I dislike dealing with distributors for a number of reasons, the principal one of which is that even a large distributor, e.g. Arrow, or Avnet, seldom has a knowledgable engineer on the payroll.

I go to the distributor to buy (apples), go to the manufacturer to get support (oranges).

Now that support has been brought up, I will mention that the weightiest reason for my like of Philips is the support I get from the local FAEs (plural becuase of multiple locations).

One example was that when a problem with the original 932 was reported 10 932As showed up as a response - no fuzz, no wiggling, just appropiate action.

As another example I, as an end user, am consulting with Philips on the design of a RGB LED driver chip.

Erik