Let me say this if I may. Mother may I?

Anyway,.. I hope Yamaha i.e. (Steve Deming) is listening.

There is rebellion amongst the loyal troops with people starting to wake up to Yamaha's, in my opinion, "nefarious shenanigans" of giving consumers an expensive software upgrade by way of a $4,000 'hardware' keyboard, namely the T3. It is the same type of thing they did with the original Tyros and also the Tyros2.

Yamaha has a propensity, in my opinion, to shun giving loyal customers who own their arranger keyboard products any type of OS upgrade enhancements (beyond your typical bug fixes) and people are finally seeing Yamaha's true motives, which I believe is to rake in all the dough they can and then either completely forget their customer's continuing product satisfaction of those who have purchased their arranger keyboard products (except fixing bugs - which if they didn't would give them a severe black eye in the public persona) or then turn around and try to get away with the same ol' "trick" again by offering a ridiculously expensive sofware upgrade by way of a successive 'hardware' keyboard model.

To Yamaha's credit the original Tyros had some Drum mapping issues and Yamaha did indeed correct them, but it makes you wonder why they didn't get the mapping right in the first place and indeed could still be considered simply a "bug" fix only.

When people start to sense someone or some business entity like Yamaha is trying to take advantage of them people tend to rise up "against the machine" or person (whichever the case may be) who they feel is taking advantage of them. What makes it even more disconcerting is that a business is suppose to be a public institution i.e. created specifically for the "benefit" and the "needs" of consumers, not the other way around. Sure, a business is in business to make money and that's fine and dandy. What is NOT fine and dandy is when a company uses underhanded tactics to increase their own bottom line at the expensive of those very consumers who are, in good faith, buying their products.

On the other hand, another 'positive' aspect I can attribute to Yamaha is their good customer service, where if something actually goes wrong with one of their keyboards under warranty (and in some cases beyond the warranty), they are quick to help you find a solution in resolving the issue(s) or by getting it to a service center for repair if necessary.

I've said many times that I like Yamaha. One important aspect of me liking them is the personnel on staff at Yamaha U.S., which is located about 90 miles up the coast from where I live.

But what really gets my goat is the perception that Yamaha Japan is only in it for the money when it comes to the selling of their keyboard products and perhaps all the other products they sell as well if the truth be known - instead of trying to build strong ties and the consumer's trust and confidence along with the products they sell by giving consumers the "real deal" in "complete" product satisfaction. In other words, it takes more than offering the public these constant $4,000 software upgrades. And people are wising up and seeing it for what it is.

Best,
Mike

[This message has been edited by keybplayer (edited 09-02-2008).]