jfm@caen.engin.umich.edu (john francis mansfield) (07/13/89)
Hi there NetLand, This is really a flame and a warning rolled into one. If you dont like to read about people bitching and moaning then press n now. Still with me? OK, let me relate to you a little story about a salesperson that I talked with today. First let me give you a little background. I am working in a Materials Science Department and an Electron Microscopy Lab. We are very interested in digitizing, maipulating and measuring images of various types. We have made some headway with the program Image (from NIH) and a Scion Image grabber. We need a little more sophistication however. At a recent imaging show I saw a demonstration and talked to the author of a program named "Prism". This program is a very powerful and professional image processing and measuring system. It is VERY loosely based on Image, in asmuch as it has the same "look and feel". The author said that his program was being marketed by a company called "Dapple Systems" and it was expensive, since they tried to sell you the system on a 20 meg floppy (and also sold you the drive to read that floppy!). He mentioned something like $6000. I swallowed hard and came back from the show with a full function but time limited demo. A number of people here liked it and asked about buying it. I mentioned the ballpark price and they were a little reticent. Bear in mind however that dedicated image processing systems can cost upto about $40000 and so I was seriously considering approaching the interested parties in our department and elsewhere in engineering to gather funds to get a licence to run several copies of this software. We already have Macs and Frame grabbers. We just wanted the software. Now come the interesting bit. I called Dapple and asked to speak with their salesperson Bill Stewart. It was he who answered the phone. So I said I was interested in Prism and he asked me where I was from and when I told him he said he'd had lots of enquiries from the U of Michigan. This was presumably due to the imaging show here. I asked him for pricing info. He quoted me the simplest system and said I would have to set it up and put the frame grabber in my mac myself and do the software installation. I said I could do that, what was the price? He said: $16,750!!!!!!! I expressed extreme incredulity at this and he said that was the price for the system. Now he didnt say if that included the loaded Mac (this prog REQUIRES 5meg), but it did say it included the Kodak 20 disc and drive and the frame grabber board (I think they use Data Translation or Scion). I said I needed JUST the program and he said it would still be around $12-13000!! He said that was the price it was and that was it. I asked how many macs I could run it on and he said one. It is evidently keyed in some way so you cannot copy it. He was becoming bored sounding at this point. I asked if there was ever anyway we could get multiple licenses ask we would need several and he said each system was standalone they would never consider thing like a site-wide license. As this conversation was proceeding he was becoming more and more condescending. He said thins like "It sounds as tho' youdont need anythig like US, why dont you call someone else and get their "Big Image" for $700." "You obviously dont need what we have." With the general tone of "Dont waste my time if you are going to order it now" and "well you obviously arent doing anything serious". This was not a good way to greet a potential customer for the first time. I said I was interested in a group purchase and he said that ten copies would not cost $120000 but he was disinclined to make any comments about what it would cost as he didnt think I was serious (this was determined by his general rude demeanour). As I tried to extract more information or a little bit of interest he said "Well I see we can do nothing for you and I have a very busy schedule" and then hung up without so much as a goodbye. I called back immediately and someone else answered the phone and I asked to speak to the President of the company and was informed that it was this guy Stewart and they asked me who I was. When I wouldnt give my name they wouldnt let me speak to him so I very rudely told this person exactly what I thought of them and even before I could finish the line was already dead. Now I am really rather annoyed at this. I could envisage paying this kind of money for a multi cpu system but for one system I still think the price ridiculous and if you have to deal with people who have a "take-it-or-leave-it-you-arent-good-enough-to-speak-to-me" attitude then I cant see many people dealing with them. I encourage anyone who wants scientific image processing to use NIH Image and modify it to suit your needs (it comes with source) or check out either Automatix (I havent tried this software yet) or Ultimage. Ultimage is a port from I think a VAX based system but it is very powerful but not quite as intuitive as Prism. It is however, $2990 list price and can use a DSP board for FFTs. Their sales people are a lot nicer too!! They are GTFS at 707-579-1733 I have no connection with them save having had long converstions with one of their people concerning their program, how to use it how to improve it and what the hidden powers are. Avoid Dapple! There I have had my say and have toned things down a lot. I am really furious at the tone and attutide of this company. If they are Apple sanctioned resellers some someone ought to rethink that. I have never met anyone in the Mac business who was so rude. Thanks for putting up with this. These are my opinions not the U of M's!