In the latest Home Power magazine (#92, Dec 2002/Jan 2003 pg131) Greg Brown, President & COO at Xantrex responded to the article in HP89 "UL vs. Xantrex - The aftermath." In that letter, he says:

"... We inherited these issues from a predecessor company, issues that were created by engineers who no longer work at Xantrex. ..."

Clearly, blame is being placed entirely on the prior company & their engineers.

I tend to take these statements with a grain of salt & I know lots of other factors outside of engineering can lead to issues with released product (e.g. sales/marketing or "Exec level" management pressures to release).

While I don't want to start a "flame fest", you'd have to admit it makes you wonder (or maybe it's just me...) where these engineers are now and what is their take on this statement.

Do you think he was referring to engineers that are now at Outback? If so, is there any response to this? [img]images/smiles/icon_confused.gif[/img]

I don't want to go into this any deeper myself but will state that Greg Brown was not at Trace or Xantrex at the time ...

I, Robin and Greg are restricted from making any "disparaging" comments regarding our former employer by our severance agreement (even if what we say is the truth) - so look for a response by other former trace engineers not bound by this restriction.

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Yeah! The UL problem didn't even exist until well over a year after they FIRED the 2 main engineers that could have (and would have) fixed
the problems... All because the new regime didn't like them personally... Mainly because they spoke up about problems (as they always did)
that the new company was starting to make. They bought Trace long before there was a UL issue. Christopher hadn't worked for them for nearly
a half year before the UL issue came to a head. It seems to be convenient for them to lay blame on those who don't work there anymore. That's not new.

Those engineers had (and still do have) stock in that company and of course wanted the company to do well. But the new company wanted
to do things "their way" and close their minds and ears to those who knew the products and industry best. Even before it escalated into
the problem that it finally became, management wanted to try and fix it politically instead of fixing the design. It was too late then of course.
And, yes, the company put significant dollars at the problem... That answer was called the GTI, which added about 500 bucks to the final
system price when the fired engineers could have fixed the problem in less than 3 months or so and it would not have required a GTI
or any other additional hardware.

Bob Gudgel

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[ November 23, 2002: Message edited by: bob gudgel ]

Well I'll throw my hat into the ring ...

Xantrex did zero engineering on the SW series , or for any inverter for that matter. Xantrex was handed the productline as it was , as is on the date of the buyout

Most of Trace Engineering Label products Were designed by part of the current outback staff , I don't know the employee list at outback but my understanding was the SW crew is at outback. (Chris is Tim E at outback ?)

Having said that , the SW got slammed by the ever changing UL standards , it worked as designed and UL invented a new test that UL claimed it failed. This , isn't the fault of any engineer.

As For Xantrex , though the market may not see it this way , their deep pockets is what will be a godsend to current Trace Product Owners ... if you don't believe me how would like to own a Advance Energy inverter (GC-1000 or Multimode) ....


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Perhaps Greg didn't pay close attention in management class. "Everything is YOUR fault."

I'm not impressed by a president who doesn't take direct responsibility for his company's products. This quote explains a lot about the recent track record of Xantrex.

Just the opinion of a Trace, now Xantrex, customer.

George

[ November 23, 2002: Message edited by: George Estep ]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Solar Guppy:

Chris is Tim E at outback ?

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No - Tim Economu (DR series and SunTie engineer) is not part of OutBack (nor is Brain Faley - the other engineer of the SunTie) but we are all on good terms and they are working on some other power conversion projects with other companies.

Thanks all for posting your own opinions - I would say more but its probably best I don't...

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[ November 24, 2002: Message edited by: Christopher Freitas ]

It seems that the "blame fest" at Xantrex isn't limited to the former engineering staff. At a recent "Dealer Training" here in Hawaii, A Xantrex VP (It was supposed to be the CEO, but he cancelled at the last minute) pretty much summed up ALL the problems the company was having as having been caused by "people-not-employed-by-Xantrex-any-longer" When asked about the 30-120+ day wait for spare SW parts the answer (surprise) was that the person running that department was no longer with the Co. NOT what the problem was (or the fix!!) If X wants to keep any kind of market share in this dynamic industry, they better take a page from the old "TRACE ENGINEERING"
playbook (remember them?) and put the CUSTOMER (remember us? we are the people who PAY YOUR SALARY!!!) FIRST!!!
Looking forward to Great things from some of those "Former Employees"
Tom