milo@ndmath.UUCP (Greg Corson) (10/18/87)
This message is mainly directed at companies who manufacture or sell Unix
computer systems, but others might want to talk about it too. Would you be
interested in a service that provided a commercial version of Usenet
(mail & bulletin boards) and source/binary program archives already tested on
YOUR machine? Such a service would be supported by a computer company and
offered to it's customers either free or for a fee.
It seems that something like that would be very handy for customer support,
basically centrally controlled USENET-like network (seperate from USENET
proper) with customized easy-to-use user interfaces to allow the companies
customers to dial up and:
1. Send/receive mail or BBS traffic to other customers or to the computer
companies customer/support groups.
2. Access and download programs from an archive of public domain software (from
USENET and other sources) which have been compiled and tested on the
manufacturer's computers. There could also be archives of machine specific
binaries so customers who didn't get a C compiler with their computer
(and a lot of manufactures don't include one thesed days) could still
use the programs.
3. Access and download machine specific software updates, program or operating
system patches and "how-to" information (ie: how to setup spoolers,
fix common problems...etc.) Much cheaper and faster than mailing disks
around everytime some utility is patched or updated.
The reason I ask is because my company is in a position to setup such a
service IF any computer company wants to support it, and a posting on USENET
is the quickest way to see if anybody does. (also, I'm kind of curious why
nobody has done this yet...or have they?)
I realize this message is a bit commercial for USENET, but as many
non-technical Unix users could benifit from such a service I hope you won't
flame me TOO much about it.
Send comments, questions, flames and reasons why this is/isn't a good idea
to:
Greg Corson
Kangaroo Koncepts, Inc.
19141 Summers Drive
South Bend, IN 46637
(219) 277-5306
{pur-ee,rutgers,uunet}!iuvax!ndmath!milo