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[SimonDeacon]

After filling in a NI survey (which I then foolishly checked the 'I'm happy for you to contact me' option before submitting) I submitted a few gripes as part of my answers. One is obviously the cost of NI products, but this is a thing I and (more importantly) are happy to put up with because of the quality and features of the products. The other thing I noted on the survey was (what I called) the Apple-y feel of the company. Is it just me or does it feel cultish? 

Anyway, I forgot all about it until I get a call from someone at NI (possibly VP of something or other) who wanted to know more about my feelings. He, obviously, defended his companies position and talked about open interfaces and the such. After putting the phone down, I now have an even stronger feeling that the company actively pushes and defends its 'cult'. 

Before anyone tears into me, I love the products - I'm just nervous of excessive vendor lock-in, and I don't like having my thinking (or engineering judgment) nudged in directions that aren't best. I'm geniunely interested in what other users, or NI staff, think.

[crossrulz]

Yes, the NI community can feel cultish.  The LabVIEW community can get even worse.  However, there are certain product of NI's that I would just flat out avoid due to either bad experiences or because I needed to have full control of an instrument during troubleshoting (ie needed real knobs and buttons).

NI pros:

The cost of their DAQ and DIO boards are actually quite reasonable when you start to compare them to other companies and I have yet to have a problem with one (except for where we blow fuses on the boards, but that's an entirely other issue).  And the integration of TDMS logging with DAQmx saved me months of work.  I have yet to find a company that even comes close to simplicity of programming, cost, and/or power.

I absolutely fell in love with their FPGA boards and DMM.  I made some awesome setups with just those two.

NI needs help:

Switches.  I had a horrible experience with NI's crosspoint matrix cards and their terminal blocks.  The company I was with has since switched (no pun intended) to Pickering.  I know NI has made strives to catch up, but they are more expensive, have worse specs, and do not give the configurations needed.  And my NI rep knows all about the pains.

Digitizing cards.  Well, at least how we used them.  Memory issues galore, triggering was a pain.  But again, I mostly blame the programmer for that one.  But in the end, we wanted a screen for troubleshooting purposes and so went with a Tektronix scope.

[Ben]

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@Simon Deacon wrote:

After filling in a NI survey...

 Is it just me or does it feel cultish? 

A... I now have an even stronger feeling that the company actively pushes and defends its 'cult'. 

...

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I agree 100% !

Very long rant deleted...

Ben 

[PaulG.]

I agree.

Uh, oh. My mother is speaking to me. "If you can't say something nice don't say anything at all." Yes, mother.