hawkes@dover.sps.mot.com (Rob Hawkes) (04/21/89)
For those of you shopping for a page layout program, let this be a warning. I bought QuarkXPress v1.1 just before v2.0 was released. Quark did the right thing and sent me 2.0 free of charge. When v2.0a was available they sold me the update for a very modest fee. At that time they offered to sell me a service contract for hundreds of dollars that entitled me to call their technical support number when necessary. I don't need that kind of help, so I politely declined. Now v2.1 is ready. But it is bundled with a one-year maintenance contract and a subscription to their newsletter and it costs $275. Quark says I must continue buying maintenance year after year to receive software updates. I have been quite satisfied with the program, but this kind of marketing makes me angry. If XPress was really commercial strength typesetting software I would expect to pay that kind of money for updates. But it is not that hot yet. So if you are saving your dollars to plunk down on a new copy of XPress ($499 mail order), save a few extra hundreds for the maintenance contract. -- Rob Hawkes, Motorola Sector CAD Mesa, AZ 602-994-6866, ...!uunet!dover!hawkes