Vapourware....the pros & cons

[Torr Giffard LSWR 1951-71]

Mornin' all,

 

Given the currently high number of 'announced' models, many of which are unlikely to ever see the light of day, whilst others are so far down the 'pecking order' that they're not worth considering...is it time to look at just who benefits from such announcements, who consistently makes such 'announcements' with little or nothing to suggest credibility and whether the modelling fraternity should be collectively suggesting that such manufacturers come back once they are sufficiently advanced in a project to give a firm date for such models to appear. Equally, should we be recognising manufacturers, who with little ceremony or fanfare, produce excellent models....which speak for themselves?

 

Dave   

[RhBBob]

Perhaps not quite the same but in the same area is the firm in Austria which does 'small-series' runs of both 'H0m' and '0m' locos for various parts of continental Europe..

 

My order was placed in 2011 and I paid, as instructed, back in February this year for despatch in 'mid-March'........

 

Hmmm.....

[woodenhead]

I can only think of one company who would fit the bill of making vapourware seeing as it made some great promises a couple of years or more ago about a lot of products many of which have since been dropped or pushed so far back that the units may be going out of service before we see one.

 

Another start up has announced a list of items but did say that the later models were all subject to selling the first lot as the the cash to produce the next model was based on sales of the first so I don't think that counts as vapour, it's more about an honest appraisal of when things might appear.  Hopefully a growing list of commissioned work will help to generate additional cash which might bring some of these models to market earlier.

 

Then you have a couple of big players who have been plagued with supply problems and are hopefully over that now and getting on with business, it certainly impacted one of them more than the other.

[Bernard Lamb]

Firstly I do not think that the title of this thread has any thing to do with the current model railway situation.

I take vapourware to be a method used by traders to con people into paying for non existing and never to exist products.

That is clearly not the case with the people we are dealing with here.

They are all, as far as I have come across, outfits with a long and respected standing in the model trade.

I find it exiting that so many people see a future for the hobby and are willing to put their cash in to to back that view.

There will be failures. There are in all walks of life but in general I see things as being very positive.

They get my vote for being open about their aims.

Bernard

[PaulRhB]

At the end of the day until you see production samples you don't even need to risk parting with cash, plus if you do it through a big shop they don't take money until it's shipping so no risk there. What it does do though is tell the manufacturer they can sell X amount so they are more likely to produce rather than drop it.

So you lose nothing financially, as we've seen it doesn't stop competing models and it may well make a 'never going to sell' model like the Blue Pullman actually appear.

They only downside expectation due to promised dates slipping, usually due to contracted companies moving schedules to suit bigger customers.

DJM is obviously hinted at but SEEMS, (I have no actual idea of how he has set up), to effectively be Dave as production manager with all actual development of the physical model contracted to the company abroad. So Dave and his clients specify and approve each stage using an existing design dept. It's really no different to how a lot of companies work although a few still retain the design office in the UK. The only difference I see is that shops are putting up the capital rather than the actual company budget. With his own models DJM has stated the first will pay for development of the next etc. Taking on all these additional contracts will convince his Chinese factories that he's a bigger customer who can provide a regular income. The big cull by the Chinese of small customers a couple of years back caused a lot of very small US producers to lose production facilities as they were only doing 1-2 models a year.

DJM is widely acknowledged as developing the Beattie and there are physical models of the O2 and J94 so I'd not want to stand still while that vapour was flying towards me

[pete_mcfarlane]

Firstly I do not think that the title of this thread has any thing to do with the current model railway situation.

I take vapourware to be a method used by traders to con people into paying for non existing and never to exist products.

It's a computing term that's used to describe products that are announced with much fanfare well before they are ready for release. So very appropriate for what's happening at the moment in the OO RTR market.

[jonny777]

I like the idea of items being announced well before release. It helps me plan my budget well ahead, and I can pre-order items in the (hopeful) knowledge that barring accidents or incompetence, I will get the chance to purchase said items without any further hassle.

 

I would hate it if Heljan had kept quiet about the Garratt or the O2s, and suddenly produced their production batch out of the blue at Warley, or some other event; which would have resulted in a frantic scrum and hours of phoning round retailers to see if they had any in stock.

 

Yes, vapourware is a change in the way model railways have operated in recent decades, but sometimes change happens for the best in the long run, and we have to live with it.

[Revolution Mike]

I don't know if things are vapourware (things which are announced but never appear or take forever to appear) - I guess time will tell - but I don't think that the outcome will be pretty.

 

Either everything goes ahead in which case someone suffers financially (as I just don't see the market being large enough for the amount of duplication being proposed) and ultimately goes out of business = more competition initially, but less competition in the longer term.

 

Or firms start to drop proposed models, potentially having already spent some time and money on development which may not be as disastrous (financially) but is far from ideal.

 

I don't know what the solution is but I can't see the overall outcome being particularly positive.  It is clear the distinction between manufacturer / commissioner / retailer is all being blurred.

 

Cheers, Mike

[billbedford]

Vapourware, morphic resonance or Chinese whispers?

 

Consider:

1. Only Hornby, out of the majors, has been involved with the 'duplications'
2. It has been known in the trade that Hornby has made the decision to concentrate on 'Railroad' quality models
3. The old Sanda Kan factory has closed down displacing many Chinese workers, some of who are reported to have started up their own factories

[The Stationmaster]

I think we have to get used to very long lead times compared with what we used to get - once upon a time new models (the very few which we got) were announced at the Toy Fair, ordered there by wholesalers and retailers and were in the shops for Christmas, that was how the toy trade worked. 'Commissioned models' either came from the likes of Bassett Loke and cost a small fortune or their equivalent from retailers were things like the Gnat saddle tank from Hamblings which remained unaltered in their catalogue for years.  meanwhile other manufacturers, in various scales came & went, sometimes returned, and then went again.

 

Shifting manufacture to China plus the years of the 4mm r-t-r market demanding products on a par with those offered in the continental European market changed all that.  And it has continued to change - as we grew more affluent and the variety of  (comparatively) cheaply developed new models at bargain prices grew so we began to demand ever more variety.  The market wanted more & more, the manufacturers responded, the commissioners saw opportunity and the consumer lavished its purchasing power on them.  And just to add to that heady mixture the consumer became fixated on 'new', the 'give us another one next month/year' situation we now have.

 

The two big manufacturers, and some commissioners, work to longer-term plans but the situation has developed where they have to go in for early (in comparison with 'the old days') announcements to make sure their stake is firmly planted before someone else brings something out and wastes their research work or 'steals' their market.  Because of those sort of changes coming home to roost - and the pool of 'wants' shrinking - we are now seeing even more of that, and its resultant duplication.  

 

And of course once the stake has been planted 'we' (or some of 'us') expect the whatever it is to be delivered next week if not the week before - some folk really want the impossible, before they even bother to read about labour difficulties or rising costs in China or allowing for problems in researching something which vanished from our rails more than 50 years ago (or even finding drawings for something built only 50 years back but whose manufacturer has passed through the hands of six owners since then or was part of BR which no longer exists but prior to vanishing was reorganised every year for a decade).

 

On a slightly different tack in some cases it can be relatively easy to predict who might have a future intention for what - it only needs a bit of thought and watching trends and the way a manufacturer /commissioner 'thinks' to have a fair idea of where they might go next.  If their competitors thought about and - dare I say it - respected that then there might be less duplication.  But if you are wishlist-skimming (as I call it) that's about the last thing you're likely to do.  And if their programme/products are suffering delay you might well just step-in as a competitor.

 

So we get 'stake in the ground' announcements - some might call them vapourware and I suppose they could well actually be in that category if the manufacturer who announced them never mentions them again apart from putting them in a catalogue or advert.  But perhaps they're not vapourware if said manufacturer/commissioner tells us about progress or the reasons for lack of it? 

[PaulRhB]

 

Consider:Only Hornby, out of the majors, has been involved with the 'duplications'

 

 

Not quite Bill, Bachman almost with the BP though they were well ahead of Heljan, plus the 10000 twins

[Fenman]

... Only Hornby, out of the majors, has been involved with the 'duplications' ...

 

 

Er... 4MT? 9F?

 

Didn't Bachmann "duplicate" Hornby when it first introduced its range of Mk1s?

 

Paul 

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

...Given the currently high number of 'announced' models, many of which are unlikely to ever see the light of day, whilst others are so far down the 'pecking order' that they're not worth considering....should we be recognising manufacturers, who with little ceremony or fanfare, produce excellent models, which speak for themselves?   

Good proposal. The only way to do this consistently right is with performance data. I would suggest the mean time between an 'all new' announcement and its first release over the year in which the releases occur, and volume of said 'all-new' releases per year, as the key metrics. (I'd like an objective evaluation of quality too, but got zero interest when proposing such schemes in the past, so sadly that metric probably won't fly.) With data of this sort, a new entrant is not penalised unjustly for as yet having nothing to show, they get a grace period equivalent to some defined point, perhaps until they fall into the bottom decile of current established manufacturer performance, at which point the 'vapourware' tag might justly be applied. Given the delays from Dapol, it'll be quite a grace period...

 

Er... 4MT? 9F?

 

Didn't Bachmann "duplicate" Hornby when it first introduced its range of Mk1s?

There's duplication, and then there's improvement of choice, usually differentiated by quality. Bach's 'Blue Riband' mk1s and wagons may have been of many of the same subjects as in Hornby's range, but they were much superior; a good enough model that I would purchase, unlike the Hornby pastiche which I wouldn't touch. Bach's 08 is probably the clearest 'choice expander', from the piece of misbegot tat in Hornby's range from the previous millenium, to a decent model.

 

On the same grounds I wouldn't count Hornby's B1 as a duplication, a significantly better product than the OK but dated Bachmann. (If Hornby care to crank out a V2 to the quality of their B1, that wouldn't be duplication either.) Neither are their ex-Lima diesels duplications, these are lower cost choice expanders.

 

In general it is an indicator of the strength of a market if it offers a range of choice from cheap but a rough old dog, to expensive with a real pedigree.

[billbedford]

Not quite Bill, Bachman almost with the BP though they were well ahead of Heljan, plus the 10000 twins

 

BP?

 

Sure, the majors have always had their share of duplicates, mainly because they read the same tea leaves. But isn't it unprecedented that one of the majors be in the position of duplicating three different models announced by what are essentially start-up manufacturers? To have one duplicate maybe unfortunate, two duplicates may indicate carelessness but three looks like collusion.

[D9020 Nimbus]

Two of the duplicates are however commissioned models. Surely part of the reason for the duplication is that commissioners are going for more well-known models—the Hattons 'King' (and almost certainly the 14xx too). It would be very surprising if the 14xx wasn't duplicated by someone soon, and the same almost certainly applies to the 117 etc Kernow are proposing.

 

Hornby clearly will have a larger market than any commissioner will—their products are sold in a wider range of outlets. If a commissioner goes for a fairly well-known prototype it's really a gamble that some other manufacturer won't produce the same thing earlier (Hornby tend to announce closer to release than most—often at the E.P. stage).

[lapford34102]

In the computer industry, vaporware (or vapourware, see spelling differences) is a product, typically computer hardware or software, that is announced to the general public but is never actually manufactured nor officially cancelled.

Vaporware is often announced months or years before its purported release, with development details lacking. Usage of the word has broadened to products such as automobiles. At times, vendors are criticized for intentionally producing vaporware in order to keep customers from switching to competitive products that offer more features

From Wikipedia
 

And of course once the stake has been planted 'we' (or some of 'us') expect the whatever it is to be delivered next week if not the week before - some folk really want the impossible, before they even bother to read about labour difficulties or rising costs in China .....

I think most simply want a realistic idea of when something is due to appear, there's a certain amount of open-endedness at the moment that frustrates people, it certainly does me. 
 

or allowing for problems in researching something which vanished from our rails more than 50 years ago (or even finding drawings for something built only 50 years back but whose manufacturer has passed through the hands of six owners since then or was part of BR which no longer exists but prior to vanishing was reorganised every year for a decade).

 

What's the point of announcing you are going to do a class XYZ then finding no drawings exist, or the preservation society who have one want silly money for you to have a look at it or a Rail company refuses to let you reproduce it's puce and pink livery.

 

Stu

[Neil]

I think we have to get used to very long lead times compared with what we used to get - once upon a time new models (the very few which we got) were announced at the Toy Fair, ordered there by wholesalers and retailers and were in the shops for Christmas, that was how the toy trade worked. '.......

 

I'd agree that this seems to be the state of play for now and the foreseeable future as far as 4mm scale standard gauge stuff is concerned. However over in the narrow gauge world Minitrains seem to have no trouble in maintaining an old skool approach to announcement followed shortly by product. Now either like the proverbial swan there's much activity and action we don't see or they have managed to streamline the development and production process to an enviable degree. Either way it's rather refreshing.

[PaulRhB]

BP?

.

Sorry, Blue Pullman.

 

I only raised it due to the Hornby reference in your post I agree though that pressing on with several models announced is worse for the small shops than Hornby.

[The Stationmaster]

 

I think most simply want a realistic idea of when something is due to appear, there's a certain amount of open-endedness at the moment that frustrates people, it certainly does me. 

 

 

What's the point of announcing you are going to do a class XYZ then finding no drawings exist, or the preservation society who have one want silly money for you to have a look at it or a Rail company refuses to let you reproduce it's puce and pink livery.

 

Stu

Yes, I think we would all like a realistic idea of when something will appear - but I wonder if any single manufacturer/commissioner can actually give us one prior to final EP/decorated sample stage? (and even then things can go adrift because some minor change or livery error needs to be corrected and a production slot is lost).

 

As far as announcing and then finding no drawing etc it is always going to be an awkward business.  In reality it is probably possible to get hold of drawings of some sort of most things - so work starts, an announcement is made, and then it comes to light that some of the detail you've taken from a couple of drawings you assumed to be independent (and therefore 'more reliable') is actually wrong and that drawing B was copied from drawing A perpetuating the error but giving the impression that it was separate research.  Very easy to kick things off on a firm footing and for it to give way underneath you I suspect.

 

Far worse of course to not do anything at all and still carry on listing teh whatever in your catalogue while not admitting that you haven't done anything.

[edcayton]

At the end of the day until you see production samples you don't even need to risk parting with cash, plus if you do it through a big shop they don't take money until it's shipping so no risk there. What it does do though is tell the manufacturer they can sell X amount so they are more likely to produce rather than drop it.

So you lose nothing financially, as we've seen it doesn't stop competing models and it may well make a 'never going to sell' model like the Blue Pullman actually appear.

They only downside expectation due to promised dates slipping, usually due to contracted companies moving schedules to suit bigger customers.

DJM is obviously hinted at but SEEMS, (I have no actual idea of how he has set up), to effectively be Dave as production manager with all actual development of the physical model contracted to the company abroad. So Dave and his clients specify and approve each stage using an existing design dept. It's really no different to how a lot of companies work although a few still retain the design office in the UK. The only difference I see is that shops are putting up the capital rather than the actual company budget. With his own models DJM has stated the first will pay for development of the next etc. Taking on all these additional contracts will convince his Chinese factories that he's a bigger customer who can provide a regular income. The big cull by the Chinese of small customers a couple of years back caused a lot of very small US producers to lose production facilities as they were only doing 1-2 models a year.

DJM is widely acknowledged as developing the Beattie and there are physical models of the O2 and J94 so I'd not want to stand still while that vapour was flying towards me

 

I thought that some of the announcements did require the punter to put some money up front.  Presumably that money will be spent on tooling etc, so if you see the production sample and decide you want out, where is the money coming from?

 

Ed

[lapford34102]

Mike (Stationmaster), I appreciate what you were saying in Post #19 but this is the sort of thing that frustrates me. There are other examples but picked because it was something I'm interested in, it was posted on here Dec 2012.

Stu

 

Due to the ongoing delay in the class 21/29 model in OO gauge, we have a slot in production for the 3rd quarter of 2013 that allows us to move up a model to fill the gap that would otherwise have been in the 2014 catalogue list of releases.
Dapol are please to announce the following OO gauge models.
Pressed Steel class 121 and Gloucester R.C.&W. Class 122 (Bubble Car)

[Oldddudders]

Mike (Stationmaster), I appreciate what you were saying in Post #19 but this is the sort of thing that frustrates me. There are other examples but picked because it was something I'm interested in, it was posted on here Dec 2012.

Stu

 

 

Remind me - when did Dave Jones leave Dapol?

[PaulRhB]

I thought that some of the announcements did require the punter to put some money up front. Presumably that money will be spent on tooling etc, so if you see the production sample and decide you want out, where is the money coming from?

 

Ed

Ed, the kickstarter ones do in a way but as I understand it the money is with a third party, not the producer, which would allow the manufacturer to take out a loan knowing the money was there when the product is ready. In that case you are also protected because the third party returns the money if it's not produced as we saw with the pendilinos. I'm not sure where the cut off point is as it may depend on the initial contract whether some is released for tooling.

As to seeing the final product and feeling it's not what you paid for there is the normal trading standards route to get money back from the manufacturer if it doesn't fulfil the contract. If you don't have that level of confidence then you shouldn't put the money up for the cheaper initial batch but wait to see if it is what you want and pay the higher price of normal production rather than the near at cost of a kickstarter. Kernow have sort of done this but taken the risk themselves financially but honoured the slightly cheaper pre order price quoted to use it as a way to establish the market for their own peace of mind. For that reason the discount isn't anywhere near as much as a full kickstarter type scheme.

[Horsetan]

Remind me - when did Dave Jones leave Dapol?

Not long after the "Western" was released.

[Torr Giffard LSWR 1951-71]

I think we have to get used to very long lead times compared with what we used to get - once upon a time new models (the very few which we got) were announced at the Toy Fair, ordered there by wholesalers and retailers and were in the shops for Christmas, that was how the toy trade worked. 'Commissioned models' either came from the likes of Bassett Loke and cost a small fortune or their equivalent from retailers were things like the Gnat saddle tank from Hamblings which remained unaltered in their catalogue for years.  meanwhile other manufacturers, in various scales came & went, sometimes returned, and then went again.

 

Shifting manufacture to China plus the years of the 4mm r-t-r market demanding products on a par with those offered in the continental European market changed all that.  And it has continued to change - as we grew more affluent and the variety of  (comparatively) cheaply developed new models at bargain prices grew so we began to demand ever more variety.  The market wanted more & more, the manufacturers responded, the commissioners saw opportunity and the consumer lavished its purchasing power on them.  And just to add to that heady mixture the consumer became fixated on 'new', the 'give us another one next month/year' situation we now have.

 

The two big manufacturers, and some commissioners, work to longer-term plans but the situation has developed where they have to go in for early (in comparison with 'the old days') announcements to make sure their stake is firmly planted before someone else brings something out and wastes their research work or 'steals' their market.  Because of those sort of changes coming home to roost - and the pool of 'wants' shrinking - we are now seeing even more of that, and its resultant duplication.  

 

And of course once the stake has been planted 'we' (or some of 'us') expect the whatever it is to be delivered next week if not the week before - some folk really want the impossible, before they even bother to read about labour difficulties or rising costs in China or allowing for problems in researching something which vanished from our rails more than 50 years ago (or even finding drawings for something built only 50 years back but whose manufacturer has passed through the hands of six owners since then or was part of BR which no longer exists but prior to vanishing was reorganised every year for a decade).

 

On a slightly different tack in some cases it can be relatively easy to predict who might have a future intention for what - it only needs a bit of thought and watching trends and the way a manufacturer /commissioner 'thinks' to have a fair idea of where they might go next.  If their competitors thought about and - dare I say it - respected that then there might be less duplication.  But if you are wishlist-skimming (as I call it) that's about the last thing you're likely to do.  And if their programme/products are suffering delay you might well just step-in as a competitor.

 

So we get 'stake in the ground' announcements - some might call them vapourware and I suppose they could well actually be in that category if the manufacturer who announced them never mentions them again apart from putting them in a catalogue or advert.  But perhaps they're not vapourware if said manufacturer/commissioner tells us about progress or the reasons for lack of it? 

 

Hi Mike,

 

I concur most with your observation re competitors hijacking a prospective manufacturers project when the "stake in the ground" announcement is made very early. I just can't see the point in such a strategy.

 

Dave