jafischer@tiger.UUCP (12/04/87)
In article <1236@vaxb.calgary.UUCP> crash@calgary.UUCP (Glen ) writes: > > $99.00 US wow, in Canada they are flogging it for $400.00 cdn. My local dealer likes to slap the $599.95 CDN "list price" on it and sell it at a drastically lower price. I believe they try for $395, but have frequent sales. I purchased mine for $175. I thought _I_ was getting a great deal. $99 US makes me cry. >Does word perfect do automatic backups??? I'd hate having the >program lock up, and thus, losing my work. I just had to respond to this. I have it doing auto backups every 2, yes 2, minutes to the ramdisk! It gets especially flakey when using multiple columns. For instance, when you're in a multiple-column section, _don't_ use the mouse to position the cursor. It usually dies. But let me hasten to add that I'm not overly bothered by these bugs, since I figure that in the next update they'll likely be fixed, and in the meantime I have myself one hell of a whiz-bang WP. With the afore-mentioned auto-backup to my ETERNAL ramdisk, I just hit the reset button and the less- than-2-minute-old file is intact. Actually, I keep meaning to change it to 1 minute, since the backup is so fast that you barely get time to see the 'Backing up file' dialog, and thus it's no inconvenience. And during typical editing the program doesn't die too often (for me). It _is_ extraordinarily poor marketing practice to release a product with such obvious problems, but some marketing folks never learn this lesson. One thing _I've_ learned (with this and with dBMAN) is that the more expensive programs are no more free from this affliction than the cheapos. Indeed, it's almost the other way around, since the cheapos are often more simple programs and hence easier to debug. >People have been asking about ramdisk prototype kit costs, >less than $100.00 cdn. Wow yourself. Considering you can populate this with 256K chips, this sounds pretty good! What does this 'kit' entail? Is it a plug'n'go job? My memory fails me. (Pun not intended). -- - Jonathan A. Fischer jafischer@lily.waterloo.edu ...{ihnp4,allegra,decvax,utzoo,utcsri}!watmath!watdragon!lily!jafischer
rich@lakesys.UUCP (Rich Dankert) (03/20/88)
[] A line eater born every day.....
After reading the message posted in another newsgroup, and in turn posting
the message to this newsgroup, I went and took the sunject to the rest of
the excecutive board of Mil*Atari Ltd. (Milwaukee Area Atari Users Group),
at which time we set out to get the confirmation\denial direct from
Word Perfect Corp.
The following is the direct --> Offical <-- response from Word Perfects
perfects person in charge of marketing for the Atari computers, as well
as the OFFICIAL response from the TOP of the corporation.
The response brings great releif after the previous message, and also
shows exactly what a well run corporation should be like. I would hope (as
well as others) that other corporations would follow suite to WP's policy.
Apoligies to any that had near cardiac arrest from the first message. The
following should dispell and destroy any possibe WRONG rumors to abound.
Word Perfects response follows......
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Category 18, Topic 16
Message 15 Thu Mar 17, 1988
I've spent the last two hours reading the messages on this thread
regarding our impending departure from the Atari market, and I would like
to clarify our position.
First of all, we have not announced that we are withdrawing from the
Atari market and have no current plans to do so. We DO have some
concerns but they are not limited exclusively to the Atari market.
Recent events in the Atari market have simply focused our attention, once
again, on these concerns.
We have long held the philosophy that copy protection is an unacceptable
solution to the piracy problems. We believe that most people are honest
and we feel that it is inappropriate to penalize them for the actions of
the smaller group of dishonest people. I too have felt the frustration
of having a copy-protected disk become "unreadable," not to mention the
inconvenience to hard disk owners. The decision to make this a corporate
policy was made several years ago when we were contemplating what we
should do about the piracy problems in the IBM PC market.
We have had a number of problems with our release for the Atari machines.
It WAS released too early and there WERE a lot of bugs. As soon as we
realized what we had done, we immediately took what steps we could to
alleviate the situation. Our programmers focused all of their attention
on the bugs and worked nights and weekends to find and fix the problems.
We promised free updates to all registered users (and we wouldn't exclude
those who didn't send in their cards as long as they can show proof of
purchase) as soon as we feel that the version is clean. We provide toll-
free support to help our customers through any difficulties they might
encounter and to help us identify problems with our software. This is
nothing different from what we do in any of our markets if we find
problems and I feel it is indicative of our commitment to the Atari
market. I wouldn't want to approach it any differently.
Another serious consideration for us has been the suggested list price.
We are faced with a dilemma here. WordPerfect on the IBM PC has a
suggested list of $495. WordPerfect on the Atari has virtually the same
set of features and the same amount of power; yet, we set the price for
the Atari at $395 reflecting the fact that products on the Atari sell
typically for much less money. We have always given good margins to our
distributors and felt that the market would make its own adjustments.
For example, WP on IBM PCs can be purchased through mail order outlets
for as little as $199. We set the suggested list for the Atari version
at $395 feeling that the "street price" would probably settle in at
around $190, based on what had happened in the PC market. This is still
pricey but we were after the high end of the market and we felt that the
features justified it.
Perhaps the high price has hurt our sales levels but, if anything, the
volume expectations for Atari sales would dictate a higher price. We
ship approximately 50,000 IBM PC WP units per month. We knew from the
outset that the Atari market was not nearly that large but we felt that
the Atari was a natural extension of our policy to support a broad
platform of machines and that it could be a viable market for us. We
still believe that.
Someone suggested that we drop our price and eliminate toll-free support
to cut our costs. That may appear to make sense in this market but it is
inconsistent with our way of doing business. I personally do not feel
that reducing our level of service would help us in this or any other
market.
Finally, what are we doing about piracy? Our legal people pursue pirates
at every possible opportunity. Obviously, we are forced to focus on the
bigger offenders, but we do what we can. We are also active in
organizations such as the Software Publishers Association whose charter
is to stop piracy. The fact of the matter is that we simply can't go
after each and every case, so we need the help of people like you. For
the most part, I like what I've read tonight. I see a high level of
concern among the people in this forum about the piracy issues and the
reputation of Atari users. I'm not convinced that Atari users are any
worse than any other kind of user and many of your messages reinforce my
confidence. However, we can't simply let the issue drop. I feel that it
is mostly a matter of education. There are many people who do not
understand the problem. When educated, they generally choose to do the
right thing.
To reiterate, we have no current plans to "pull out of" the Atari market.
If, at some future date, we were to make the decision to abandon the
Atari or any other market, it would not be based solely on the fact that
we had found our software on 3 BBS systems. The main consideration would
be "can we do our style of business in this market and be profitable?"
Of course, piracy is one factor that can seriously affect profitability.
Due to a prior commitment, I will be unable to join in the CO tomorrow
night but I will be very interested in seeing a log "after the fact." I
hope that this information has helped.
By way of information, we expect to release a "clean" version for the
Atari next week. Registered users will receive an update automatically.
If you have purchased WordPerfect and did not send in your card, give us
a call and we'll take care you.
Dan Lunt, Vice President of Marketing, WordPerfect Corporation*s
Category 18, Topic 16
Message 20 Thu Mar 17, 1988
JR.WILSON [WPCorp] at 12:30 EST
I started to reply to this topic about three times yesterday, but every
time deceided to wait for the official reply that I knew would be coming.
Now that it's here, and you know the scoop from the top, I'll let you
know my feelings. Since Atari WP represents the sum total of the last
two years of my life, along with the rest of our programming and testing
departments, I would hate to see it pulled for _any_ reason. We still
have big plans in store for the ST, and intend to see them through if at
all possible.
Atari has been working on an anti-piracy campagin over the past weeks
which, I believe, can go a long way to help the reputation of Atari
owners. Education is the key, both within our ranks (_none_ of us can
condone stealing software; don't look the other way, but address the
issue!) and without, where preconceived notions of Ataris and their
owners stifle the ability of the system(s). The reputation won't change
if we aren't willing to put forth the effort to see it happen.
Finally, I want to thank everyone here on GEnie for helping us get rid of
the bugs and making WordPerfect a better product for everyone. Next
time, we should have enough experience to prevent a buggy product from
hitting the market.
Jeffrey R. Wilson
Manager, Atari Development
WordPerfect Corporation
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Now *before anyones thinks of flaming me, be advised that we (Mil-Atari)
set up a new topic on GEnie, just to get the facts. If you wuold still
prefer to flame, please send hate mail etc. via elm, so we don't waste
time\effort within the newsgroup!
Now that the TRUTH is out, we get on to better things...
-rich
UUCP: {Ihnp4,uwvax}!uwmcsd1!lakesys!rich
--
Disclaimer: The words, expressions posted here are my own.....
Nothing is ever so bad that it can't be made worse by trying to fix it
-- Law of the Hackerachowe@watmsg.waterloo.edu (CrackerJack) (03/22/88)
Is there a net address I can send bug reports on the Jan'88 release of WP too? -- Anthony C. Howe achowe@watmsg.waterloo.edu "The definition of flying: throwing yourself at the ground and missing." - Douglas Adam's "Life, the Universe and Everything"