alt Hacker NewsWhere Siemens really shines, is in their fanatical devotion to after sales.
I rely on Siemens automation products at work. They give me end-of-life warnings a couple of years ahead - and maintain a spares inventory for a decade and change after EoL.
That basically ensures I am never caught out, and makes me more than happy to (grudgingly) accept all their ideosyncracies...
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I assume it makes you a loyal customer when upgrading/replacing equipment too... knowing what to expect and that you're going to have all of that support.
So many product companies fail to think about that -- they're all thinking about this quarter and very few take a long term approach and really try to have customers for life. They all say that want that of course, but too few are really committed to it. There are a few brands that I buy that are committed to quality, and they usually cost more (initially, but probably not in the long run). I'm fine paying more know that they really tried to do their best and didn't let nickels and dimes get in the way of an otherwise great concept.
Industrial automation as a market is like that. Those products are expected to be long lived and supported for decades because the machinery they are attached to often has a similarly long lifespan. A company I worked at was still supporting 20 to 30 products and in some cases building new hardware from 30 year old designs (including the exact same electronics).