Siglent knows how to get the maximum out of the hardware softwarewise, rigol builds it´own hardware but have lacks to get the horsepower on the street, softwarewise.
What if they would someday work together, it would be a nightmare for other brands.
Sigol....Riglent... 
But that's a management problem. Look at how they've been 'dicking around' the last decade(s). I mentioned this elsewhere, but they have the old blackfin system, running some custom software (not something high-level like FreeRTOS or linux).
So then they went to the Xilinx Zynq solution, and started playing with Linux and QT. Now, as any software engineer will tell you, humongous effort, will take years of development, and basically means 'throw away most of the stuff and knowledge you have and start again'.
Now, I do not blame them here, it was a good idea to be fair. Using more 'off the shelf' and high level software is good, develop a strong 'platform' for yourself, and evolve that.
There where some ugly things with their first attempt, and they did kind of try. They supported 3 scopes with the same stack (MSO5000, DS7000 and MSO8000).
So then they introduced the vector analyzers, more or less based on the same platform. But, one could already see, that it was a different team that was working on this, as there where already some differences that where not logical (stick with a single platform!).
Anyhow, the next thing that happened, is your typical crappy software development rodeo, release new software for system A, don't touch B, do something else with C. E.g. your software starts to diverge for the different products. Not a good idea, if you want to keep it a platform.
So then, the MSO80000 came, I haven't looked at the software, but afaik it is based on the Zynq ultrascale. Now, with proper engineering, you can build your platform with different underlying hardware. So this should have not been a problem, anyway.
Fast forward a bit, the new HDO1000/HDO4000. New chip (Rockchip), which is not bad per say, you can still do the platform thing, but then also android based. While that is a stupid design choice, it's a choice. Maybe they only had java/app developers available. Anyway, it basically does mean YEARS of development effort all over again!
But wait, there's more. The new DP831 (or whatever number it has) powersupply is based on a different SoC yet again. So, again, more effort. I haven't checked the software, might run Android, but the UI might be to simple? Idk, maybe it's on QT again. Who knows.
Case in point, this wastes a shit load of developer years. Yes a platform costs more effort initially and it costs effort to keep it neat and clean, but surely not as much as having to deal with all these different platforms.
Also, software updates. You think the Android developer working on the HDO1000 can easily fix a bug on that MSO8000? Of course not (though any developer worth their weight should be able to of course0. It DOES cost extra time and effort to fix stuff. Now, you can argue that us hackers that pay 350 for a scope shouldn't think we deserve software updates, but what about that 20k MSO8000? Exactly. Also, adding features platform wide, also keeps your existing cusotmers happy.
Some loss in sales because software feature A only exists on the latest and greatest? Sure. But also fixing a bug, fixes it everywhere.
Anyhow, this is me just ranting in frustration, as this can be prevented with good managers that understand this, and control this and think big pictures/long term, and not just 'release day was yesterday, wtf ship it already'.
Home
Help
Search
Login
Register
