[comp.sys.ibm.pc] Microsoft 'Downgrade'???!!!

brewer@tekcrl.LABS.TEK.COM (David Brewer) (06/15/90)

I have a friend who works for an organization that uses Microsoft Works
for just about everything they do.  Among other uses, they have been
using Works 1.04 for the pc and have written quite a few large macros
for functions they needed.  When Works 2.0 came out, they purchased an
upgrade for their existing copies and purchased new copies of Works
for the new computers they were getting.  Unfortunately, version 2.0
won't execute the macros they have.  Microsoft acknowledged to them that
this was a bug and would fix it 'sometime'.  In the meantime, this
organization has too few copies of the old version to go around.  When
they asked Microsoft whether they can use as many copies of the old
version as they have purchased of the new version, Microsoft said that
they would have to purchase a 'downgrade' from the new version to the old
version for each copy they use.  The charge would be $15.00 per copy.

Now granted that $15.00 is not a lot of money, I find it incredible that
Microsoft would be so petty as to squeeze this organization because of a
bug in their new version of Works.  They've gotten their money when
multiple copies of the new version were purchased, and should allow
the user to at least use multiple copies of the old program until Microsoft
gets around to fixing their bug 'sometime'.  The levying of a 'downgrade'
fee is about as ludicrous as it gets.  

I'd be interested if anyone else has had a similar experience with
Microsoft.

David Brewer
brewer@tekcrl.LABS.TEK.COM