Service is very important as mentioned. But not as important as you'd think. Why do I say this since it seems to go against conventional wisdom? Possibly because I'm fairly mechanical and really too cheap to fly in a tech to Shreveport and pay them per diem to work on my machine.
However, my wife and I did go to Ft Worth right after we bought our machine and went through the initial training classes which included normal maintenance operations. This was valuable because it lessened my fear about opening up the panels on this very expensive machine. It gave me a common frame of reference so that when I call up Barudan tech support I can understand what they are trying to get me to look at.
Telephone support is extremely critical in my opinion if you don't have a tech in town or would rather do the mx yourself and not pay someone to do it. Barudan tech support is extremely helpful and if they are busy when you call will call you back very soon and spend as much time on the phone as you need to work the problem. Of course in two years the biggest thing I've had to deal with was a timing of the hook when I bumping a needle into a hoop. But tech support got me through it and if I need to do it again I feel confident I could do it easily.
Software ... I use Wilcom. Sure, it's expensive but it is the gold standard. Same thing on tech support. If I have something I don't understand I call Wilcom and usually talk to James or Maria and they are great! I digitize because I want to be able to get jobs I wouldn't be able to get otherwise. The alternative is finding someone that you like to digitize for you and paying for their services. You really can pay to have many, many designs digitized for the price of the top level Wilcom. But I bit the bullet and bought the software. My business model may not be yours.
Try
www.embroideryyellowpages.com for used Wilcom and then see how much an upgrade would cost from Wilcom. You can probably get into Wilcom this way for less than buying it directly from Wilcom.
