Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ns-mx!iowasp.physics.uiowa.edu!maverick.ksu.ksu.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!randvax!ucla-an!denwa!icjapan!jimmy From: jimmy@icjapan.info.com (Jim Gottlieb) Newsgroups: comp.unix.i386 Subject: Re: Interactive and me - An open letter to ISC. Message-ID: <367@icjapan.uucp> Date: 20 Jul 90 08:08:10 GMT References: <3126@rsiatl.UUCP> <1990Jul11.164044.7241@sco.COM> <18628@ttidca.TTI.COM> Sender: jimmy@icjapan.uucp Reply-To: jimmy@denwa.info.com (Jim Gottlieb) Organization: Info Connections, Tokyo, Japan Lines: 55 Tom Reingold says: > I am amazed that a basic point has not yet been made yet! > > Copy protection, serialization and other methods may prevent illegal > copies. But they do not necessarily make someone buy a product! If > someone can't copy something illegally, he may just do without it. He > may not be a potential sale at all. This is accurate. I know cases of students (and others) who pool together to buy expensive software, including the Unix operating system. Illegal copying is taking place, but no revenue is being lost because there is no way each person could have afforded the product on his/her own. In fact, a sale may have been gained. And Michael Jank says: > I have the solution: Software vendors should price their products such > that businesses could afford to purchase copies for each machine. Another excellent point. Consider how difficult it is to convince management to change over from DOS to Unix when you get to the issue of cost and you get to tell them that their $70 operating system must be replaced by a $1500 system, ON EACH MACHINE. This may be not much less than what they paid for the machines themselves. Again, a foolproof copy-protection system may cost the vendor sales as a few legal copies bring in more revenue than no legal copies. Why don't vendors offer, for a cheaper price, a license to load software onto an additional machine. No shipping charges. No printing charges. Their incremental cost is zero. We don't need ten copies of the manual to TCP/IP. On the support issue, I must say that when asked (and I'm asked a lot) I used to recommend that people buy Interactive Unix. Now, I ususally recommend ESIX. Support is the reason, and Interactive better fix it soon or they are going to alienate their entire customer base. When in a jam, I used to be able to call Interactive in Santa Monica and speak with someone who knew something. Now I am asked to pay $645 a year for the privledge, not of speaking with someone immediately, but of getting a callback the next day. When I am out at a customer's site and have a problem, I need an answer fairly soon. I can't wait around a day for someone to get back to me. Another point that has not been mentioned here is that the $645 buys "15 telephone consultations". A serious problem could lead me to use up a third of those in a week. I wouldn't even mind paying $1/minute on a 900 number for support, if I really got to speak with someone knowledgable. -- Jim Gottlieb Info Connections, Tokyo, Japan _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ or or Fax: +81 3 237 5867 Voice Mail: +81 3 222 8429