Foresight vs. Trackman...business strategy vs lack thereof

[onehandicap]

First, a little background: I have been a long time Foresight GC2 and HMT owner. Really great hardware combination. Mostly used indoors, but occasionally take outdoors. Previously owned a FlightScope many years ago (probably 6 or 7), but got rid of it because of a complete lack of consistency in measurement. Constant problems with firmware. Actually live in Michigan where the Trackman rep at the time lived and he came out with Trackman to compare Flightscope side by side. Night and day in measurement quality and consistency...right out of the box, no screwing around with firmware updates and sending logs, etc. I couldn't really justify the cost of the Trackman at the time, so went with the GC2/HMT.

As mentioned above, the GC2/HMT hardware combo is fantastic. However, Foresight continues to fall down on software. I can certainly understand gen 1 software being an issue (I am a CTO a relatively large company, so have a decent understanding of software delivery), but Foresight is many, many years into this. Both there desktop and mobile solutions are below average at the very best. It is one thing if you are inventing the space, but you have another company, Trackman, where you could be a relative fast-follower (i.e. a year to 18 months behind) and still have a very good product if you just imitated what they do.

But, they don't do that. And herein is my business strategy rant...Trackman continues to develop and enhance their software with innovative features. The latest being Tracy...which is their AI platform. Looks fantastic. What did we get from Foresight this week...an entry into the powered golf cart / trolley business for $2k that may at some point be able to follow you around. What the absolute !@#&!? kind of business strategy does Foresight have?

As mentioned, I live in Michigan, so indoor simulation is required to survive the winters. So I will keep my GC2/HMT with TGC for now. Plan on moving to the Carolinas in a year or so...will sell the GC2/HMT and buy a Trackman at that point since I won't need an indoor unit for simulation. This space is now a software vs. hardware game for the most part...Trackman gets it (and has gotten it for a long time)...Foresight does not. I wonder how many ForeCaddies (tm) they are actually going to sell? I take that back. I could give two !$@&!.

Rant over.

[catshannon]

My view is similar to what sulli182 said. I use my GCQuad for game improvement and that's it. It works great for that. In fact, I only use the driving range and have never played a course. I also have stayed on FSX2018 because of that. It has been over 2 years and I had a great experience with my sales guy - he was about as pushy and helpful as I would expect someone to be selling a product at that price point. During my time, I had 1 or 2 small issues (with FSX) come up, and those got resolved very quickly.

It sounds like, with TM4, there are some new features etc, but it doesn't look like there has been any change in the distance needed for ball flight. You can't beat the ability of GCQuad or GC2 to work in a very small area.

Some other data re: fitters/professionals - there is a pretty popular/high-end coaching academy close to my place, and in the past year they moved away from Trackman to GCQuad. Also, a well-known club-fitter continues to use GCQuad.

That doesn't mean that they can't do better. The lack of 3rd party integrations doesn't make any sense to me. Also, I agree that the battery-powered pushcart was a big WTF. I don't see how that builds on any of their core competencies related to GC2, GCQuad. The risk of getting disrupted by a product at a lower price point is very real and I think they should be focused on that. I haven't tested the Uneekor product, but given the buzz around it, it probably is something that Foresight should pay attention to.