chuq@sun.uucp (Chuq Von Rospach; Lord of the OtherRealms) (11/07/86)
[Time to re-open a can of worms.....] A few weeks ago, I made some rather nice comments about FullPaint and the way the people who publish it sent out free updates to all its registered users. Since that time, I've gotten involved in a few other updates to some degree or another, and I wanted to pass along my current status and feelings on a few things... The good news: o FullPaint: to recap, I bought FullPaint. Six weeks later I get a package with a new disk and other stuff -- an update to FullPaint with Copy Protection removed. Free, unasked for. FullPaint is a $100 product. Good job, guys! o Acta: I bought Acta, a $35 Desk Accessory Outliner. (Side comment. Wow! you thought Sidekick was neat? Look at this thing. you never through you needed an outliner? You're wrong....). Three weeks after I bought it, I got a letter announcing the upgrade to 1.1 (whoever keeps their mailing lists up to date is efficient!). Two choices: return the original disk and you get it free -- they pay postage. If you don't like to let your master disks out of your sight (I don't...) send them a check for $10. My update was in my mailbox in less than a week. How do the Acta people validate their upgrade users? Simple. They only fill requests with the ORIGINAL of the update form they send out. You can't copy it and send in multiple requests. Simple, effective, and they don't assume you're a crook. o LightSpeed C: LSC 1.5 (due out this month) will be shipped to all of the people who bought LSC 1.02 free of charge. I ran into a problem with LSC and the new ROM (I think) and dropped them a note. The next day, floppies were on their way to Think with the affected files, and they had started looking at the problem within 36 hours of mail mailing them (on the other coast from them, no less) -- taking the time, I might add, to call me and confirm they got there. The hopeful news: o Word 3.0: Microsoft has zapped Copy Protection. Way to go! Microsoft has announced 3.0 (as far as I have been able to find out on CompuServe, full PC 3.0 capability in the Mac environment) for January 1987. Update notices will be sent to registered users in November, and owners of Word 1.05 can have the upgrade for $95 -- this to go from a $100 program to a $395 program with MANY enhancements: style sheets, an 80,000 word spelling checker, outliner, and lots of other new features. Assuming I get the upgrade notice the way I've been told I will, Microsoft is doing lots of Good Things here. There IS hope in the wilderness... The Bad News: o Letrapage (nee MacPublisher II): The news isn't good on ALL the fronts. The latest issue of MacWorld had a press release announcing the new edition of LetraPage, the renamed version of MacPublisher II (a CP program with lots of annoying new ROM and HFS bugs, but otherwise a reasonably nice alternative to the much more expensive PageMaker). As a registered user, I've heard nothing of the upgrade from Letraset, the people who bought Boston Software and renamed the program. I called, asking for info. Three times, as a matter of cat, I've called, asking for info. Three times, eventually a very nice person took my name and number, and promised that the "letrapage marketing person" (who three times has been out of the office) would call me "tomorrow" -- over a period of over two weeks. As far as I can tell, Letrapage is vaporware. If it isn't, they certainly don't seem interested in telling people about it. MacPublisherII seems to have been removed from the market (at least, I can't find a store with it for sale, even ComputerWare), probably so it can be renamed and re-packaged. This kind of unwillingness to cooperate with its customers is inappropriate. I have a simple answer to them -- I'm looking at both ReadySetGo 3.0 and Pagemakter 2.0 and I expect to toss out MacPublisherII in the next few weeks. I don't NEED them, and their product isn't nearly as competitive as it was 6 months ago. Since they don't seem want to support it, I don't want to use it. (Side note: RSG3.0 is NOT copy protected, and may even have the edge on functionality over PM2.0 -- I'm still looking into it....) Oh, well. The world is getting better, but it ain't perfect. I STILL wonder how a company with a $35 product can afford to to things a company with a $200 product can't. Actually, I think there IS an explanation. Boston Software (now Letraset) is a first generation Mac software producer. The older companies could get away with obnoxious Copy Protection, with buggy software, with not bothering to talk to customers -- that was the "way it had always been done" and the way it always would be... It HAS changed, though. The newer companies -- Symettry (Acta), Ann aRbor (Fullpaint) has have not only stretched technology and pricing in their products, they back them up. There IS a choice, if you can call it that -- would you rather buy a $500 Copy Protected unsupported program, or a $200 unprotected program where the company will (at least) acknowledge you exist? Some choice. The newer companies are forging the next generation of software -=- not just better technology, but more competitive pricing and better support. The older companies are either going to have to recognize these changes and adapt (as Microsoft seems tob e) or they'll go away. And good riddance. The times of Buyer Beware are behind us -- software people have to treat their customers as people, and deal with them fairly, or they won't be in business. About time.