mo@seismo.UUCP (Mike O'Dell) (04/10/84)
I hereby submit the following two articles as evidence for the need for "net.ripley" (as in Believe It or Else). Article (1) This last weekend, I saw an issue of Computer Cronicles, a computer literacy show produced by a PBS affiliate in San Mateo, CA (far north end of Silicon Valley). It features Gary Kildall (sp?) and another moderator and they interview people with "timely" things to talk about and show. All in all, not a bad show. In this episode, the star attraction was an AT&T Salesman demonstrating The Writer's Workbench. This person seemed quite competent giving the demo; he seemed to know the product and how to make it do the right impressive things, but this guy had a delivery like an Earl Scheib paint job. I thought his usual sales jive quite humorous until he dropped the following bombshell (not a direct quotation, but the important word is verbatim, as best as I can construct it): "Yes, the Writer's Workbench does several different *analizations* of the text looking for problems." The rest of his presentation was not infertile with this kind of linguistic horse-hocky, but this one left my jaw hanging open. I strongly suggest that in the future, if AT&T wants this product to retain ANY credibility, they run The Writer's Workbench on the content of the salesman. Article (2) The day after the 3B product line announcement appeared in the Wall Street Journal, and AT&T ran full page ads in papers like the Washington Post, I called my local AT&T-IS office representing my employer's interest in evaluating the machines as a base for our products. I won't relate the entire story; instead, I will relate a few lines from my first conversation with AT&T-IS, which set the stage for the ensuing snipe hunt. "Greetings. I am with a software company (blah blah blah...) and I would like to chat with someone about getting some information with which to evaluate your new 3B product line." "Uh, what's a 3B??" The conversation went downhill from there. -Mike O'Dell