jax@well.UUCP (Jack J. Woehr) (11/04/88)
Followers of this topic will remember my flame letter to
the editor ( Johnathan Piel) of the new publication,
"Scientific American Trends In Computing" regarding the
inaugural issue.
You will recall that this first issue, sponsored *in its
entirety* by IBM contained a lovely photograph of a child
marvelling at an Amiga 1000 ... with the Amiga markings
deleted from the photograph!
I commented that this sort of behaviour disgraced the good
name of "Scientific American" in an open letter to Mr. Piel,
Commodore Business Machines, IBM, and yourselves, good readers.
To my surprise, Mr. Piel has replied to my letter as follows:
________________________________________________________________________
Scientific American
Johnathan Piel, Editor
October 28, 1988
Mr. Jack Woehr
(address,etc.)
Dear Mr. Woehr:
I am sorry that my decision to remove Amiga
markings from the photograph in _Trends In Computing_ to
which you refer has been the occasion for so much
distress to you.
IBM never in any way suggested to me or any one on this
staff that other manufacturer's products should not appear
in _Trends_; furthermore, the issue contains articles by
worker who are employed by other corporations that compete
with IBM. It was in defference [ sic ] to IBM's open and
generous attitude that I reciprocated in this minor way.
As a result of IBM's interest in _Trends_ we anticipate
being able to launch this new title. When it is published
regularly we expect that its pages will be eagerly read by
people who make investment decisions about computer systems
and vigorously used by all manufacturers of hardware and
software.
Sincerely,
/s/ Johnathan Piel
415 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10017-1111
Telephone (212) 754-0550
Fax (212) 355-6245
Telex 236115
__________________________________________________________________________
Well, I'd say Mr. Piel's magazine has been "vigorously used"
already, and for somewhat questionable purposes, apparently to convince
readers that IBM manufactures Amigas. But that's just a personal opinion,
somewhat akin to my personal opinion that if Mr. Piel ever craps out in
the journalism game, he might well possess the qualifications for a
cabinet post in the Bush administration ... :-)
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