Geoffrey
Remember Thierry Sinar? He used to lurk around all the forums and insert posts about Sinar and other products. He would get pissie sometimes with other posters and take offense at any suggestion he might have a bias. He was just too present and said too much. With his departure I thought Sinar would shift to a more appropriate and professional web presence but this thread indicates otherwise.
Your own post suggests that this thread was not spontaneous as some thought and discussion went into whether it would be interesting enough and beneficial enough to Sinar. I followed the thread because it had Zurich in the title and noticed that there is also some thought behind keeping it alive and prominent in the forum. People usually don't pull a thread out of the second page just to agree that a manufacturer is perfect.
The person who started this thread does not disclose his name -- which is against forum rules -- and further erodes the credibility of the thread. Baudelino's first name is Martin -- we know because he signed just one of his posts. Sinar's rep's first name is also Martin. Hmmm!
To me "old world service" means no service.
Your notion of "old world service" may be a bit different than mine. For me, its business done by trust and obligation, not by fear of litigation. There were fine buildings built in Chicago on a handshake. That's old world where I live. Stand by principles.
Yes, I remember Thierry - and while he might have been biased, he wore it on his sleeve, and it wasn't too hard to tell where he was coming from.
You are insinuating something else entirely here - that this was posed by someone on behalf of Sinar, etc. While you are entitled to your opinion, it doesn't have much to do with the facts in this case. I had correspondence with Martin, and he told me of going to Sinar and the service he got. I suggested he post this story, as it was pretty remarkable service and flies in the face of the norm today, where everyone expects internet speed replies, and de-personalized service. He actually got personalized service from Sinar that met his needs, in a rather wonderful and personable way.
He was reluctant to post it as he didn't see much relevance to the board - upon further urging, he went ahead and he and I have both been bemused by how much interest there has been in this subject. There was no commercial interest in this whatsoever. The only interest I had is that of wondering about the merits of such old-world attention to people and their needs.
Rather than assigning bad motives to this, might one take another position? that perhaps good things can happen, and when they do, they are worth sharing. Keep in mind Sinar takes such a beating on the net, and bluntly speaking, they are not understood well in the US at all. Maybe they are an old-world company doing things another way. If telling that is "helping Sinar", gee, I guess that would make us guilty. On the other hand, its hard to talk about camera gear without mentioning a manufacturer, so where is the line drawn?
This story captured a charming old-world situation. One suspects no commercially savvy, new world distributor, run by hedge fund folks would have provided the level of personalized service as was given to Martin for the costs (nominal) that were charged.
