Promises

Then someone from a company stood up and said he had discussed the shipment of a number of Omegas with David Atkins himself, and he had mentioned a shipping date that would meet his company's needs at an appropriate time. The shipping date exceeded the time mentioned by DA and caused a range of problems for the company involved. He then stated that no company, no matter how limited its scale, (his was a small company as well), could afford to give a date and not deliver the product as expected without damaging themselves. DA agreed that he had spoken to the potential customer in a phone call and had given information to the best of his abilities to mark a date of shipping and that they surely expected to deliver those Omega on time (small delays for delivering parts were taken into account then). But as a small company they couldn't force big companies to deliver on time. And as a result the ordered items exceeded the normal delivery dates and after much phone calls they got finally their parts. As one might expect, this delayed the date of delivery. The person who held MD responsible for the delays then argued that they should have mentioned that the delivering dates weren't for sure. Even a small company couldn't be excused for these kind of delays. DA said in return that they had to built the computer from scratch with nothing at all on the table and they were very dependent on third parties to deliver on time and with the right parts, but unfortunately they didn't seem to care. And when he gave any delivery dates it was to the best with his ability. One should take into consideration that the product was still in development and not a finished one, which meant there was always uncertainty involved. And if anyone had doubts that potential problems could delay the delivery dates of the computers ordered, then they should have looked to an alternative as well, because the dates stated were only if third parties managed to deliver in time.
 
These were the facts said DA, and should MD be held responsible for it? They would like to force the companies to deliver in time but they are too small to put big companies under pressure to get their parts in time. The company manager in the audience did not seem pleased with the answer at all and the discussion went on for a while, with the arguments repeating and other people in the audience joining in. DA could not continue his talk due to people who just wouldn't let go on the issue of promises. So another man, in an attempt to finally put this issue to an end, tried to summarise the expectations of former speakers that it was not so much the dates, but never give people false expectations about delivering dates if they aren't absolutely certain. DA reacted that in the past development was scheduled and expectations were based upon these, but much went wrong and dates had to be corrected over and over again. They have learnt from this, and made sure that the Alpha was not pre-announced. They had chosen to show it working at the Wakefield show. So they had now taken the approach not to pre-announce any development but rather wait and present a working product. The argument of promises and missed shipping dates continued for a while but by this time the main points seemed clear.
 
Then the technician who had spoken earlier said that he would like to hear some news over developments for the time ahead. He could not be understood at first, so he was asked to come forward to make his point clear. When everyone understood him, most people showed their approval as everyone liked to hear about new developments and hear from the inside about the different issues involved.