Hello Daniel,
Good to hear that from someone who actually lives and engineers in Europe. Many Europeans counter that I am just whining about it but they never sat on this side of the pond trying to get an Infineon part (I won't try that again for a while...).
I had one rep tell me flat out that they do not send sample to consultants, period. Huh? Even if I pay? Nope. Well, in newsgroup speak I plonked the part and went to the (American) competitor.
What they don't realize is that some day you'll be in industry, making big $ decisions about which parts will be purchased. Back whan I was in academia I must say that Philips (it was still Valvo back then) was one of the best in terms of support. They gave me all the data books and samples I wanted, and pronto. Once I had a meeting with them, I believe at the Burchardstrasse plant in Hamburg. They put me up in a very nice Hotel (Reichshof?). I found friendly and competent people in a well run plant. The result of all this support was that my design-in rate for Philips parts was around 30%. Then the bottom fell out. Now it's, uhm, close to zero. So I was not surprised at all when they threw in the towel and auctioned off their semi biz.
This is sad. I strongly feel that nothing short of a major personnel change at the executive level can truly help companies like that.
It's not going to. Unless major shareholders wake up and question corporate governance like what currently happens at some US automakers (which have similar problems) nothing is going to change IMHO.
But that would only make sense if this person can move and shake things and, most of all, can initiate high-level personnel changes if needed. I have stopped writing to corporate management about lacking marketing efficiency because they don't listen. For me the solution is to move on to their competitors.