i suppose i will make a quick reply... i have always been aware of jcb and respected their equipment just because of how innovative it was. like the fastrac farm tractors. the main problem is that their fastracs were never tailored to the us market. they tried to rework them recently and did a good job, but you still cant really traditionally row crop them, which eliminates most of their us market.
i will never know what motivates jcb to keep growing. the us is just one country out of hundreds, and since jcb is a privately owned company, the Bamford boys are obviously rolling around in more cash than they could ever know what do do with... so really to them, i can see why they might not care much about penetrating the us market.
that being said, the jcb skid steer is a machine that i could simply not resist. at that time i didnt really wanna buy a jcb because we have had so much luck with bobcat, and faced many unknowns about jcb, but i ran across the machine on the internet and instantly thought, i NEED one of these... so we called the local jcb dealer, (at the time they didn't know hardly anything about the new machines; they prolly had sold about 2 robots in the past few years) and told them we want one of these machines as soon as you can get one. so a year and a half later they called and we ordered one without ever seeing one.
really the biggest thing that sold me on the jcb was the SAWEEET cab. it quiet (you cant even compare it to a regular skid steer), easy to clean, has no foam interior to fall apart, doesnt rattle, visibility like you wouldnt believe, sweet joysticks, etc. the side entry was just what was said earlier icing on the cake. i could make an endless list of good things about the jcb...
that being said, after dealing with jcb and the local dealer, the service and support is just about the only thing that would make me buy a new jcb say endloader. if i was in the market for a new end loader, it would still be hard to buy a jcb, becuase there are no ridiculous advantages of owning the jcb, so for resale reasons, one would definitely consider a cat or deer. but i do like the coffee maker they put in some of the jcb equipment!! on the other hand, if i was looking for a telescopic handler, i would tend to lean towards the jcb for various reasons.
so i guess im saying jcb really outdid themselves on the skid loader (naturally), its about the only way i can see for them to make a name for themselves. its a machine people, like me, will simply be forced to buy because they wont see where there is any other option; and then once a customer buys a skid steer, if the service and support is as good as it has been (for me) maybe they will come back to buy larger equipment.
on the other hand, if i was buying a new farm tractor, if i had excessive cash, the fastrac is also irresistible. you really cant compare it to a regular tractor. i dont know if its jcbs plan across the board to have exclusively irresistable machines, but its a good idea... but at the same time, lots of ppl are scared of things that are different so maybe in the end its hurting them