BreakPoint
Value of Side-by-Side Comparisons?
Side-by-Side Comparison performed by a strongly biased party? I wouldn't give it a second glance at a booth.
@Jeff Bohrer wrote:
Caution- Off topic.
Did I miss an opportunity to meet you at the MN NITS?
As good of a story as ducking you there might have made, I was actually at the Santa Clara NITS since it was much closer to my house.
(I did get to meet Jim and Michael from JKI, very cool)
I went specifically to see this presentation and it was worth the drive. In other words, in this thread I am voting early and often for the more "one-sided" version over the "side-by-side".
Broken Arrow – I had to ask around where the horse was from and then was told that it is Mr Horse from Ren and stimpy. I was in India at the time and we only got Tom and Jerry :), so I missed the whole Ren and Stimpy era.
I completely understand where you are coming from. Being an engineer myself, the first tendency is to question a marketing demo specially when there are plenty of instances (such as advertisements in magazines) where it is blatantly clear that the party conducting the demo did not try to optimize the competitors instrument. In this case however, we expected a response from Agilent so we made sure we optimized the PXA as much as we could for the demo. We had plenty of r&d engineers (ex Agilent engineers even) look over the demo to make sure it was optimized, so it wasn’t just one marketing guy (me) who created the demo.
Personally to me, a number when compared to something else helps me understand the capability of the machine better. For example, my wife’s Honda Fit gives us 36 mpg compared to my Mazda that gives me 18 mpg , BUT my Mazda can hit 140 mph where as my Honda hits 90 mph max (not as much fun to drive, not that I break the speed limit all the time btw) Similarly, saying that the NI 5665 can do the same measurement in 30 ms whereas the Agilent PXA does it in 450 ms puts things in perspective.
Darin saw a watered down version of the demo, where I only verbally mentioned the advantages. The Agilent PXA is expensive to rent so I did not have it at NITS. 
. Darin, do you think having the Agilent box there would have had a better effect? Specially, if you could tinker with both instruments after I was done with the demo?
Jeff, I was not there at the MN NITS, this was the NITS at Santa Clara, CA. I think one of my coworkers talked about the NI 5665 at the MN NITS though.
I am also curious to hear about your thoughts on Agilent’s aggressive response? I don’t know if they have responded in such a manner before (even though other instrument vendors have done such comparisons before). It is clear that they were trying to muscle us out (at European Microwave week for example). Have you seen a response like this before?
I have no doubt you did a fantastic job setting up the comparison demo. Oh, and congrats on the RX-8!
This reminds me of a famous case (well, famous among audiophiles at the time) where Bob Carver set up an A/B comparison of his ~$700 audio amplifier against a $12,000 Conrad Johnson amplifier. Guess who won?
p.s. on a personal level, for the past eight years, I've picked the NI box every time
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@Raajit Lall wrote:
Jeff, I was not there at the MN NITS, this was the NITS at Santa Clara, CA. I think one of my coworkers talked about the NI 5665 at the MN NITS though.
I am also curious to hear about your thoughts on Agilent’s aggressive response? I don’t know if they have responded in such a manner before (even though other instrument vendors have done such comparisons before). It is clear that they were trying to muscle us out (at European Microwave week for example). Have you seen a response like this before?
Yes, the stripped down comparision was presented- I skipped the session in favor of another track. (Gotta maximize my investment and I already had an informed opinion on the material)
As to the agressivness of the Agilient response. I can only speak my own mind AND I did not witness it. The public discussion does seam very aggressive! I am surprised to find myself interested and delighted by the public exchange. This type of public debate seams healthy to me and I respect both Agilient and NI for standing behind their respective technological achievements. Does this surprise anyone else? If you are going to build it, stand behind it and in front of it. This goes right back to my first response- I don't like the side by side demo format. However, when one is presented BOTH companies SHOULD have the fortitude to defend their engineering decisions. I have never seen such an agressive response but, I am more impressed than offended by the courage to defend themselves that Agilient took with this action. I remember a demo by HP about a deep memory scope that could do "all my measurements for me" after pressing the magic button the representitve pulled a bait and switch by launching into an obviously rehearsed diatribe about just what highly complex processes were taking place- We coined the feature "Same day display" the rep blushed!
In this instance Agilient has a good product, and on paper it has defendable attributes (aside from the time for automated simple measurements)
In MY OPINION, and only mine, they should have been agressive defending their engineering and I congratulate them for doing so. It shows a commitment to providing solutions that many of your competitors have lacked. How about that? Agilient grew a pair? I can't see a negative for T&M in that at all.
