hxe@rayssd.RAY.COM (Heather Emanuel) (07/08/87)
Someone recently asked if anyone had any experience with Q-Office.
We are finally ending a year-and-a-half-long nightmare with this
product, so we thought we would share it with you.
Some history: We are the Computer Operations Department of a large
company, with software users at levels from system designers to
programmers to secretaries who have never seen a computer before.
We run UNIX on VAXes, Pyramids, Suns, PCs, and a variety of UNIX
`boxes'. As our user base expanded from the original software
developers to include non-computer-literate people, we decided to
investigate some WYSIWYG software to replace the vi/troff/[printer
command] cycle that demanded a little too much training just to
produce simple memos, etc. We also have a separate Publications
Department that uses Wang word processors and we wanted something
that could translate ascii to [whatever product we chose] to Wang
with relative ease. The Q-One part of Q-Office seemed as though it
would be perfect.
Here is what happened:
February, 1986:
Based on a demonstration of Q-One on an AT&T 3B computer, we decided
to test it out on a Sun 2 computer, since we intend to put most of
our non-software users on Suns. According to the vendor, it was
immediately available, and an order was placed for a single copy.
May, 1986:
After several months of waiting, during which the vendor, Spectrum
Office Systems, told us that we "would get the copy as soon as
Quadratron's Sun 2 was repaired," we were told by Spectrum that we
should upgrade our machines to Sun 3 computers, since they were not
sure they would continue to support Sun 2's.
Because of this unavailability, Spectrum then shipped us a "trial
version" for the Pyramid 90x computer, which we installed. This
version did not support *any* of the many terminals in use at our
company, so we had to create our own terminal databases. By the
time we were finished, we had already discovered many problems and
"Feature Not Yet Implemented" discrepancies in the Q-One software
itself.
July, 1986:
Spectrum shipped another trial release of the Q-One software, which
was supposed to contain fixes and new features over the previous
"pre-release" version. This was not the case, as the majority of
problems still existed, and new problems arose. Several `work-
arounds' were contrived that allowed some functionality of the
product, but the remainder would be "fixed in the next release."
November, 1986:
Spectrum informed us that the next major release of the software was
available, and that the majority of the problems that we had
reported to them were resolved. Because of this, a production copy
was ordered for the Pyramid 90x. (No sign of Q-One for the Suns yet.)
January, 1987:
The production version of Q-One was received. However, upon
installation we discovered that the software would not run on the
version of the Pyramid operating system that we had in house.
It was shelved until such time as the system could be upgraded.
February, 1987:
After the system software had been upgraded and running for several
weeks with no problem, Q-One was installed. The system crashed for
several days at intermittent times, and had file system damage in
the "/usr/spool" directory. This was traced to a Q-One program
called "Qdalarm", which we removed.
Again and still, Q-One did not work in many of the same areas in
which the previous versions had not worked. Some of these problems
were: creating all files with global write permission, tabs not
lining up when printed out or on the screen when you scrolled
backwards through a file, printer daemons not reading the page
formats set in the files, most of the advanced functions simply not
working at all, and on and on. In addition, the new version of the
software caused terminal ports to lock up when Q-One accessed files,
and we had to intervene from another terminal to unlock them. We
dutifully reported these problems to Spectrum, plus we put a "stop
payment" order into our Purchasing Department so the invoice would
not be paid until we had working software.
April, 1987:
After many calls that yielded absolutely no satisfaction, one of
Spectrum's technical support people dialed into our facility,
verified that the problems existed, fixed the one problem of the
file permissions, and offered several difficult workarounds to
correct the flaws in the product -- workarounds that we simply could
not expect the average user to put up with. The majority of the
problems were left unresolved.
Three days later, the file permission fixes disappeared. When we
checked the modification times on the files we found that they had
not been touched. (*You* figure it out!)
May - July, 1987:
We had yet another conversation with Spectrum concerning the lack of
performance of the software and our non-payment of the order. They
said at that time that we would be receiving a newer version in late
May, which would resolve all of our problems. Our sales rep also
stated that he would arrange to visit us in the first week in June
to verify our satisfaction. We neither received nor heard anything
from Spectrum after that -- until today, when we received a letter
asking us to either pay or return all documentation and software.
With joy in our hearts, we packed it all up and sent it back.
We are now evaluating WordMARC.
--Heather Emanuel
hxe@rayssd.ray.com
{allegra,cbatt,cbosgd,gatech,ihnp4,linus,raybed2,uiucdcs}!rayssd!hxe
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I don't think my company *has* an opinion, so the ones in this
article are obviously my own.
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"The woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that
sing the best." --Thoreau