working for sprint i have some insight for you guys, but your not going to like it...
the test team consists of 18 people, and the "advanced support team" (the guys that answer the level 3 calls and call you back)
they dont even begin to touch on the uses of the handset that we put it through, most of the time when i need to call them, i know much more about the phone than they do. They are just dudes, and have REGULAR phones.... the ppc is not their primary handset, so of course its use is minimalized. On top of that, the guy i was talking to is always testing like 2 or 3 phones at a time, its totally freakin retarded. on top of that, the support team guys, arent allowed to take the phones home from work, they can only use them at work (while they have other job responsibilities to do).
all in all, our testing process is garbage, they rely heavily on microsoft to just put out a good product, and our guys to test the ext.rom applications and give it the green light.
++++
not what you wanted to hear, but thats just how things are. As a company they dont have the rescources/time/money and process's in place to ensure that the phone is rock solid.
the nice thing is, we have dedicated communities out there to get us through that, to really unlock the potential of the handsets, and get them to work "properly"
making even a SINGLE change, and pushing a software update out to our users costs the company hundreds of thousands of dollars, and you would be amazed at how much we are charged to package sh*t up.
every update we have to RE-PAY royalty fees to microsoft, and then HTC charges us to repack the update w/ our extended ROM. Then sprint has a documentation team to write crap, and update the website....all in all, a VERY time consuming process. It took them ONE MONTH after the phone was released to realize that the radio wouldnt allow ring-through when on vision.... from that day, it took us nearly 8 months to get an update pushed, and cost us over 120 grand. (and MOST of that was the docs sitting at legal waiting for approval).
---thats just the short of it, but i hope it gives you some insight. I would REALLY like to be upset, but understanding what is involved, just makes me grumble, and find more boards with good people willing to make everyones experience a little better.
