thinking of Dish again...

kal915 said:

Now what makes you say that? So you're basically saying that anything new always takes about a week to in stock after the release date. When the Xbox 360 came out, it was new, and they had it in stock. So why wont Dish have the dishes on the 20th?

Click to expand...

While there is a chance you can get one that early, every time a field tech has arrived at my place (3 times in the past year), they've had one (1) dish in the truck. Twice it wasn't a dish that could be used in my situation. I was told that both dishes and dvr's are in short supply. So if they arrive with either the wrong dish or a dvr that doesn't work (there are lemons), they have to come back.

Incidentally, that doesn't really surprise me. Today most large American operations have their stock stored in the pipeline, meaning that if a ship from China sinks the stock is soon gone from the shelves and there's "none in the back" because the ship was "the back."

It's a bookkeeping game. You don't book a payable for the inventory until it arrives in your facility at which time you immediately send it out and book a receivable to offset it. So you never "floor" any significant inventory.

There are large corporations that order supplies for assembly from a company in India, let's say, which are sent from India to a company in Mexico, let's say, where the final producted is assembled and then shipped to the U.S.

The Mexican company is billed for the supplies, and bills the U.S. company for the assembled product, but only after it is delivered in the U.S. The U.S. company "guarantees" the Indian company will be paid, but this is "off the books" of the U.S. company.

Hence, you really have no idea from quarterly or annual reports what potential liabilities the U.S. company has incurred. But the top financial analysts will tell you things are great for that company. If the U.S. company were to go bankrupt, the Mexican company and the Indian company would be left with a mess. We do have a world-wide Enron economy.

kal915 said:

Now what makes you say that? So you're basically saying that anything new always takes about a week to in stock after the release date. When the Xbox 360 came out, it was new, and they had it in stock. So why wont Dish have the dishes on the 20th?

Click to expand...

When the 360 came out, they had been delivered to retail stores at least a week before, and they didn't need any installer training to use them. They had been delivered to the distribution warehouses WEEKS before the official release date, and it took a couple of weeks to get them trucked to individual stores, entered into inventory, and stocked on shelves.

Aug 20 is really the release date of the dish *to Dish's central distribution warehouses*. Think of it as the regional wholesalers. The equvalent to "retail stores" are the techs, and it will take a while for the new setups to reach them.

When DishNetwork releases a new dish or any new item, supplies of it are always limited for the first couple of months as production ramps up, and techs don't get trained until each area warehouse gets them in and each shop and contractor gets some for training. That takes time. Plus, even though YOU might care which dish you get, no one at Dish's ordering or job routing centers cares; you'll get the same programming with the standard equipment as with the new Eastern Arc equipment, so they don't see any need to concern themselves as to whether you get one or the other. And given that the 1000.4 dish is harder to install than the smaller dishes, techs will prefer the old system until the new one is forced on them.

3-4 weeks following the release of Eastern Arc, everyone's stockpiles of MPEG2 receivers will be lower, MPEG4 equipment inventory will be higher, and they will have 1000.4s in stock. Techs will be less likely to have both options available, and will have to install Eastern Arc setups.

If you try to get it before then, there's a very good chance that the tech who shows up for your install will only have MPEG2 SD receivers and no 1000.4 dish. It won't be his fault, and he may well not have another option available to him.

<shrug>

It is what it is. "Just-In-Time Manufacturing" with minimal inventory is a big reason for it, and, yes, it is something that all modern businesses have to deal with. A big storm that damages a ship can result in several weeks of a certain model of dish or receiver being in short supply, because the entire supply system is built on the timely arrival of those ships 3 times a week. A one-week delay of a single ship cascades as a shortage across the whole country.