|
02/17/2011, 01:19 PM
#1318
Well, I did get a reply the other day directly from someone at HP regarding my Email to them...
I am very, VERY Impressed, because they replied by not only by phone, but with a real apology... An no, it wasn't just some person at a call center reading scripted messages either....Here is the whole thing A-Z:
My Letter to HP in full...
---------------------------------------------
Dear HP,
I am a longtime Palm Product owner/user & bought one of the first versions of Palm Pilot. I was very much looking forward to the February 9th "HP-Palm Debut", but I have gone from being "Overly Ecstatic" to "Utterly Disgusted. The majority of Devoted Palm owners, followers, & developers are quite en-flamed by your recent disclosures about the future of existing WebOS products & OTA support.
I was Very, Very Impressed w/ the various media reports of the products you unveiled & immediately went onto my Sprint Pre to see the website promo video. It was on your site in "Flash" format.
(See: "not avail. on WebOS now")
"Just a Small Oversight", I thought.
I tried to call your HP-Palm Customer Service to see if that could be addressed. I went through the voice prompts, only to be transferred to the "Product Tech Line",(3x). "OK, no problem."
So I wrote an email describing the issue, figuring that HP was simply overwhelmed w/ calls. Then I realized that our beloved "Palm" name pretty much vanished.
"Saddening, but understandable."
Then I noticed that "Gestures" doesn't appear to exist on the new lineup.
"Hmm, that's not good. It's a great multi-task feature."
Last night I discovered:
"HP has no intentions of releasing WebOS 2.0 as an OTA upgrade for older WebOS products, along w/ no "Flash", nor will it see any major WebOS upgrades in the future..."
A weak apology was offered on your Official Palm Product Website Blog, offering us only more empty promises. (bangs head against wall).
It would seem that either HP does not fully understand how devoted the Palm faithful are to WebOS, or that HP simply doesn't care & wrote us all off as an acceptable casualty of Business... If so, then you made a massively gross error in your judgment of the repercussions.
I am a proud Pre owner, a Pixi for my Bride-to-Be, & I bought her a HP G72-253NR Notebook this past Summer, partially because of HP's Palm acquisition. I utilize HP printers at home & at work. I even use my own tagline: "Palm Pre, Productivity in Your's..." on my Pre emails. I've contemplated buying HP stock, in anticipation of the Pre3, Veer, & TouchPad release. I was convinced of its success, but now I am not so sure...
The amount of customer time, energy, money, & creativity involved in keeping WebOS alive thus far, has been simply amazing. We still proudly held onto our Pre's and Pixi's, hoping for the long-promised "New" phone, ...even as our "Old Palm Legacy" phones quite literally fall apart in our hands. Many devotees have even resorted to buying used Pre's and Pixi's in serviceable shape, just to bide their time. We've waited far too long & held onto our phones because of YOUR promises for a "soon-to-be" WebOS 2.0 & "Flash" OTA to "Bridge the new WebOS Phone-Gap". How long can many of us wait for our carriers to get the new Pre3 or Veer? (if at all?) (PS The WebOS 2.0 upgrade-promise is still even posted on your Palm Canada site, asking for the serial number.)
So now we have no bridge, a bunch of broken promises, dying phones, and promised new-products with an unknown release date on unknown carriers and the entire WebOS World is aflame with anger, check ANY WebOS blogosphere.
Please try to rectify this immediately or you will surely watch your $1.2 Billion Dollar purchase go right down the toilet. Many Palm faithful do not wish for bad upon HP, we truly LOVE WebOS and had very high hopes for HP-Palm's success. We would love nothing more than to see HP WebOS reach its potential being.
Longtime Palm Product owner/devotee
Brother Al
------------------------------------------------------
I got a call the other night from an area code-number I didn't recognize... Let it go to voicemail & listened to it later on... I was very impressed that HP took the time to respond by phone to my email letter of concern. Not only that, but he pronounced my last name 100% correctly... And with the 100% correct French pronunciation even. NEVER has a business-caller ever done that.
Again, NO! It wasn't from a call center person reading from some scripted reply sheet. The guy sounded fairly genuine, hint of a Texas-like accent, & there was ZERO background noise. He was well spoken & by his tone & inflection, seemed as though he was at the least, a mid-level manager and genuinely apologetic. I have also NEVER received a call from any company like this one, wished I'd answered it. I tried to call it but it goes straight to an HP phone system prompt directory... The unfortunate thing though is that he did not leave his name, so I cannot Thank or give him credit.
Here is a transcription of the call, word for word. At face value without the inflection or tone, it loses much...
"Hi, this message is for Al ...(100% correctly pronounces my last name)..., and we received your email at HP regarding OS2 updates.. or the lack thereof And we do apologize for the situation.. but we did want to contact and apologize for the situation and thank you for your feedback... And we will certainly pass these comments along to our engineering department... Um, I don't know what they are working on or if there will be anything forthcoming or announced so I will also recommend to please monitor our website for any future updates, and if the situation were to change.. But again, we do apologize for the.. For the problems and for how this rolled out... But.. uh, we do appreciate your feedback so thank you for the feedback and have yourself a great day... (sound of slight hangup fumble)."
Quite a genuine & apologetic person to person call...
|
|
|