Topic: Newest Update From BFL on Chips (Read 9657 times)

To be completely honest, the bickering between you two is just annoying.

I wouldn't consider getting it in late March to be an option.  

the COO of BFL has been trolling up my betting thread, and refuses to take a wager that BFL ships 3+ ASICs that meet or beat specs before 3/20/2012

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=135914.360

No, the problem is the dates he gives are what he calls worst-case scenarios, when they really are impossibly best-case scenarios. "Honest Abe! The schedule is already padded. There's no way we'll miss the dates this time." BS

Yeah, the reason I'm not really offended is because I ordered February 2nd, far after the people who have actual legitimate grievances with not yet receiving a product.

I actually enjoyed reading your response and I think that you have some valid points.

I most definitely agree that Josh should stop openly talking trash about Avalon. I know it's fun to make fun of your competitors but when you make fun of a competitor about something you are specifically lacking that's little more than awkward projection and nobody wants to see that.

I think one of the problems is that Josh squandered even the confidence that some of the hardcore supporters had left when he said bumping would take 2 days and it's been a little over a week. The main problem is that he's giving people best case estimates when he should be giving worst case estimates and then tacking on a week or two to those estimates. At least then if it finishes before those one to two weeks, he is under promising and over delivering, rather than over promising and under delivering. Granted, they didn't know they needed a blank wafer to make the process faster, but that makes me think they didn't do enough research on the bumping process beforehand.

All in all I think there have been a lot of missteps, but I still honestly believe they will be delivering a superior product than Avalon but the timeframe is unfortunately taking much much longer than expected.

I think they'll deliver and their units will probably perform better than advertised specs - their customers will likely get more than they paid for in that respect.

What's not clear - and what affects the company and its investors more than its customers - is whether they'll be able to remain competitive in an environment where their first generation products are hitting the market at the same time as other vendors are working on their gen 2 products and new players are also entering the retail ASIC market. By the time they've caught up with their back orders around June, there's no guarantee that theirs will be the superior products available at a retail level.

If their projections were based on having a dominant market share for a prolonged period of time, then further delays could have a serious impact on their bottom line.  

I placed my order in early September and after the way things have gone so far I have resigned myself to maybe receiving my order by late March.  Add another week for international mail too.

They should be taking deposits instead of the full amounts. That would seem more to be a better way to go for both parties. But as for timelines, you can throw them out the window. They have had this and that excuse. They look to have the real deal, but it just a question of how long it will take to receive your order.
Regards,
Brian

The information flow at BFL is terrible.  Once is a mistake, twice is a choice.  

Josh's question about whether they've pulled dates out of thin air is an interesting one.  In a sense, they have.  Even if their estimates of how long the chips will take to package and how long it will take to assemble the boards are accurate, they're clearly not allowing for the fact that their order is going to have to be fitted in around other work being done by those facilities.  

The actual packaging may take < 24 hours, but there's no guarantee that the packaging facility will be able to start work on BFL's order the moment the chips arrive there because they're not being paid to sit around idle doing no other work while they wait for BFL's chips.  They can't really book a specific time for packaging or for board assembly because they don't know when the chips will arrive at the packaging facility or at the assembly house.

While it's annoying that customers latch onto their best case scenario estimates as though they were set in concrete, it's obvious that even their "worst case scenario" estimates bear no resemblance to reality.  They need to review why they're coming up with wrong estimates and take measures to make their estimates more accurate - because this issue isn't going to disappear once their first batch starts shipping, it's going to continue for as long as they have unfulfilled back orders.

"But it's hard" doesn't really wash as an excuse when you're still taking pre-orders for a product which has yet to be delivered.  Not having a relatively accurate delivery date wouldn't matter if people hadn't paid for this product 8 months ago.  It does matter when you're still taking pre-orders, though.

Edit.  Nasser's online in BFL shoutbox at the moment - here's your chance to ask him questions directly.

Good one, michaelmclees!!


One more thing to add: "BFL insults boss and fellow employees (for not believing his sleazy story) calling them idiots and pathological liars. ..."

[EDIT] I've seen you originally posted this on BFL forums on 11-27-2012. 3 month ago and still so true

By the way ... Josh reply was this here:

Summarized: "Life is just so bloody hard. And unfair. Boo-hoo."

According to Joshs logic no company in the world would be able to finish a product in time and budget. Yet there are new hairdryers, lawnmowers, mobile phones, notebooks, etc. every day. And many of us work for such companies that achieve the impossible.

BFL simply sucks at project management.

That has been what I have been saying for months.  They'll set some deadline for a date and when they date finally comes, they then announce that there was a delay at some point, even though they surely must have known that the delay would be coming for days or weeks before their announcement.  I expressed it thusly on November 27th ...

"This is exactly why I had to cancel one of my orders. If BFL were an employee calling in late to work, it would be like this.

Work starts at 9:00. Travel time is 30 minutes assuming no traffic. There is some level of traffic 90% of the time. BFL plans to leave at 8:25.

"Announcement - I hope to be at work at 9:00 tomorrow ... assuming nothing goes wrong. I even have a buffer in case there is traffic."

Time is 8:45 and BFL just leaves the house for work.

"Announcement - Everything still hunky dory. Not late to work yet and I'm driving really fast."

Time is 8:55 and BFL hits traffic. BFL reroutes.

"Announcement - I might not be into work at time, but I hope I'll make it."

Time is 9:15 and BFL is now sitting in worse traffic on the new route.

"Announcement - Looks like I'm going to be late for work... probably.   Don't worry though, someone else will probably be late as well so no worries. Oh, by the way, when I come in, you'll get the best darned employee you've ever seen. I'm the reliable Ferrari of employees!"

Time is 9:30 and boss is calling BFL's cell, upset that he's late. BFL doesn't directly answer his questions and seems evasive. Boss asks what time BFL left the house - no answer. Boss asks how often there is traffic - no answer. Boss asks what kind of coffee BFL had that morning - Folgers, 3 sugars, no milk.

"Announcement - I hope to be in at 10:00. I never 'promised' 9:00. I just hoped to be in at 9:00, just like I 'hope' to be in at 10:00. Why so upset?"

Time is 9:59 and the entire factory is furiously waiting on BFL to come because he has one of 3 keys to the lock that shuts everyone else out altogether. He's costing them money because had he simply been more honest about his situation from the get go, when he left his house in the first place, the boss would have called in Thomas or Evelan, because they also have keys, but today was their day off.

"Announcement - Making this announcement with 1 minutes to spare! That's right... Time to spare on this one. No new details other than the fact that I've put premium gas in my car and I'll probably, maybe, hopefully, be in around, nearby, or close to mid, late, probably end of the 10 o'clock hour. My contract says you can't fire me until 11:00 anyway ... so really ... I'm still not even late."

And... scene.

Josh and everyone else at Butterfly Labs ... are you starting to see things from our perspective yet?"

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/bfl-forum-miscellaneous/437-asic-update-26-november-2012-a-6.html#post6356

at this stage Josh Zerlan's function is to explicitly mismanage expectations of his customers and possible future customers. 

Take his latest post for example:

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/bfl-forum-miscellaneous/690-13-jan-2013-asic-update-discussion-thread-55.html#post15632


seems like he knows they will continue to miss dates, even though he is the one posting dates.  "vague dates?"  IMO fire the person or company that told you Nov 2012 would be shipping.

+1 You need to school him on expectation management.

Have you tried the archive button?

Respectfully, unlike many BFL customers, you don't seem to be particularly offended by the multiple month wait. BFL customers are starting to resign themselves to a march shipping date as we speak. (on the BFL forums)


I believe that is a false sentiment.

I believe (and actually hope) they actually did do due diligence before taking on vast sums of cash.

Though, lets take your premise and assume they didn't. This [if your hypothesis is correct] just goes to show how they aren't doing their part to keep the project going well.

One of the points that Josh used to bash the Avalon team on was the fact that they didn't have [supposedly] the amount of collective experience that the BFL engineering team had.

Yet you see them struggling with things that they shouldn't be struggling in. They don't appear to be well informed in my opinion.

Team Avalon started the wafers contract on 11/26/2012 and by January 14th 2013 had already finalized shipping preparations. They were on the ball and got things rolling.

Of course, this is a somewhat unfair comparison because they were using less layers [29] in their 110nm process node. So they had to wait less to achieve a result.

BFL uses a 65nm process (which requires more time...assuming they have more layers...that is) but seems to fumble at each stage. Even after the fab, they continue to fumble through each step.

The only eventuality the Avalon Team did not properly investigate was customs. Add to this the fact that CNY was around the corner and unfortunately "Shit Happens".

Despite this month of delay...BFL is still fumbling to this day, even unto March 2013.

As other have said in the shoutbox, what does this mean for the second wafer set coming down the pike? Will that also be delayed by 1 to 2 weeks as the first was?


Yes, Josh likes to post trash talk against the Avalon Team.

Example:

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/bfl-forum-miscellaneous/923-avalon-unit-delivered-bfl-hq.html



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At the very least, I post actual things of interest. Most of what happens in the shoutbox never gets written into the "official" updates posts. That includes various specific details. Unfortunately, I don't have a log of that to prove it.

I understand if you skimmed the latest shoutbox log and do not notice the references being made to prior conversations within the shoutbox.

You have to get on at specific times to see the various back and forth. If not, you'll miss it and you won't get it through the regular updates.

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Needless to say, what the majority end up reading is not necessarily all the fine details of the situation. To find out what is happening you should log in to the shoutbox and keep abreast of the situation.

The official updates are just a nice "summary" with certain key details left out. It makes the rep rage in anger when one does that.

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In either case, I do not see what any BFL customer would be offended by if you post details in front of them. Perhaps people don't want to know more about these situations?

Edit: By the way, the hardcore supporters are now often tongue lashing BFL in the shoutbox quite openly. I wonder what it was that they saw that made them feel that way. Their disenfranchised sentiment is now often leaking into the open BFL forum.

Dresdenreader, don't quote him. His Ignore button is orange. The quoting spoils the purpose of the button for others.

Gotcha?

Anyway, I'll stop replying. Better things to do.

edit: for those that do not know

Yes you weren't there to witness it ...

You are fretting about something that is not worth while. Grnbrg said pretty much exactly what you told him in your IRC log from the looks of it.

I invite people to go look and compare it for themselves. You'll see the dig from the samurai wanna-be is nonesense.

So what your sword toting dig is bitching about is none of my business. Go message the grievances in my PM box. I cannot guarantee I'll read it though.


By the way genius, it's IRC, you are either there to witness it in the moment or you aren't.

Well as usual you don't quote directly then claim it as truth