awd@dbase.A-T.COM (Alastair Dallas) (08/02/90)
It's probably not proper netiquette to post product announcements here, but I've answered so many "when?" questions, I wanted to make sure everyone who wants to know is aware that Ashton-Tate announced yesterday in New York that dBASE IV 1.1 is _already_ shipping. It's shipping free to registered users (if you didn't get a postcard recently, call (800) 2-ASHTON), it's shipping to retail stores, and it's shipping simultaneously in French and German versions. We're very proud of this product. When 1.0 shipped in 1988, everyone said "wow, look at the features." Then they said "wow, look at the features, but did you hear about the bugs?" Because you've got to have full confidence in your software development platform, people began wishing for a dBASE IV that they could trust. Well, this is it. Over 5 million tests; more than 2500 beta test sites; 60,000 in-house test suites. It's faster, takes less memory (450k footprint), supports extended/expanded memory and even includes a few new commands and functions (INDEX FOR <cond> being my personal favorite). And because reliability is such a watchword at A-T these days (turnaround time from bug discovery to bug fix has been under 24 hours for the last couple of months), our new V-P has announced that we will have a version 1.11 bug fix release out within 6 weeks or so to fix anything that might come up. And (probably) 1.12 6 weeks after that. All software has bugs--we're committed to supporting our software to the max, that's all. On a personal note, let me be blunt. Ed Esber is gone, folks. This is the guy who let Wayne Ratliff go, who sued Fox, who said "make my day." The new management is solid and professional--this is a whole new Ashton-Tate. That was Ed, this is now. Thanks for your support. /alastair/