Comments on: Does Rockwell Automation Hate its Customers?

By: RIch Nixon

RIch Nixon — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:29:42 +0000

Rockwell? What support?
I HAVE a valid 2012 techconnect agreement and toolkit and I STILL can’t get any support out of them. Just this weekend I needed to grab FTVS 5.10 and I still can’t access their download page using THEIR login information from the almost $6K P.O. they got from us.
Yes. RA hates it’s customers and users and they will p*ss on them at every opportunity.

By: David-Sarah Hopwood

David-Sarah Hopwood — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 00:43:08 +0000

+10. It’s even more frustrating when the TechConnect-locked articles are basic technical documentation that should have been in the manual, or workarounds for bugs in their software and hardware.

By: Scott Whitlock

Scott Whitlock — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 10:02:50 +0000

I agree with you Joe. I think it comes back to recognizing that the lower the cost of a product, the more uses people will have for that product, so the more they will buy. Therefore if support costs less, then the automation equipment costs less, so ultimately sales would go up (this is because support is a complementary product to the equipment).

What’s happened at Rockwell is that the equipment division and the support division are separate entities and both have to make a profit, so instead of strategically lowering the price of one to drive sales of the other, they’re trying to maximize profit individually.

Whether we’re right or wrong, it’s still frustrating to use their support just because of all the barriers that are in place.

By: Joe Aarssen

Joe Aarssen — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 01:39:37 +0000

After reading this post for a second time and Jeremey’s follow up to it I find myself questioning whether or not it is short sighted to assume that opening up a knowledge base will impact a company’s revenue negatively. Especially one who’s core business is selling a product not services.
I buy a support agreement every year because it comes with my Toolkit (not picking on Rockwell – just sticking with the example). The toolkit I have to have because I need the software updates that come with it in order to do my job. If you’re a major purchaser of automation equipment chances you’re in the same boat. So you have us paying our money either way – any information you have to work harder to provide costs you revenue.
If you not a major purchaser of automation equipment chances are you may or may not purchase a support agreement. However I know many end users (the ones not buying support but determining hardware specifications) who choose to switch brands based upon lower ownership costs (no support fees, open interface for programming such as USB – no special cables, etc). So you could argue that you may loose some support revenue from your end user base but would probably pick up more revenue selling hardware (which again is your core business).
Maybe my economic model is off I’d love to know.

By: Jeremy Sluyters

Jeremy Sluyters — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:21:56 +0000

So true!!! Love the rant!! Is anyone from Rockwell listening??