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nighthawk

ROCKWELL RANT!

74 posts in this topic

I was once told about AB Product "you may find better, but you'll never pay more". That said I also agree that AB has provided excellent support and product when I needed it.

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As an OEM we are paying about $6,000 per year for support. That support covers all Rockwell Software, including development packages for all of the software as well as 5 licences for our company. We have 12 Controls Engineers that specialize in different product lines and we use a wide variety of PLC's HMI's and other instrumentation. The bad thing about our support is that it is from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm only. If we have a problem outside of that time frame we have to wait. The question I have with them would be is that my 8-5 or their 8-5? What if I'm working in India and need support? I do know that if you are a contract engineer you can make some good money if you are good at what you do. Normal contract rates range from $70-125 per hour and Rockwell/AB rates are near $165 per hour from the time they leave their office.

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I believe that it is 8:00 am to 5:00 pm local for the time zone of the site that purchased the contract. If you need support for all time zones, there is 24/7 support available as an option (at added cost). My company uses the 8:00 am to 5:00 pm support.

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Hello all, Adding my 2 cents to the topic as well. I've worked for small OEMs and I'm now working at a larger OEM. Of course at the large OEM we can use the AB support contract. At the small OEM we mostly used Omron and were building a few machines with compactlogix and needed RsLogix 5000 with Dnet support. Between the 3 PLC's, PanelView Plus HMI's and the software we spent roughly $10,000. The AB rep tried to push the OEM lease package but I couln't justify spending that much and would rather own the software not rent it. I was having problems with the software and sent an online support request. The response I got was: You don't have a support contract please call your local rep for support. How do they justify not giving any support for newly purchased software? They claimed we didn't have any support since we had bought RsLogix 500 in the past which came with support but since it had expired we did not get any support directly from AB. In my opinoin AB over charges for buggy software that is released when it should still be in beta testing. They get away with gouging everyone because if you have to use their hardware you are stuck with using their buggy software. What incentive do they have to make their software better? Can you switch to something else if your plant has a large base of AB PLC's; I think not? I'm looking forward to the day when there are open standards with industrial controls. Imagine being able to buy any company's PLC and components like you do with a PC and run anyones software to program it. This would improve and lower prices on hardware and imporve software due to competition on the open market. RSLogix 5000 is at version 15 and still has a buggy user interface; compare that to AutoCad at version 15. Anyone else for standards that would allow open source industrial controls? What would be the drawbacks to this?

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Wulfgar, I can't agree with you more, I think the people who are replying in favor of paying, and let me say this again; This support was once free; are the people who don't remember when this support was once free and are Brainwashed (and are newbies to controls) or are the Rockell reps "Lurkers", defending their mediocre Software...(we see comments such as "putting bread on my table" while their steeling it off of your plate) ...On a side note but similar negative action by Rockwell... Rockwell also eliminated their RS forums...yeah, they discovered that people where getting free help AND THEY WERE PISSED ABOUT THAT!! So guess what...no more RSforums...People, open your eyes here....what would you do if Bill Gates all of sudden decided he wanted to become more "richer" than what he is and charged you everytime you called for help with Windows? I think you saw what happened, the government stepped in...Stay tuned.... Edited by jimdi4

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I'm gonna try not to be "that guy", but here goes... I think open source would be great for industrial controls - but the (North American anyway) market firmly rejects it. It's hard enough to convince them to use programs like Linux or MySQL. "What real companies use those....???". I'd love to see Rockwell, Wonderware, whoever go against those titans in a stability contest! I am personally interested in open source controls projects. The ones that I have seen, mostly on Sourceforge, are pretty immature - certainly not ready for production environments. Drawbacks are that the industry is relatively small - without the economies of scale you'd have trouble getting timely support and updates without paying for it. That said, we at Inductive Automation provide unlimited, free, quality tech support to integrators and will answer any questions that our end users - or anyone, for that matter - has on our forum. But we aren't your typical industrial software company. We support the use of good free software instead of trying to write our own clunky versions, support open standards and information flow, and were started by integrators, not to mention that we have a reasonable pricing model. Here's a novel thought for industrial software giants - it does't cost you anything more for the end user to have more: tags, screens, concurrent clients, developers, etc! Edited by Nathan

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...Inductive Automation.... I signed up right away...Check it out...maybe we can make this the "New RSforum"....You saw what Bill Gates did to IBM???... Edited by jimdi4

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Lol, awesome! Our forum is here. We have our own products, but I have no problem with users posting Rockwell questions - I have lots of integrators who are experienced RSBugware fighters. Our integration company used to be a "Rockwell Certified Solution Provider" - what a waste! Rockwell was nice enough to send their overpriced consultants to our customers behind our backs, though...it's gotta be tough being that good.

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I'm a lurker, now ? Ask anyone with a post count over 100 if they think my work on this Forum is worthwhile. And then maybe re-think what you say about me in public.

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Who's this addressed to and what's it about?.... [edit] Oh, Jimmy's post calling Edited by Nathan

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Yes, I almost said something about that but at this point the argument in this thread are about like my wife getting mad at me for leaving the toilet seat up. It is something small that gets blown out of proportion. Anyone who really wanted to know the truth would have done a quick search and realized how wrong that statement was. There are reps from almost all of the major product lines here and I personally will say I appreciate all of your participation and I think the majority of the users here do also. To all of the reps, Thank you

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Nathan, You nailed it!!! And Ken, I didn't mean you, if you did some research yourself (Oct 26 2006, 11:23 AM) you would have seen in previous posts on this subject, I indicated you rocked!! I know better than that!!! Edited by jimdi4

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Well there are only 3 Rockwell reps that visit here frequently that I know of. It's not Ken, so that only leaves two. Eenie, meenie, minie, moe, catch a... Just kidding of course, as long as there is no personal name calling

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To Ken Roach. I think you are a valuable asset to this as well as other forums. I DO NOT think you are a lurker. Don't let some newbie get you down.

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In my "day job" I work with paying customers. In my "hobby job", I work with non-paying customers. It's a fortunate coincidence that I'm able to do both at once. But does the fact that I do some of my work for non-paying customers mean I should do all of my work for free ? Or that my co-workers who don't do this as a "hobby" should not be paid ? A lot of the comments on this thread amount to "Tech Support of all kinds should be free", which I disagree with. But many of the comments that raise my blood pressure go further, to "Charging for technical support makes you bad, or deserving of failure, or amounts to stealing from your customers." That's just illogical. I'm not going to change anybody's mind who is ranting on this thread about how awful Rockwell is for charging for our services and software. But I can let you know that you're actively biting the hands that feed you.

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But does the fact that I do some of my work for non-paying customers mean I should do all of my work for free ? Fact is, as far as we know, you are giving help and advice for free...on the other hand you are ALSO benefitting and reaping the rewards of the "GOUGING" YOUR COMPANY CHARGES FOR THE SAME HELP YOU WOULD TECHNICALLY GIVE FOR FREE SUCH AS THIS FORUM....DOUBLE STANDARD HERE.... Ken, I think its time for a group hug...what do ya think? I'm not going to change anybody's mind who is ranting on this thread about how awful Rockwell is for charging for our services and software. But I can let you know that you're actively biting the hands that feed you. I can sway my customers away from Rockwell products with ease, because Rockwell is charging far more than anyone else...and when you are starting up your products and they don't work and you need to stay on the phone such as what started this thread to begin with ...guess what.... Rockwell doesn't look very good, especially to the customer who just spent $10,000.00 on software and another $xxxx.xx on hardware they just loose their confidence in your product.... Edited by jimdi4

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Alright I thought I could hold back but I was wrong Ken Roach states That's not what I am seeing. I see happy customers, some that don't like the practice of paying for support (who likes to spend money), and two jerks that need to get a life - Nathan and jimdi4 The other two I know are run4suds who works for a distributor and Contr_Conn. You want to attack one of them too? Count me out of the group hug

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Ken, I think you're misinterpreting a lot of what's being said here. There have been a few requests for free tech support, which may be unreasonable. Certainly high quality tech support is valuable and worth selling. I've spoken with a number of integrators who refuse to Rockwell products due to the pricing and whole picture. It's been noted that some users feel that they should get some amount of support with a multi-thousand $ package. Others are irritated at the level of support that they get for the money (the $6000 post). What bothers me is when companies charge for maintenance fees for software upgrades in order to get bug fixes. I think that if someone buys a software package and the developer updates some security flaws or other bugs, that the customer deserves the update. When I used to do integration work we had customers who bought legal copies of Rockwell software who chose not to continue with the subscription fee. We as integrators, came in with our newer software versions to modify their application, which necessarily updated them and rendered their legally purchased development software useless. What should they do, call Rockwell. You can't talk to support if you haven't purchased this years service contract. If they had purchased the contract, they would have to back pay for software updates for the years that they missed (or a penalty versus the usual update rate). I'm strongly opposed to malicious schemes that inhibit the functionality of "older" software, especially of one's own customer base. Does anybody else have simliar experiences? Am I totally coming from left field? I fail to see how Ken's post about support fees being the source of his income imply that Jim's general statements about the way Rockwell does business were a personal attack against Ken. Where has anyone attacked Ken or done anything but thank him for his posts. Nobody is attacking Ken. Edited by Nathan

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Gents, This is going nowhere and fast. From what I see, Rockwell Automation is not......not going to change their support model. In fact the cost went up a significant amount with the August price increase....at least for the low end contracts. Having stated that. If you are unhappy with Rockwell prices use somebody else. Just keep in mind.... the other manufacturers don't have the huge distributor network that Rockwell does. I can only speak for southern California but, we have 18 stocking locations with 8 PLC specialists, 7 Industrial Control Specialists, 5 Motion Specialists, 5 Software Specialists and 4 VFD Specialists.........who don't charge for their technical expertise. (that's in a 5 county area) In my opinion.....shut this thread down. It's turned into a personal attack by very small people.

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I still fail to see the personnal attack. This is what I said, (addressed to Ken) Good point Edited by Nathan

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Have we set a record for posts to one topic yet? If not what is the highest number of posts on one topic? Definition of "Lurkers" from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lurker Could this be the Lurker jimdi4 was talking about? Or is this out of context with what he meant? Constructive lurkers The constructive lurker is a person who regularly reads online forums but rarely posts. These individuals may have a high degree of sophistication within the topic of any given forum, but lack the time or willingness to post the detailed replies they feel that the topic at hand deserves. Lurkers of this sort are not shy about posting, but instead prefer not to start a discussion they do not have the time to finish. When these lurkers do post, they often provide well thought-out and detailed contributions to the discussion at hand. A constructive lurker is often a veteran of several previous online discussion forums. Having been involved in many heated online discussions in the past, these lurkers are often willing to allow the more active forum members to hash out the obvious and may only contribute when the discussion takes a novel turn. Edited by robh

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Ken's definately not a lurker by that definition. He's a very active poster. Not sure what the OP had in mind - I don't think he was referring to Ken at all.

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Hmmm... I have no complaints about Rockwell, its this simple….If you don't want to pay, don't use their product. Thanks, Ken for all the help that you have given me and many others.

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Ok let's end this thread. I think everyones point has been made. Yes I can say I defended Ken because he does contribute so much to this forum even when posters that are helping him are complaining about RA in the same thread. You can bash the company all day, break records on the amount of post, and I would never say anything. And surely Ken Moore wouldn't, I can't say that I have ever seen him post in a thread like this until now. But there is a line that must be drawn between bashing a company and bashing the employees of that company that help us out And this isn't just about Rockwell Automation, we have reps in the Omron, Misubishi, GE, and the Siemens section. These are just the ones I know of. There are probably others and I appriciate everyone of them. This forum would go on without them but it would not be nearly as good. The more important question is why would you not want them in our pool of knowledge. That's something for you to think about with your forum too Nathan. Why do it alone? Let's see if we can use this energy to solve some of our current problems We have RFurey with his Ethernet problems http://forums.mrplc.com/index.php?showtopic=9442 Still disputing that PLC2 problem. I'm no help, never seen a PLC2 http://forums.mrplc.com/index.php?showtopic=9463 Bobs still working on his PID Loops http://forums.mrplc.com/index.php?showtopic=9376

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