Opinions on Nobeltec VNS ?

[Nobeltec]

Mark, I can completely appreciate your passion concerning your situation. Trust me when I say I whole-heartedly agree with you and that nobody remaining working at Nobeltec had anything to do with that decision. In fact key people almost lost their jobs over this fiasco for arguing against it. That was solely a business decision made by our previous owner, and one that did not go over well with those of us passionate about our products. We understand that this is a huge black eye for us, even if Nobeltec wasn't the ones calling the shots at the time, and one that we know we will be living with for a long time to come. We will not be moving backward, only forward, and I hope you end up being as excited about what's coming up, now that we have support from some amazing new ownership, as I am.

BTW, I checked out your web site. Thanks for sharing that, you have some amazing pictures that actually helped me get through my day in an office under dark grey clouds.

[sallylillian]

The decision making process described by many here seems to relate to the primary concern being the software itself. My thought processes start with... which cartography!! Then which software. C-Map for me have been the kings of liesure boating charting since day one when I had my first CF85 chart cartridge. So with this in mind it eliminates several interesting players, Rosepoint for one.

I purchased my first copy of Nobeltec Admiral V10 in summer 2009. This was a test copy as I was considering completly eliminating conventional MFD's (at that time Raymarine) and switching to ALL pc. I hooked up my laptop and found that I enjoyed using Nobeltec, it was faster and more feature rich than the Raymarine gear I had so I bit the bullet in winter 2009/2010, completely ripped out all the previous "standard" marine electronics save my trusty Simrad AP20.

The season of 2010 was brilliant, the solution worked well and any hiccups were with the "marine" transducers etc on the N2K backbone. Admiral is a great package, ethernet radar, superb port management, great screen presentation and tools. Sure one can identify improvements and wish fors but overall a good buy. Now with 11 released, bingo the prime benifit of PC based solutions, a small cost and you have the latest software, not throw out a $5000 MFD and get a new one!

Support has been testing at times, dealers seem to no nothing and thats being generous, and it does appear that Nobeltec have been struggling to deal with a lot of crap internally. But I have found Joel to be responsive and helpful, and honest, by telling it the way it is, without him I might not have continued with the product. Its another story about the CEO however, Bill washburn, I do not think he cares a jot about the punters who buy his product, he certainly cannot even respond to simple polite emails with even a short acknowledgement, even through a PA! But staff come and.... they go!

I think if you look at all the packages, one could make a brilliant solution, by selecting bits of all of them, and this in itself makes life difficult, one company may create the ideal way of handling and presenting something, a competitor cannot copy so they do it another way; then we all say well this is not as good.

[Nobeltec]

Originally Posted by sallylillian

But I have found Joel to be responsive and helpful, and honest, by telling it the way it is, without him I might not have continued with the product. Its another story about the CEO however, Bill washburn, I do not think he cares a jot about the punters who buy his product

Just a quick diversion if I may. Bill is arguably the busiest person at Nobeltec these days. While we appreciated the chuckle over the promotion you gave him (he's not the CEO, more of a General Manager) I don't see any way Nobeltec (after the sale to Signet SA) would still be in business without him honestly. NONE of us want his job and he has more on his plate than I think any of us even internally know about. Please don't take it personally that he didn't get back to you.

We put a lot of stock in our Dealer network, so it bothers all of us to hear that you haven't had a good experience with the ones you've dealt with. I know that we have worked hard over the past year plus domestically (US) to reach out to our Dealers to make sure they have everything they need to successfully sell and promote Nobeltec products. I also know now that there is a large campaign underway to make sure that Dealers outside the US have the same information. If you find that one of our Dealers isn't able to service you adequately, please let us know so that we can contact that Dealer and get them what they need. We want our Customers to have great relationships with their local dealers because of the fact that they are local and can help with issues in person, which is always easier than over the phone or via email.

[sallylillian]

Thanks, I did get the message that he was so busy taking money from other punters that he could afford to ignore even the most common expectation in polite company; Ho Hum!

What are the plans for Admiral 11, will you be developing the N2K connectivity to take more PGN's like engine data and using the PC to give some simple (for Windows) analysis and presentation. Like MPG, average economy on a given route against both through the water and over the water. A more sophisticated log with engine data and trip data, perhaps exportable to Excel.

Who said support was an easy job!