On Nov 23, 2006, at 10:25 AM, mike wilson wrote: > I assume digital protocols make it far easier for OEMs to put > little pitfalls in the way of third parties.
Mechanical pitfalls are more subtle to create but harder for third parties to accommodate since they can vary more on a unit by unit basis. It comes up about even. In general, however, based on my conversations with various manufacturers over the decade plus I was working at Apple and with OEM vendors, most manufacturers are very aware of the value provided by third party suppliers of accessory equipment to their customers and do their best to test with both their own and third party products. However, "crappily" is an apt description for how well Sigma does on their reverse engineering ... a manufacturer will only expend so much effort to fix a problem that is the result of a third party's screw up. Many of the fixes involve compromises to the original design, carrying them forward with fix ups adds significantly to the development and testing costs over time. Better to push that cost onto the vendor of the offending accessories ... the problem is theirs to begin with for not paying a licensing fee and getting the correct specification in the first place. Godfrey -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
