Hi guys, as some have suggested I was at Notre Dame for the past 12 days. A friend of mine is producing a Showtime weekly special "A Season With Notre Dame Football," (10:00pm Tuesdays) and I've been having fun with that experience in addition to hosting several groups of people for ND v. Navy, and the USC game, also hanging out with some new recruits, etc.. This is something I do every year, which is why with CEDIA's show dates this year I was not able to attend.
I have been following all of your posts across several threads, understand the frustration, share some of it, but given what I know I understand why K proceeded with the current strategy.
First, K has not abandoned the Premiere line, they also never intended to abandon that line. There are many markets in the world, and situations, that actually require a Premiere system. It was always their intent to bring the latest tech to the Premiere line. I know this for certain because of numerous discussions with K Execs over the past year. Think about this from a business perspective, why would you ever ignore a market (Premiere owners) you already own? You wouldn't, unless there were externalities forcing a particular direction. What seems simple enough to us on the outside, is sometimes far more complex and involved on the inside. Remember, the beauty of a K system is in the KEAOS, and this was all created from nothing. There were 1000's of man hours that went into creating KEAOS, and 1000's more maintaining it over the years. (I think there might be more than 60 Million lines of code now.) Every time a new product, even a single Player, is released, it requires many, many hours of code writing and corrections to insure it will properly interface with all previous components. KEAOS has many "upsides", but making it what it is today, has also created a downside, the need to constantly work the code to keep things working correctly. This alone drains much of K's manpower resources. Add to this the contract for licensing content distribution, and further add in the security requirements for 4K download distribution, and a situation developed that essentially caused K to modify it's strategic plan. It appears, based on comments I've heard, meetings I've had, and what has been published, that K decided it could only effectively deal with "one" option, and they chose to initially move forward with a completely new line. It's not my place to comment on the chosen strategy, but suffice to say I'm hopeful it will be the right decision for the COMPANY (of course we current Premiere owners don't think it was the right decision for us).
I may be looking at this all wrong, and I'm certain there are some that will disagree, but I personally want to see K survive and grow because that protects my investment. I'm speaking of my "personal" investment as a K Owner, not my business investment as a dealer, which as most of my friends here know is not why I'm involved with K. In the end, what has really happened here?
1. K developed a new product line.
2. It is not compatible with older systems (except Alto).
3. K did not meet my expectation of releasing a 4K Player for my Premiere system.
4. K did not communicate their reasons for the decision (their right, most companies, even niche companies, do not share this with customers).
#1 is fine, #2 I understand the reasoning, #3 pisses me off, but I understand why, #4 is none of my business.
I now diverge down a different road, something that I hope will add some real life perspective to what we are dealing with here. About 10 days ago, while at Notre Dame, I spent some time with an incredible family (Mom, Dad, 7 y.o. twin Boy/Girl), that I could identify with having 5 y.o. twins Boy/Girl myself.
The little girl, very, very cute. Wide eyed and excited to be at ND, taking in all the activities of a typical game day Saturday at Notre Dame. I was able to get her and her Brother on to the field to meet some Players. This little girl was in the final month of her very short life. To look at her you couldn't tell at all, she played, she ran, chased her Brother, and laughed at things a 7 yo would find funny. At some point, she came up to me when I was sitting alone, smiled, sat next to me and started talking about life, her life, her family, etc., and then brought up her own death. I think this was the most difficult conversation I've ever had with another human. On the outside I was calm, but I was crushed inside, found my breathing difficult, and I fought very hard to not lose it in front of this little girl. I kept thinking about my Daughter as well. She confided in me that although she wouldn't tell her family, she was very afraid, but she knew it would be easier on them if they didn't know. She was afraid of "getting to heaven and being alone." I tried as best I could to explain why she didn't need to worry. Heartbreaking.
She departed this life yesterday.
I think I can get over having to add another source to access 4K. (I'll be adding some additional details about the new line later today or tomorrow.)
Jim