Matrox and huge amount of backorders question

[stevenscott]

Does anyone know or understand why matrox is way behing on orders for so many of thier products? I have a Rainbow Runner on order from Buy.com and this is not a Buy.com back order rant. What I am getting at is that I did a really long exhaustive search al over the internet at lots of Stores and online/offline shopping for Matrox products. Well, it looks like there are very few matrox products on the shelves. I looked at several products and looked for it at lots of stores while online. This problem is very widespread. Anyone know why Matrox has not shipped out enough product to keep up with demand? Since I did all this searching online I do not think it makes any difference where I live but I wil say anyway. San Diego. I started this quest and search while developing a gaame plan on the video cards I will buy and need over the next year or more.

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Steven Palmer
Win98
Abit BE6
Pentium III 450
Matrox Mystique G200
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Ordered Rainbow Runner not yet received as of 9/17/99
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[red2]

Yes, NEC can only fab enough chips for Matrox's OEM's. I am guessing that Matrox can only supply a maximum of 15,000 retail chips a month. Retail is a very small part of Matrox's business so they don't care too much about right now.

[Nightshade]

This forum is kind of weird. Sort of like
Matrox.

If you have a technical problem the Matrox techies and their employees who read may answer you. However, when it comes to Matrox's decision to under supply their customers there's no response. I've even called Matrox customer service myself to try and find out what's going on. They said that they're shipping to their main distributors, and they're distributors decide what sub-distributors get the product and yada yada yada.

Basically, I've come to the conclusion that Matrox deals with the home consumer end of things to help advertise their products to governments and corporations where their money really comes from.

That's the only reason I can think of that they would continually ignore such a great demand for their products.

(I know I know... rant rant rant)

[Joel]

"Does anyone know or understand why matrox is way behing on orders for so many of thier products?"

Probably because the demand for their products is so high and you can only produce a quality product just so fast.

Joel

[Justice88]

Another issue is that Matrox is now a retailer. Note that people who order from the Matrox Online Store get products right-away. Of course Matrox's markup is about 30% over other online dealers. Manufacturers should not be retailers. It screws up the distribution chain. If I was another VAR I would be pissed. Note that some have dropped Matrox altogether.

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Jason Butler
BCA Advanced Instructor
Cue-Tech
www.poolschool.com

[stevenscott]

well,
Thank everyone for such prompt and reasonable answers. I have done some thinking (ooops) and decided to cancel my Rainbow Runner wait a couple months and order a Marvel G400 with all the goodies. A G400 with al the film editing, TV out 16 MB tuner and all of the great software for around $300. I hope it is not a mistake. I was going to get the Rainbow Runner G series and use it with my Matrox Mystique G200, but I really thin the G400 will be a better choice. I can still use my Mystique G200 on my other computer the Abit BX6 with the Celeron 300a. And when the G400 is available put that in my Abit BE6 with my PIII 450 and take all my old videos I made in South America and put them on CD's with the G400. And when my wife buys a digital camcorder we can use the G400 to put the movies on CD's with the newest technology. Also, in a few months Matrox will have time to develop better drivers.

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Home:
Server:
I run a Matrox Mystique G200 AGP with an:
Abit BE6
Win98
Adaptec CD Creator 4
Pentium III 450
128 MB Ram
SB Live
Maxtor 13 GIG HD
2 3com Nic cards
Wingate 3.05
1 Symbios SCSI for my HP Photo Scanner
Boca 56K Int. Modem
Mitsumi 4801-TE CD-R
MS Precision Pro Joystick
Surfboard SB1200 cable modem
Shamrock 17" Monitor
HP OfficeJet Pro 1175Cse 4/1 printer/Scanner/Fax/copier
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Client1:
AbitBX6 MB
Win98
Celeron 300a
Maxtor 6.4 GIG HD
128 MB Ram
Netsurf NIC
SB Live sound card
Teac CDRom
Hercules Thriller AGP Video Card
Boca 56K Int. Modem
MS Precision Pro Joystick
Shamrock 15" monitor
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[Mikeyy]

The answer is very simple.

They have a limited supply of some boards and are selling all they can make through their own store.

Why sell through their store and not ship to distributors? I'd estimate they make twice the profit margin selling direct as they do when selling into distribution, maybe more.

If I were in their shoes, I'd do exactly the same thing. The boards are available to anyone that really wants one, they just have to order direct.

There were a lot of shortages even before the Taiwan quake. But the quake is hitting the fabless graphic card manufacturers the hardest. This will probably cause an industry wide shortage of graphic chips. And even if Matrox managed to dodge the quake, a lot of other graphics chip vendors didn't. As customers look elsewhere, Matrox products will be in even greater demand.

My recommendation is if you want a high demand product, order it direct, and order it today.

[GT98]

As for the rainbow Runner add-in card, I was doing some shopping around for one today myself since I have a G400MAX finally coming in with in a reasonable amount of time and I need to replace my Marvel G200 that I'm running now (I like the TV option..haven't gotten into video editing yet) and every where I looked, even on the matrox store, no one had it. This makes me wonder what the deal is with matrox and why they can't even supply themselfs with there own product.

Scott


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Celeron300A@464 abit BH6 mobo, Marvel G200, V2 SLI, 128MB RAM, 19inch Optiquest Monitor, SB live!