[comp.sys.apple] APDA pricing

LWELCH@COLGATEU.BITNET (05/11/89)

        COM%"mattd@APPLE.COM"      "Matt Deatherage"  writes:

Chip, APDA wanted to hold an APDA Town Meeting at AppleFest to hear what
Apple II developers (not necessarily Partners) thought about their service.
All of two people bothered to show up.  I know you were there; did you go?
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   The APDA Town Meeting you refer to was scheduled to take place on Friday at
2:30.  Unfortunately, I had to be here for a class on Friday and didn't arrive
in Boston until Friday night (you do remember the story about that night don't
you?).  Anyway, I was only there for Saturday and Sunday and couldn't go to the
Twon Meeting.  I'm sorry to hear that so few people showed up.  Maybe people had
trouble finding "Commercial 3."  The meeting wasn't in the main Applefest
guide, so some people may not have heard about it.

   I did have a chance to ask Sue Espinosa about APDA's pricing policy on GEnie
a couple of weeks before Applefest.  She said that APDA had to raise their
prices because they had increased quality control and support.  I haven't seen
much of that, but I think it's a pretty flimsy argument.  APDA could allow
third-parties to pay for ads in APDAlog like the old APDA used to and reduce
their prices some.  The ads can be useful to developers as well as the
descriptions given of third-party products.

   I don't mean to say that APDA has no purpose.  It does provide tools and
documentation in one place that aren't available anywhere else.  The //GS
Debugger is a good example of this (I recommend it to every //GS programmer).
I don't mind if they sell third party products at retail price either.  But, I
think that APDA should provide items such as system software, technical notes,
and Addison-Wesley's manuals at the lowest cost possible to developers.


|  Chip Welch                                "Apple ][ Forever!"             |
|  Chipmunk Computer Systems                                                 |
|  CU Box L3058                         BITNET:  LWELCH@COLGATEU.BITNET      |
|  Hamilton, NY 13346                   GEnie:   C.WELCH3                    |
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