January 2000


The first month of the new millenium marks the third anniversary of the Shimadzu Consumer Alerts homepage since its premiere three full years ago. While it's an exciting time to look forward, it is also a great time to reflect on some of our more noteworthy accomplishments during the last year of the previous millennium. In December of 1999, we recorded our 100,000th unique visitor to the Shimadzu Consumer Alerts website. And this doesn't include the countless recurring visits that we continue to receive from Shimadzu Scientific Instruments (Columbia, MD, USA) and Shimadzu Corporation (Kyoto, Japan). Usually twice a month, their IP addresses (208.212.50.* and smzk075.shimadzu.co.jp, respectively) appear in our server logs. So it is logical to conclude that Shimadzu is addicted to eavesdropping on the latest embarrassing truths/revelations as unveiled on this homepage.... talk about paranoia!

During 1999, we continued to make significant inroads informing laboratory decision makers worldwide about "the other side of Shimadzu." So much so that Shimadzu played a cat and mouse game with us at the beginning of the 1999 year. They proceeded to petition several servers that hosted our website in a concerted effort to censor the content and presence of our homepage. They did not succeed! We were well-prepared for Shimadzu's escapades and we continue to remain vigilant. Too bad that they are not this persistent when solving their numerous hardware/software product problems and glitches! We continue to add new permanent URLs (eg. http://shimadzu.home-page.org, http://shimadzu.is-crazy.com) which divert inquiring minds to the real truth about the corporate lowlifes at Shimadzu. And we continue to index them as well.... visit www.yahoo.com and look for the search term "shimadzu" inclusively.

An explosive interoffice memorandum highlighting numerous problems in the field authored by Shimadzu Regional Manager Terry L. Adams has continued to amaze our readers. But this was topped by the story we ran in early October 1999 entitled "Shimadzu GC Blows Up." We had caught wind of Shimadzu's prospective LC/GC article (published October 1999) back in the late Spring of 1999. Shortly thereafter, we were forwarded a note describing in detail the incendiary nature of some Shimadzu gas chromatographs. As one can imagine, Shimadzu was not pleased when we beat them to the punch while pulling another skeleton from their closet! They reacted by engaging in a wild campaign of censoring/cancelling all references to their faulty/defective products on the world wide web. Unfortunately, they never admitted to the problem publicly because they didn't want to deal with the flying fur (ie. liability) much less the flying GC shrapnel. Can you say irresponsible?

As a direct result of Shimadzu's on-going censoring efforts/activities, a public directive was issued instructing Shimadzu corporate management to cease and desist in early November 1999. And thanks to our server logs, we can definitively prove that Shimadzu got the message! The press release was disseminated via several forums including thru a network of over 6,000 communication professionals. This fulfills a promise we made last year that we would initiate an aggressive campaign worldwide to disseminate factual information about Shimadzu and their egregious business practices. We will endeavor to use the same strategy again for the current year in a sincere effort to reach all laboratory decision makers worldwide. Meanwhile, search engine indexing of all our URLs continues in earnest. This should help to insure that prospective Shimadzu customers will find us before bringing this inferior line of instrumentation into their labs.

We have communicated on numerous occasions that our primary purpose has always been to provide valuable consumer-oriented information to our readers. We have never knowingly published any false information on our website and anything that is published has been substantiated and/or verified independently (editorial notes and opinions are points of view.... please don't hate us when we tell it the way it is). In an effort to up the ante, we have been offering 10,000 Japanese yen since January 1999 to the first contributor (including the lowlifes at Shimadzu) who provides us with any incontrovertible evidence by email which contradicts any of the factual information portrayed on our homepage (opinions exempted). To date, we have had no takers! We're not surprised because we are committed to publishing the complete truth but it should help dispel the notion that we make this stuff up ruthlessly. The truth is very powerful stuff.... just ask the censoring misfits at Shimadzu!

For some reason, the prevaricators at Shimadzu continue to advertise themselves as a 2 billion dollar corporation. For the past 6 years running, that number has been closer to 1.5 billion. While several other analytical instrumentation corporations have witnessed double-digit growth thru most of the 1990s, Shimadzu has watched their bottom line decline by single digits most years. Why would you buy product from a company that re-packages the same old technologies? Do you think Shimadzu is on the cutting-edge? What awards have they won? We don't know of Shimadzu receiving a Pittcon award during any of the past four years! Nor do we know of Shimadzu receiving a honorable mention at any Pittcon meeting ever! So why would you do business with this outfit?

As many already know, we have been soliciting input from our readers telling us why and which equipment they won't be buying from Shimadzu. To date, we have received input from more than 300 prospective customers who have stated unequivocally that they won't be buying certain Shimadzu instrumentation. Some anonymous troll noted "that our postings are done to discourage sales of their products and services." Furthermore, he/she claimed that Shimadzu "had actually gained sales due to these rantings." Unfortunately the Shimadzu financial summaries don't support this feeble claim. More importantly, so what.... they sold a filter fluorometer or two! Conservative estimates place the loss of sales to Shimadzu (thanks to the input from 300 prospective customers) at over $6 million dollars in the US alone. A more complete accounting will follow sometime during 2000 but Shimadzu has already missed out on the sale of several HPLCs, GC/MSs, LC-MSs, TOCs, AAs and FTIRs. And the losses will only continue to mount! Dear Shimadzu: What do you think of our "divide and conquer" theme?

During the coming year, we will unveil a new look to our homepage. We pledge to continue bringing incredible new stories, periodic updates along with late-breaking news. In fact, we continue to amass a backlog of new ideas/stories such that we are not starved for content. We continue to be grateful to our growing network of contributors and sources who supply us with an influx of tips, ideas and story suggestions.... please keep the presses rolling! There are investigations that are still active and on-going. Therefore, we will not divulge the nature of these undertakings so as to compromise sources or jeopardize the possible outcomes. Our network of custodians will insure that the Shimadzu Consumer Alerts homepage will not vanish from the internet any time soon. Dear Shimadzu: Stick that in your pipe and smoke it!


n.b. Remember, quality at Shimadzu means getting passing grades (barely); it doesn't mean getting it right the first time!

n.b. It's been observed that if you throw enough Shit-madzu up on the wall.... some of it is bound to stick sooner or later. Meanwhile, the slinging will continue with glee!

n.b. Something to ponder: What do we have to gain by stating untruths and falsehoods.... absolutely nothing! Now what does Shimadzu have to gain by using treachery and deceit? Answer: YOUR business (which translates into dollars). Who has a bigger motivation to resort to the use of lies, denials and cover-ups.... us or them??? And we put our money where our mouth is.... did Shimadzu reciprocate?

BTW: Please note that Shimadzu Corporation has never written us at any time to question the veracity of the information on our website at: http://www.bigfoot.com/~shimadzu-sux. It's something that they don't want to admit but our facts (and opinions) are all in order!