Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!rutgers!rochester!cornell!uw-beaver!sumax!polari!6sceng!blm
From: blm@6sceng.UUCP (Brian Matthews)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.apps
Subject: Re: Full Impact 2.0 Availability, or lack thereof
Keywords: spreadsheet applications
Message-ID: <447@6sceng.UUCP>
Date: 6 Jul 90 03:13:16 GMT
References: <484@mstr.hgc.edu> <445@6sceng.UUCP> <11629@netcom.UUCP>
Organization: Six Sigma CASE, Inc.
Lines: 45

In article <11629@netcom.UUCP> ric@netcom.UUCP (Richard Bretscheider) writes:
|blm@6sceng.UUCP (Brian Matthews) writes:
|>[Ashton-Tate sends out a newsletter saying Full-Impact 2.0 is available
|>but it's really not]
|>Someone convince me this isn't really slimy.
|It's not slimy at all.  Nobody who called A-T Customer Service would have
|been told that it was ready then (it's ready now by the way) and no money
|would have been exchanged.

You're right, slimy is too harsh.  No one paid any money, and it wasn't
all that long until FI was ready and orderable.  I still don't think it
was very nice though.  And note that from your point of view FI may
have been ready, but as a customer, unless I can pick up a phone and
order it, or have my dealer do so, it ain't ready.

|I don't see what you're getting steamed about,
|as this is not unusual in the field.

Just because something happens a lot doesn't mean it's right.

|This stuff happens all the time.  As a registered owner of dozens
|of software packages, I get update notices all the time.  Fully half of 
|these notices announce products that aren't quite available yet, as being
|"just a phone call away."  It's the nature of the business.

Yes, it is the nature of the business, and it does happen fairly often.
And the reason it continues is people saying "Oh well, it's the nature
of the business."  I also get upgrade notices for stuff that isn't quite
ready, and if I can, you can bet I talk to a supervisor and tell him or
her what I think of his company lying to its customers.

|The only time
|I get upset is when I have given money to a company and THEN am told that
|they can't ship me anything yet (back-ordered, not finished, on hold, etc.)
|That's slimy.

Yes, that's definitely slimy, and as you say, nothing like that occurred
in this case.

|Hope you'll give the upgrade a try, FI is a great product.  But then
|I'm prejudiced.

I plan on taking a look at Full Impact 2.0.
-- 
Brian L. Matthews	blm@6sceng.UUCP