Xref: utzoo comp.sys.mac.misc:2845 comp.sys.mac.apps:1378 Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!pacbell!pacbell.com!decwrl!uunet!snorkelwacker!bloom-beacon!world!boris From: boris@world.std.com (Boris Levitin) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc,comp.sys.mac.apps Subject: Re: Norton Utils and Excel Message-ID: <1990Sep2.074933.16905@world.std.com> Date: 2 Sep 90 07:49:33 GMT References: <1538@ntmtv.UUCP> <679@dbase.A-T.COM> <1990Aug23.070322.9301@world.std.com> <33436@cup.portal.com> Organization: The World @ Software Tool & Die Lines: 137 It's not easy being a very large software publisher. For one thing, there's no statute of limitations on bad decisions you've made years ago. For example, ts@cup.portal.com (Tim W Smith) writes, referring to my defense of Microsoft from users who want a well-behaved Excel not limited to 1MB RAM, but who refuse to upgrade to version 2.2, released a year and a half ago at an upgrade cost of $99 to fix just these problems and add a great many really useful features: >< At any rate, once a company has fixed a program's problems in an upgrade >< (as Microsoft has done in Excel 2.2), users who do not avail themselves of >< it in all decency should stop whining about the bugs in the now-obsolete >< version of the program they're running. >Sure they should keep whining. If enough people whine about Microsoft >having screwed up Excel 1.5 so badly, maybe Microsoft will do something >about it, like make a cheap or free upgrade available. Enough people whined in 1987-88, so after what seemed like an eternity (esp. to users like me with MultiFinder and a Radius accelerator, neither of which worked well with Excel 1.5), Microsoft finally released 2.2 in April 89. In addition to solving the memory and compatibility problems, version 2.2 also added many new features which serious users needed badly. It then charged $99 for the upgrade, not an unreasonable price given the amount of improvement (other than bug and design-flaw fixes) in the new version, and given Microsoft's knowledge that it had a 90% share of the spreadsheet market and most users, therefore, would have to upgrade even at that price. If you say that taking advantage of market hegemony is not a nice thing to do, keep in mind that the world is not a nice place, and that for a company that dominates the market so utterly, Microsoft usually acts more like a saint than like - what's a similar organization in the news - OPEC. In its attention to customer needs, especially in the design of its software and technical support, Microsoft is one of the best (and I say that as someone who has dealt with many, many publishers). Guy Kawasaki in _The Macintosh Way_, after railing against Microsoft's elephantine domination of DOS and Mac software, does describe its chairman, Bill Gates, taking down user suggestions at an Excel user-group meeting. This is not something a company that doesn't care about its users would do, even as a PR pose. Compare Microsoft policies and upgrade prices with other market-dominating companies': Pagemaker publisher Aldus and 4th Dimension publisher ACI/ACIUS, for example. Both, I believe, have higher upgrade prices, and, unlike Microsoft, after they throttle you with their exorbitant pricing, they make you pay large fees for tech support (actually, ACIUS was just threatening to do that, last I've heard). While I believe that Microsoft was way too late in fixing Excel's memory problems, no company in its right mind would release a separate version that provided that fix but no new features to 1.5 users who chose not to upgrade, once version 2.2 was ready. Not only would Microsoft be cutting itself off from a crucial revenue stream (the major-version upgrade fee), but it would perpetuate the need to support an obsolete product and create, in effect, a second current version of Excel (1.5 and 2.2 are substantially different, and even use different file formats). Again, there's no question that the memory problems should have been fixed earlier and, arguably, in a maintenance upgrade, but since the other elements of 2.2 were ready by the time the memory problems were fixed, Microsoft could release everything in one package or release them separately and undermine its own financial interest in Excel. >I don't use spreadsheets, but if I needed one, I would take Wingz or >Full Impact over Excel 2.x anyday, until I see evidence that I don't >have to worry about major bugs requiring me to have to update my >software. I own and use Wingz. On paper, when you match its capabilities, features and speed, it embarrasses the hell out of Excel. Up and running, it's *much* more difficult to use, and much less intuitive. You can do very few things without reading the manual, and even the scripting language, supposedly resembling English commands in the manner of HyperTalk, is much less predictable than Excel's. Of course, if you're a real power-user, you would overcome Wingz's eccentricities, but then a real power-user would embrace Excel 2.2 and take particular pleasure in trashing the ill-mannered 1.5 from his/her system. The memory problems of Excel up to and including version 1.5 were not due to a bug but to Microsoft's decision to do its own memory management rather than use the relevant toolbox routines, as far as I understand. When this decision was made back when the original Excel was being designed in 1985, the largest Mac had 512kB RAM, MultiFinder was but a dream, and accelerator boards were hardly a factor. In retrospect, the do-it-yourself approach (motivated, as far as I understand, by a desire to gain speed) was probably wrong, and, while Excel's appearance to replace MultiPlan was a welcome surprise, Microsoft did not pay sufficient attention to the program's development in the first couple of years after it was first published (that's the feeling of some Microsoft employees I talked to, who felt that a new urgency to "catch up" was created by Wingz' and Full Impact's arrival). Version 2.2 isn't substantially more buggy than the current versions of Wingz or Full Impact, to the best of my knowledge. Microsoft is very good about providing free maintenance upgrades (for example, version 2.2a, which fixed a data-corruption problem for large files shared over Tops). You will, however, be required to pay a reasonable fee for the next major upgrade; it won't be until the next major upgrade that Excel will get a decent charting facility, while Full Impact and Wingz make beautiful charts right now. If you were buying a spreadsheet right now, it would certainly be one factor to consider. However, unless you're willing to freeze your entire system at the current level of development, you will never avoid upgrades, regardless of your choice of software. Over the next two years, publishers will be adding support for the advanced features of System 7, and farther into the future, for System 8. Later this decade there will probably be a move to a RISC-based hardware platform. As new technologies emerge, developers gradually stop supporting old ones; in the computer industry, progress just happens quicker than elsewhere. >If I had seen Microsoft respond to the 1.5 memory problem >with a quick free update, Excel would be in the running if I had to >chose a spreadsheet. People "whining" about 1.5 might cause Microsoft >enough sales that it would be worth their time to do something about it. Version 1.5 is fading rapidly into distant history. Nowadays people are whining about 2.2's inferior charting, and Microsoft will do something about it (and support at least some System 7 goodies) in the next major version. I am confident that Microsoft will keep Excel competitive with Wingz and Full Impact, but don't hold your breath for it to do anything to allow 1.5-owning upgrade refusers to deprive it of revenue (especially now that a year and a half has passed since 2.2 was released). >It is possible to write software that works well and survives the >evolution of the Mac family. I just wish more companies would do >so. Agreed. Few companies did that back when Excel appeared, though (I don't need to refer to the horizontal-scroll-bar-less MacWrite, which, several versions later, still broke down on the Mac II). Besides, the old Excel did last until about 1987-88 with no major problems... While conformity with Apple's guidelines will seriously increase new packages' compatibility with future software, such coexistence cannot be extended forever because the guidelines themselves, and hardware platforms, are bound to change. Boris Levitin ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- WGBH Public Broadcasting, Boston boris@world.std.com Audience & Marketing Research wgbx!boris_levitin@athena.mit.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- (The opinions expressed herein are my own and do not necessarily coincide with those of my employer or anyone else. The WGBH tag is for ID only.)