP430 Launchpad.
To contact TI you must spend at least half an hour filling out a massive form just to never be contacted by them…
It’s rather obvious that the whole MSP430 Launchpad was an afterthought and that TI has no infrastructure for small companies and/or buyers; they play with the big fish and they don’t know how to handle regular human beings. Heck, they’re paying some clowns to deal with them and look at what happened!
Even their wiki is a total mess, I’ve no idea who is in charge of the project but it’s clear they don’t know what they’re doing.
I thought this being such a massive company, they would at least have the manpower to come up with a brilliant marketing strategy, backed up by proper material and support. Turns out they can’t. They’re good at putting together calculators, but that’s about it.
Furthermore I always feel discriminated by these companies; If you’re outside the US they’ll treat you as a lesser person. Someone with the time and cash should teach these guys a lesson or two on how to handle their customers. The worst part is that Harte Hanks sell themselves as marketing specialists…
Marketing is used to identify the customer, to keep the customer, and to satisfy the customer.
Anyone can tell an orange from an apple… They clearly failed at every other aspect.
Oh well, I’ll just forget about it and get a pickit or arduino, at least the companies behind those products do care about their customers.
RIP TI, you’re dead to quite a few people.