Re: Trust
It's not just the software / OS world that is built on trust; the best vendors in technology realise this.
I had $BIG_VENDOR decide to EOL a bunch of products with no possible last time buy. They got moved to the 'Do Not Use' category really quickly.
In high reliability and other areas that need true long term support (think decades) the trust in the vendors to continue to support specific parts becomes a major part of the decision making process at the design stage.
If a part (especially in some areas) becomes EOL, it may be necessary to re-qualify the equipment (and even partial requalification can be $$$$$$$).
A vendor who has lost the trust of any of the larger companies in those areas (and others) will slowly but surely lose design wins to companies who actually keep their word. Word does indeed get around - it is not that huge an industry and many of the people in it are pretty connected even if they are in competition.
Design win on a product with a long lifetime requirement == long term sales. Keep your word and design wins++. Rinse and repeat.
Note that the vendors do not have a contractual arrangement to supply parts for that amount of time (unless you want to use a die banking service - $$$$) but they are acutely aware that the trust of the developers is their single biggest asset.
Lose that trust and those designers will never use your products again wherever they happen to be working.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
