Why doesn´t OWON hire European software engineers and product designers? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / testgear

author: pascal_sweden
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 16, 2020, 02:06:06 pm
content: It is hard to understand why no senior manager at OWON takes the initiative to hire European software engineers and product designers?While they have some very skilled engineers to come up with 12-bit and 14-bit oscilloscopes, they could definitely do better in the software development and product design area.Why don´t they realize the need for such hires?Is there anybody from OWON on this forum?

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 16, 2020, 06:03:39 pm
content: Investing more into software would increase the price and would force them to compete in a different price range, where their hardware is not competitive.You are also assuming that foreign engineers are somehow worse in general. They are not. The quality of the software reflects the quality of engineers and the amount of time they were given. Low pay European engineers needing to roll out the firmware in 6 months will do as poor of a job, if not worse.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2020, 04:08:24 am
content: Quote from: pascal_sweden on February 16, 2020, 02:06:06 pmProbably the same reason continental European companies often fail to hire native English speakers to write (or at minimum proofread!) their English translations, resulting in all sorts of shoddy English: they don’t realize it’s bad.

author: e0ne199
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2020, 10:09:33 am
content: Quote from: pascal_sweden on February 16, 2020, 02:06:06 pmare you saying that OWON is really that good for its hardware??

author: pascal_sweden
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2020, 11:43:41 am
content: http://blog.weinigel.se/2016/05/01/sds7102-hacking.html

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2020, 11:47:48 am
content: Quote from: pascal_sweden on February 16, 2020, 02:06:06 pmEurope used to have a number of low cost instrument makers, who have now all collapsed. Now you think Owon should hire the Europeans who couldn't keep their own instrument businesses afloat? You want Owon out of business, right?

author: The Soulman
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2020, 01:33:33 pm
content: Peaktech in Germany re-badges Owon gear and do provide their own PC software, and actually have a group of people to do their translations to the various languages.I don't know if they change anything on the instruments apart from adding their name.

author: maxwell3e10
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2020, 03:01:57 pm
content: Out of curiosity I downloaded the software from PeakTech for 12-bit scopes. It looks same as Owon software (actually an earlier version).

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2020, 03:16:25 pm
content: Yes, they are a few versions behind the Owon s/w on the the USB ones too. Identical UI.I don't see any evidence of s/w development, just re-badging.

author: Grandchuck
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2020, 03:48:47 pm
content: It is amazing how much value there is in modern hardware. Microcontrollers, embedded processors, FPGAs and the like are quite inexpensive relatively speaking. Plus, surface mount technology allows very low assembly costs with surprisingly good yields. Software, sadly, puts the brakes on the whole shebang. Perhaps someday AI will do something about this?

author: Jan Audio
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2020, 04:14:01 pm
content: I like to have it programmable/open source, many people will improve it, and would be a good selling point.I would spend time on it and invest money into.

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2020, 04:20:08 pm
content: Most of their stuff is written in Java and can be reverse engineered. eg.https://github.com/florentbr/OWON-VDS1022

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2020, 04:34:19 pm
content: Quote from: Jan Audio on February 17, 2020, 04:14:01 pmThat seems rather unlikely. In some areas open source code really motivates a lot of people to contribute and move things forward. However, the track record for open source instrument software is it mostly of it withering and dying.

author: Kleinstein
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2020, 04:38:16 pm
content: European software engineers are difficult to hire , especially good ones, and they are generally expensive.Especially if it is about improving an existing SW there can be a problem with different languages for the comments.It is more like European companies hiring SW engineers from Russia or India and the like.It is a more general problem that software quality is hard to get once a project gets larger.

author: maxwell3e10
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2020, 04:42:06 pm
content: For XDS scopes I had best luck using LAN and Matlab for transferring data off the scope:https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/owon-(lilliput)-sale-at-arrow-com/msg2838922/#msg2838922