DRSI is alive

[mac%idacrd@Princeton.EDU (Robert McGwier)]

Howdy:

I recently asked a question about DRSI's current existence, bankruptcy,
etc.  I have been hearing rumor after rumor and decided to put out a
query.  I had a feeling that I would stir up a response and indeed I
did.  Andy called me yesterday and I was told the following which
I have agreed to pass along.  Please disseminate as widely as you might
have distributed my query.

(1) DRSI is not listed in the phone book, or operator listings.  DIGITAL
    RADIO SYSTEMS, INC. is.  For months, I have been calling directory
    assistance asking for DRSI.  DeMartini assured me he would have
    the listing DRSI added in addition to the full name.  I guess it
    was stupid of me not to check the full name but they did dump the
    800 number, and would not return calls from people I _KNEW_ were
    calling him directly (I'll let them speak for themselves) so I
    assumed he was out of business and used the evidence and the rumor
    mill in a way which I know better than to use.

(2) DRSI NO LONGER supports direct sales.  It is very very typical of
    the amateur radio industry to slow down considerably in the summer.
    People are spending all their money on vacations, saving for the
    fall tuition, whatever.  He said they could no longer afford to
    lose money on the direct sales in a bad slump he went through this
    past summer and he had decided at that time to deplete his inventory
    and get out of the business.  This fall, soon after he began marketing
    the plug in card only through distributors, sales boomed.  He ONLY
    distributes through a dealer network now.  He is very happy with this
    business and will continue to fill orders from these customers.
    In this way, he keeps fixed orders, and his inventory doesn't
    build up.  For a small business, it is better to make some money
    in a steady stream than to have these peaks and valleys.

(3) He has an extremely successful (according to him) uninterruptable
    power supply business going and decided that he would concentrate
    on this and cut his losses in the slowing packet radio amateur radio
    market.

Strictly editorial comments:

Finally Andy is very unhappy with the failure of the totally awesome
card project at DRSI and does not believe at this time in the future of the
DSP plug in card, given TAPR's entry into the market, and Brooks
Van Pelt (LL Grace) leaving his partners (myself and KA2MOV), taking
the technology developed for AEA and DRSI for his own box, and not finishing
the DRSI card (telling me he had).  I believed that since I had not heard
from Andy since before last Dayton, that he was no longer interested, couldn't
afford to finish it, and knowing that the Totally Awesome IO card was
falling on its face with DRSI as the manufacturer, I assumed with the
rumor mill going that they had folded.  It was a pretty clear cut case
of me taking a bunch of circumstantial evidence and drawing an incorrect
conclusion.  Thank goodness for the rules of Habeas Corpus in courts of
law.

I apologize to Andy for getting his blood pressure up and wish him every
success in his current course and hope that this news gets as widely
distributed as the rumor.  DRSI is still in business.

Bob
N4HY