I was talking to our technical lead, Dr. Petar, yesterday. He was showing me a customer return device which had been in continuous operation for 13 years. The problem was not with the device, it was with the SIM card.
Because the SIM card and card holder were operating in real world conditions, the old metal had oxidized and the plastic had hardened with time, allowing dust to collect in the enclosure. Plastics heat and cool differently to metals. In non technical terms: The connection was loose. So, he did what all experts do in such a situation; he wiped down and polished the SIM card, cleaned up the PCB board and demonstrated the electronics firing back to life on his screen.
To people like Petar, designing an electronics product to work for decades is no big thing. He was trained by the best. And the best, at that time, came from extreme conditions of heat and cold. The one thing they wanted was long lasting bombproof reliability. Maybe that is why the recent stuff designed in California and Seattle does not pass the smell test?
Our local bank group moved back to Windows XP in all its ATMs, even though the Windows 7 module which it replaced was itself ancient in IT terms. When your bank makes the decision to revert 20 years back, it is not a question of penny pinching. It means that they trust the earlier, secure, technology and the thinking that built it, more.
We appreciate the concept of planned obsolescence. It makes sense for faster iterations in consumer products (*fail fast, fail often). When Lenovo, famed for its rugged bulletproof design, now produces laptops made of a type of floppy plastic too weak for a grumpy teenager to throw, you have to consider “Brand.” Brand is a definite “consistent quality”…meaning a feature of the thing (in the mind of your predominantly business class customers).
When we are working with partners to design new products, one of the big things is “requirements,” the key document which states the use case and functionality required. This is often a series of negotiations between “must have” and “like to have” elements. Very rarely does the client consider the product working for more than 10 years without incident. It is inconceivable from the perspective of “technology” as we now view it (or IT).
It is not possible for Petar to build something which he cannot stand over; meaning vouch for the quality of workmanship. He is simply not built that way. It is the same quality that makes him a great teacher. He wants to impart the values that make his work remarkable. It is a quality which FindyIoT strives for. We do not look to make the most complicated, whizz bang, gadget. We want to make IoT that works, and goes on working, in extreme environments.
13 years and counting…XP still has the edge.
