Any other issues?
[HEXUS] Do you think these two issues are symptomatic of a bigger problem in quality assurance in the performance component sector and if so what can be done about it?
[Jim] Oh no, I don't want to imply that there's any kind of larger issue here. As I've said a couple of times, I can't speak for what other companies do. I can only help shed light on how Corsair views quality and how we want to take our products to market. We have tight quality controls: whether it is testing 1066 modules at 1080 to provide a guardband for reliability or being very precise about our PSUs. We do this because, in the long run, quality costs everyone less money. We have fewer field failures, customers have fewer headaches, and we can, hopefully, create loyalty that brings customers back to Corsair for other products.
[HEXUS] What will you do about customers who have bought the PSU under the Gold proviso - can they return it to get it exchanged?
[Jim] We don't sell the product directly to the customer, so we can't take them back but they should be able to return the HX850 to the retailer for a credit or exchange.
[HEXUS] Obviously there are financial ramifications to these decisions - who made the 80plus decision and what were the reasons behind it.
[Jim] There wasn't a single person that made the decision. As a company, we know the right thing to do is to sell the product exactly as we designed it: as the very best 850W and 750W 80Plus Silver certified modular PSUs you can buy. We have the complete support of the entire executive team on this decision.
I've heard that some of our competitors are telling people we don't have confidence in the product, and that's why we changed it to 80Plus Silver. That's laughable. We have complete confidence in what we built and we want our customers to have that same confidence, so we are being totally honest with them about what they are buying from us.
I'm sure a lot of people wonder why we would do this to ourselves. It would have been very easy just to let the sleeping dog lie and go out with 80Plus Gold certification; none of these questions would have come up and its pretty unlikely anyone ever would have looked again at the 80Plus certification level. I'm sure we could have slid right by and not heard a thing about it.
But, in the end, we truly believe that doing the right thing is better for Corsair and for our customers than doing the easy thing.
[HEXUS] Thank you very much for your time today.
[Jim] Thank you, too. Let's not wait for the next crisis to do this again. Not that it hasn't been fun [laughs].
