They have learned that often the hobbiest interest can get design wins down the road. I did a simple test fixture desige several years ago that was a total of 2 PICs. 1 was used and the second was a spare. That opened the door to Data General for Microchip by getting them on the approved vendors list.
Larry
> 
> From: William "Chops" Westfield <westfw@mac.com>
> Date: 2005/12/28 Wed PM 10:48:48 EST
> To: "Microcontroller discussion list - Public." <piclist@mit.edu>
> Subject: Re: [PIC] ENC28J60 PIC firmware driver?
> 
> 
> On Dec 28, 2005, at 2:18 PM, Herbert Graf wrote:
> 
> > So, the issue is I don't feel right bothering a company under false
> > pretences. I don't feel it is right to consume a company's
> > representative for something that will NEVER produce any volume for the
> > company. Using their website? Fine. But calling them up for support, 
> > not
> > fine in my eyes.
> >
> You can try being honest and see if they'll help anyway.  Talking to a
> hobbyist whose project is interesting but not likely to generate much
> revenue is probably more productive than sitting in the office drinking
> coffee...  When I ordered samples from microchip a while back, I got an
> instant call from our (cisco's) rep asking what I was working on, and
> if I needed help, samples hand-carried over,  etc...  I carefully 
> explained
> that my interest in PICs was mostly as a hobbyist, and made sure I was
> understood, but the offers for help and hand-carried samples and so
> on remained offered...
> 
> BillW
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