On Sat, 2009-10-10 at 13:01 -0700, Vitaliy wrote:
> Herbert Graf wrote:
> >> This would eliminate 95%+ of the waste, while causing a minimum of
> >> inconvenience to the customers.
> >
> > Except of course for those whom samples may be most useful (to both the
> > person and to the company) for: hobbyists and students, neither of which
> > have "sales reps" or "FAEs" in their address books.
> 
> I was a student and a hobbyist not that long ago, and I hear what you're 
> saying, but let's be real: neither students nor hobbyists are a significant 
> revenue source for Microchip. 

Very true. But remember, samples have TWO purposes for many companies,
one of those being to get FUTURE customers used to your product so that
they choose your product when they become a big customer.

> As several people have attested, for engineers of big companies the problem 
> is not the cost of shipping that is the problem, but the hassle of 
> submitting a PO through their purchasing department. For students and 
> hobbyists, there is always Digikey or their local retailer.

As a student I simply used parts I could get free as samples and didn't
usually consider parts that I couldn't get samples for. To this day, I
tend to gravitate to manufacturers that gave me samples in the past,
simply because I am "used" to them (used to their website, their
datasheets, their product lines). Granted I do check the competition and
will choose those parts if there is a clear reason to. When there isn't
much of a diff, I go with the TI, Analog, National, Maxim or MChip
parts.

> I know that Microchip works closely with schools and unversities, providing 
> dev tools and micros. They sponsor contests (Circuit Cellar, etc) and give 
> away samples at the trade shows.
> 
> How about this alternative for students: have their accounts verified by 
> their professor, or ship the free samples only to university/college/high 
> school addresses?

Way too much work, on both the students part (much of my work during
school wasn't FOR school), the profs (trust me, they are not interested
in more work) and the companies (confirming a prof is a prof?). As a
student I would have considered a manu requiring this not worth my time
given their competition didn't have those requirements.

TTYL

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