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[StorageOptions]

That being said, Paul doesnt want to, or cant give the answers either. I wonder who actually DOES run SO?

As far as I know we've answered everything I've been asked via email. If you have a question please contact us. We cannot manage to check every thread on this forum -I'm sorry but it is simply beyond our resources.

The reason we have not released the firmware, as I have personally explained to several forum members, is one of control. It is a complex procedure, not suitable (or fair) for the average user (the bulk of our customers). We cannot risk it's release into the wild, even through some of you more sophisticated individuals. Again, I apologise for this but I stand by our decision.

Additionally it makes no difference to the iplayer issue (by the way has any else seen this today? http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/ ... pdate.html) so we only need to issue it for one known fault. In these cases we are collecting the devices, fixing them and sending them back at our expense.

Storage Options, is wholly owned by CCI Distribution Ltd.. CCI is owned by CMS Peripherals. I made a statement to this effect when I did my question and answer session late last year. There is no mystery.

I've only glanced at bits of this thread, but a lot of your speculation about us is completely wrong - we have nothing to hide. In order to give you all some more insight perhaps I should do another open Q&A? there are obviously some unanswered questions and I'd be happy to do this again. Would this be of interest?

I hope this helps.

[StorageOptions]

If you feel that a member has "over-stepped the mark" you are able to contact either a moderator or admin of this forum to ask if the comments can be removed / edited.

This will happen, or not, at the sole discretion of the moderator/admin team. This is, after all, an independant public forum, and as such we are all entitled to our opinions.

I have posted publicly so that all members are made aware of this.

I'm loathe to censor anything, no matter how unfair I think it is. That is your decision as a moderator.

[Fonefixer]

Allow me to be serious for a moment or two, if I may.....

As you will know from our previous conversations, I now run the service department of a company that employs over 3500 engineers worldwide. We are in daily contact with manufacturers of mobile phones that sell literally millions of handsets each year worldwide. Part of my remit is to be in constant contact with the manufacturers themselves with regard to service issues.

We are provided with all the tools required to do our job without question. Of course, we are subject to NDA's for development / commercial reasons. However, when we require answers we get them and give them to the public if we are able and I have to say 99% of the time the manufacturers themselves are more than willing for us to do so. We would not allow manufacturers to dictate to us when or if we can release information unless they tell us why. Furthermore the manufacturers we deal with will act when we advise them of a possible issue. Attempting to "brush it under the carpet" in their eyes, or ours, is simply not acceptable.

You should have gathered from conversations on this forum that members are unhappy with some of the answers previously provided, or more importantly the reasons why the answers were not provided.

I personally feel that another Q&A session may be beneficial, however I would suggest a greater degree of "open-ness" would be prudent in order to keep customers happy.

[blueeagle69]

Hopefully this will be the last comment I need to make regarding Busybox etc.
It seems as if Storage Options are not aware that the Excel is rooted already before we get it. And apparently, Busybox needs to be activated first???
What the hell.
I appreciate I am asking a lot here, but could some kind soul who knows more about the Excel than I do, inform Paul at SO, that the Excel is rooted out of the box, and Busybox doesn't need to be activated as he suggests?
Ridiculous.
Thanks guys.
It seems that this forum is the only sane place.
I appreciate all the time you put in with this forum.

Sent from my Scroll Excel/Nexus S using Tapatalk.

[Astro]

If I may add my ten penneth to the mix...

I support totally an individual's right to speak freely and the rights of others to be treated with respect... not that I'm saying either of these rights have been compromised here today.

I think what we're experiencing is an outpouring of pent up frustration with SO's perceived level of support to owners of their devices, perhaps not helped by a lack of product knowledge (Busybox / rooting) by SO of their own product. My Excel is completely unmodded and Busybox resides in '/system/bin.'

I welcome Paul's offer of another Q&A session because I would like to understand the issues that prevent SO from releasing a recovery image.

I find it hard to understand why other suppliers of Excel clones have made recovery software available, but SO seem reluctant to do so.

I think also, we should try not to focus solely on iPlayer as the source of lipsync issues... it seems to affect many video formats to some extent or another.

I welcome this issue 'coming to a head' and, hopefully, (spleens vented) we can now move forward together in a constructive manner and enable the Excel to become the product it always promised to be.

Excel

[StorageOptions]

Allow me to be serious for a moment or two, if I may.....

As you will know from our previous conversations, I now run the service department of a company that employs over 3500 engineers worldwide. We are in daily contact with manufacturers of mobile phones that sell literally millions of handsets each year worldwide. Part of my remit is to be in constant contact with the manufacturers themselves with regard to service issues.

We are provided with all the tools required to do our job without question. Of course, we are subject to NDA's for development / commercial reasons. However, when we require answers we get them and give them to the public if we are able and I have to say 99% of the time the manufacturers themselves are more than willing for us to do so. We would not allow manufacturers to dictate to us when or if we can release information unless they tell us why. Furthermore the manufacturers we deal with will act when we advise them of a possible issue. Attempting to "brush it under the carpet" in their eyes, or ours, is simply not acceptable.

You should have gathered from conversations on this forum that members are unhappy with some of the answers previously provided, or more importantly the reasons why the answers were not provided.

I personally feel that another Q&A session may be beneficial, however I would suggest a greater degree of "open-ness" would be prudent in order to keep customers happy.

Dave you seem to infer that we're not passing on information because the manufacturer is preventing us. This is not the case. I can assure you that we are the controlling party in our relationships with the manufacturers. I don't think I can be any clearer on this. Don't forget we are not pro-actively reading forum threads - there are simply too many so if we're not going to pick up on anything that isn't directly addressed to us.

We're not releasing the firmware (is that what you're referring to specifically?) because it's not a clever idea for us all things considered. If other "brands" release it or a similar thing then that's up to them, let them handle the consequences (I hope their support team has a strong stomach and the support website is up to scratch, if they have one...). It is entirely wrong to assume that it is the *same* firmware of course... Our build of Android is ours not someone elses, even if a tablet looks the same.

If there are other un-answered questions, then let's hear them. Stu has agreed to allow a Q and A again so I look forward too many late nights again in the near future (date TBC) addressing everything people feel we need to address. Don't forget Dave, you have my email address too.

I do appreciate that sometimes decisions may not to everyone's liking at all times, but you must look at things from our point of view to understand them:
- The Scroll Excel has been wildly successful, we are selling far more than we ever hoped for.
- Returns are minimal, far better than any other tablet we have ever sold.
- The firmware doesn't fix anything other than one issue that we know of (I keep saying this, but it appears that people are choosing not to believe me). Trust me it's true. It will not improve your device.
- When we identify the issue that needs the firmware, we issue it at our expense / inconvenience. This is because of a very real risk of breaking your Scroll during the update.
- We are developing a release that can be done via micro SD card which negates the problem but I'm not prepared to promise a release date for this. This is because the development team is small and they might not be able to do it.

I hope this post comes across in the spirit it was intended. I really value the contribution and criticism you provide, and I'm sorry that we seem not to have been giving the "right" answers. Fundamentally we are who we say we are, a fairly small team of people, working very, very hard to build a proper brand that stands for something and offers good value. I know we're not perfect, but we're honest, are moving in the right direction with everything we do and, and on the whole, deliver what we say we will.

[Fonefixer]

Hi Paul,

Thank you for your response.

I fully appreciate your comments, and am sincerely trying to understand where you are "coming from" so to speak.

Please accept my sincere apologies if it seems I personally have offended you in any way, that was not my intention. However, my managent style is quite rare in that I ask blunt questions and expect blunt, no nonsense answers. I do not believe in "KPI's", "targets" or similar phrases, I just want the job done properly, first time. If someone has messed up, I expect them to admit it and deal with the matter very quickly... if they dont they would not be working for me for very long. This simple ethos is what has got me where I am today.

As to the matter of the Scroll series, I am honestly impressed with the sales you have achieved but I am fearful of the apparent lack of after-sales ability with these tablets. As I said to you before, I received a similar response from another forum member who works for a competitor of yours - they couldnt tell us anything. To be frank, this situation is scary to say the least, as SO would not appear to be the only company in this situation.

I would respectfully suggest that it would be in the interest of your company to invest as much time, if not more in supporting your products as selling them. Keeping customers happy means they will return to the brand again and again. Getting customers is hard enough... keeping them is an entirely different ball game.

One last comment I feel it is prudent to make in this case. The dreaded Android Market issue. I realise mistakes were made with the original Scroll series, but this issue has raised its head time and time again....Could you not say to your suppliers "No working licensed market, no deal"? I know I certainly would. There are already whispers via EBuyer of the latest Scroll tablet having no market support. What would actually be the cost difference in retail terms?

[StorageOptions]

Hi Paul,

Thank you for your response.

I fully appreciate your comments, and am sincerely trying to understand where you are "coming from" so to speak.

Please accept my sincere apologies if it seems I personally have offended you in any way, that was not my intention. However, my managent style is quite rare in that I ask blunt questions and expect blunt, no nonsense answers. I do not believe in "KPI's", "targets" or similar phrases, I just want the job done properly, first time. If someone has messed up, I expect them to admit it and deal with the matter very quickly... if they dont they would not be working for me for very long. This simple ethos is what has got me where I am today.

As to the matter of the Scroll series, I am honestly impressed with the sales you have achieved but I am fearful of the apparent lack of after-sales ability with these tablets. As I said to you before, I received a similar response from another forum member who works for a competitor of yours - they couldnt tell us anything. To be frank, this situation is scary to say the least, as SO would not appear to be the only company in this situation.

I would respectfully suggest that it would be in the interest of your company to invest as much time, if not more in supporting your products as selling them. Keeping customers happy means they will return to the brand again and again. Getting customers is hard enough... keeping them is an entirely different ball game.

One last comment I feel it is prudent to make in this case. The dreaded Android Market issue. I realise mistakes were made with the original Scroll series, but this issue has raised its head time and time again....Could you not say to your suppliers "No working licensed market, no deal"? I know I certainly would. There are already whispers via EBuyer of the latest Scroll tablet having no market support. What would actually be the cost difference in retail terms?

Don't worry I don;t take offence and am a fan of straight taking myself - I'm from Yorkshire where we call a spade a shovel.

I agree with you entirely on the points about service and support - we have the same conversations here nearly everyday. That is what we are about. Our thing. And I mean I director level in a "we need to spend this amount of money on improving our service" type way - not in a bullshit, just for face way. We are doing it, the team is growing, we are looking for more people, we're making better product decisions, pushing our suppliers harder. Look where we were a year ago and where we are now... On simple returns rate % stat alone we're way ahead of where we were.

In simple terms we're investing our money in this area rather than advertising. If we can't control expectation better than we will damage he brand in the long run, so in effect it is our marketing. Does that make sense.

These things take time but I hope you have seen some tangible improvements in everything we've done over time?

Marketplace isn't on the Extreme. If was as simple as signing a cheque we would do it. I'd rather sell it for £219 with market but I honestly don't know how we will get to join this club. The feedback from my contacts is that it's unlikely... Maybe we'd need to be global first...

[Fonefixer]

You are right, it must be a Yorkshire thing. My Father was born and raised in Sheffield (Handsworth) he was the MD of a global flooring company for over 35 years.... same approach to management that I have taken ( I have a lot of his traits -ie a spade is something I will belt you with if you f*** up!)

Shame about the Market, I have contacted the R&D departments of various mobile manufacturers on this but cant get to the bottom of it. I will keep trying to find thew answer.

I shall now go back to repairing a few handsets on the shop floor.....anyone want a screen changed? its nice to have a day "on the tools" again... and shows the engineers I care about them

[Mitre]

We're not releasing the firmware (is that what you're referring to specifically?) because it's not a clever idea for us all things considered. If other "brands" release it or a similar thing then that's up to them, let them handle the consequences (I hope their support team has a strong stomach and the support website is up to scratch, if they have one...). It is entirely wrong to assume that it is the *same* firmware of course... Our build of Android is ours not someone elses, even if a tablet looks the same.

I can understand your reasons for not releasing a firmware update and the problems it could cause for yourselves by people flashing it Wrong But thats why we are here to fix those problems. I see on your twitter page people are already regretting getting a 2.3 device if it was upgradable to 4.x you would eradicate these negatives and wont end up with a warehouse full of old tech

I cant understand your Blatant disregaurd for Googles rules and not releasing the Kernel source code for your own Storage Options version of Android Why do you expect Google to entertain your wish for acceptance and a working licensed Market When you break their rules on open GPL and wont relase the Kernel for your version of Android, i have asked for this on several occasions and had an email from SO telling me you would get it to me(that was last year). As you have decided to break Google's rules and not release code it makes it impossible for Development work to be done on your Open Source Device i may has well have a Locked down ipad

You have some really fantastic devices in your inventory but you really need to start backing up your brand or you will stat losing out to windows8 devices all android users are a bit geeky and like to fiddle with their phones and tweak them throw them the buiscuit they are craving