"> I'm not ready to jump onboard with Core3 graphics at this point. I've
heard all the arguments pro and con, and it looks a little too bleeding
edge for what we're doing right now. That's fine with me. We stay a few
firmware revisions behind what Crestron considers "stable" as well. I'd
rather deal with known "known issues" than unknown "known issues". What's
not fine with me is Crestron discontinuing "Core2" panels and pushing
everything to be Core3 only. You have something that works, you need to
keep supporting it (both in engineering AND with marketing AND tech
support) until there's a viable replacement for it. Beta-testing stuff is
great, and it needs to happen, but not involuntarily."
BINGO! That is my number one complaint. If the new something is not as stable, doesn't have as many development tools available, and is still "in the works" with fixing major active bugs, then WHY on earth would the older models be phased out so fast??? If the older panels were still around, you probably wouldn't hear half of us bitching so loud.
At least we would have the option to use the old stuff that just works. I've seen way too many legacy panels get discontinued with the only similar replacements being Core3 only. That is not good. Most of the dealers I've worked with have been trying to stick with the legacy stuff for as long as possible for the same reasons when engineering systems, but when all the legacy's are gone, you're stuck with Core3. And I do mean "stuck", because if something doesn't work, there is no alternative but to put more of our time, resources, and ultimately money into resolving the problems that shouldn't be there in the first place. Hard to break even on a project when there is a big "?" hanging over the hardware being used.
A better and longer "transitional" period should have been developed and slowly rolled out, keeping the legacy hardware around a lot longer. Maybe even providing more touchpanels that support both (like the TPMC-9) would have been a good idea (even though the TPMC9 has it's own problems) I'm only referring to the option of doing a legacy design or Core3 design on the same panel depending on what you preferred would have been nice. It would have been an incremental step, that would have allowed Core3 to be used when needed, or legacy to be used when needed.
Some of the Core3 bugs could have been worked out, and the programmers that didn't want to loose money on a project or be guinea pigs could have stayed with the "tried-and-true" way of doing it for longer.
It reminds me of how Microsoft brought out Windows8, which >50% of the users didn't like, or had major complaints about, and then promptly stopped all sales of Win7 in an effort to force everyone into the new platform, earlier than people were willing and ready to make the move.
