Can *we* (MURC) save Matrox?

[Pace]

<h1>Save Matrox!</h1><h2>What can we do?</h2><h3>1. Petition</h3>The petition idea has been suggested a few times, and I'm happy to host it. However, we need to finalise what we would petition for, and what to say. I drafted this in another thread. What do you think we should add/change?

Any thoughts on this:

<em>We, the undersigned, hereby declare that we feel very strongly about the apparant misdirections of Matrox Graphics. We would strongly encourage that Matrox consider the position of Dan Woods and the rest of the product decision making staff, as the issues listed below are not what we expect from Matrox Graphics, its products and its support. In fact, we expect rather the opposite.

The issues all concern the Matrox Parhelia series. While offering plenty for the enthusiast community, for a professional 'quality' product it is severly lacking, in those "professional" and, indeed, "quality" attributes.

<ul><li>Banding artifacts in 3D ^{<a href="#1">1</a>}</li>
<li>Faulty fragment antialiasing (FAA)</li>
<li>Faulty anisotropic filtering</li></ul><hr height="1" width="50%" align="left" />References:<ol><li><a name="1" /><a href="http://forums.murc.ws/showthread.php?s=&threadid=36666">Parhelia Image Problems</a> - MURC Forum Thread</li></ol></em>

Still checking for links to threads. Anyone want to suggest threads from the matrox.com forums, please do - just post them with what item(s) they refer to.<h3>2. Beyond a petition</h3>Email? Web coverage? Web articles? Let's see what we can do. The Parhelia would've been a perfect card for me without these niggles, and I would *LOVE* to get a Parhelia 2, but I'm not going to bother laying out on the Parhelia now.

Regards,

P.

[GT98]

Well there is so much more to blame Dan Woods for then what you have listed there....Hmm just a matter of where to start...How about the G450 and G500

[Pace]

Yeah, but they were relatively successful though, were they not? Just not what *we* wanted from them. Although I'm strongly thinking about getting a G550 now instead of a Parhelia.

[efty]

If we cannot save the MURC itself how are we supposed to save Matrox?

[Slougi]

Sounds good to me. =)

[Reckless]

Signing an online petition asking Matrox to oust certain individuals is not going to achieve anything.

Really, what is there to save? I feel Matrox is more about what is HAS done and not really what it is doing now or could do in the future. I (as many here) have had many many Matrox cards - for around 10 years - each one fitting the requirement at the time it was purchased. For many 'ordinary' consumers the Parhelia is simply overpriced and underpowered (for the price). The draw of Triplehead offsets the speed for some but these users measured as a few % of sales. Even TH is fairly naff as it's stretched desktop mode anyway

Saving Matrox is all about them having the right product for the right price. Not many will buy a product purely on brand name alone. It has to do with a good balance of features. The Parhelia will never do well with the consumer PC market - i.e. It can do the job adequately but nothing special considering where it's priced against any 'competition'. Consumers are now much more educated in what is available and possible for a budget. Those that are well informed will avoid it due to speed or other issues whilst those that are completely 'un-informed' will think it is simply too dear and opt for a Intel onboard video

I'd have bought a card on release if the price performance was GF4/4200 level but it wasn't and whilst drivers have improved slightly the other (more worrying) issues of actual quality: the overlay banding and bad FAA support will mean I'll never consider the P128.

The broken features must be fixed and the price must be dropped. People will then buy lots of 'em and maybe Matrox will actually increase market share? ATI, Trident, SIS, nVidia (in no particular order) are gunning for all markets with low and high cost solutions. It leaves little room for the gfx king of the 90's to exist as things stand.

Trying to make any company realise they screwed up (and are still doing it) is next to impossible. It takes a lot of openess, honesty, time, money and effort to put right the lack of investment, product strategy and planning that Matrox requires in order to rise from the brink.

I'd suggest instead of a "Matrox has gotta sack a load of people" petition, you aim for a "Matrox must hold some open talks with its users" one. Maybe (just maybe) if the Matrox top guys actually participate in say some IRC chatlog sessions - one a week for a month? - they might actually gauge what the real people think.

My 2pc worth and apologies if I rambled.

[Pace]

If it was a rambling it was much appreciated. Makes sense.

More opinions/suggestions?

[Chrono_Wanderer]

IMO matrox's greatest problem right now is the negative atmosphere and politics between each departments, or even workgroup. From that email vigilant has received, it seems to be that there are lots of politics going on even in the marketing department. I think the most important element for a company to succeed is to have every employee to be excited about their jobs, especially in the hardware sector where they have to have the creativity to make innovative things (the gfx business is an unstable, fast growing business because manufacteurs have to come up with innovations in a "semi-annual" timeframe, as oppose to businesses like making PCI Modems/sound cards). The employees of different departments gotta tie themselves together to make innovations to come true flawlessly. I mean look at nvidia... i bet the engineers and software developers there are more excited about their work than the matrox employees, thus there can be more office politics. This leads to the fact that M is cutting development budgets, cutting wages, and benefits... so it turns out to the be management's problem. i think this issue must be addressed before doing something else. IMO the finance and HR department are responsible for these issues... and also, certainly the marketing department because it seems they are STUPID enough to tell the engineers to make something useless to the market. the engineers there probably know more about what to make than those marketing people. and yes... Dan Wood has also some responsibilies too...

[KvHagedorn]

Imagine Fat Bastard is drowning. He has a grand piano tied around his corpulent middle, which he could easily release with but one pull of a rope's end. Instead of performing this simple task he prefers to flail about splashing everyone around him who is trying to help. This is Matrox.

Save Matrox? Let the rich losers at the top save the damned company. If they are too stubborn and foolish to do what is necessary, then Matrox will die. Nothing can be done about that. It's a privately held company.. Lorne's own personal toy to do with as his childish whims allow. Pretty sad, really.. for the grownups there who want to make it work and for those of us who remember what an excellent company it has been due to those people.

[Admiral]

We should go on with it just for the sake of making the media aware of the problems and maybe the owners through it (if they don't already know).
If Matrox falls at least the people should know why now and not find out in a couple of years.

[DGhost]

i tend to agree... the people should know that Matrox is a sinking ship... 3Dfx selling everything to NVidia always felt rather sudden to me, despite knowing that it was in trouble...

[Hati]

Can *we* (MURC) save Matrox?

Had the same thoughts yesterday evening and the result was best I could do was :
1. get a city map
2. find out where the #$%& h3ll is the next church
3. go there and light some candles for Matrox graphics div.
But then I thought that's TOO MUCH for me.

Seriously:
I think it is the task of Matrox' owners to get things right, there is not much we can do. But if you want to start a petition I would recommend to not calling certain persons responsible (I really dont know what D.W. is doing at M).

Hati

[Pace]

Yeah, the point is trying to make Matrox realise. Sure it's their own fault, sure it won't hurt us much if they fall.

The point is, I want Matrox products. I doubt if NVIDIA, ATi or whoever may buy any assets/patents will actually even bother to make a product in the style of Matrox. Quality, Features, Performance indeed. All I want Matrox to do is get their act together and make a revised Parhelia, without the faults.

[Hati]

@Pace
Don't get me wrong please, like you I really want Matrox Products in the future and I hope that Matrox can overcome the problems in their graphics division. But as Matrox is privately held and very secretive about their economic situation I cannot judge the situation of Matrox properly. Maybe they can compensate the a bad situation in one division by earnings from another one and if the rumored revision of Parhelia is much better (i.e. issues removed and better performing) it can relieve the situation.
I would like to help keeping mga alive, if I only knew how.
And about blaming specific persons :
IMHO it is never one person alone who is responsible for the difficulties in a big company (I might be wrong as well).
Hati

[Taz]

Originally posted by KvHagedorn Save Matrox? Let the rich losers at the top save the damned company. If they are too stubborn and foolish to do what is necessary, then Matrox will die.

Whilst I have no sympathy to those in upper management who are the root cause of these problems surely we owe it to Haig, R0m and all the others who've helped support Matrox users over the years. I'm sure they haven't got millions in the bank and can go off and retire if Matox does go down the tube. It's for those good people at Matrox that we should do what we can to turn things around.