Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!crdgw1!galen!leue
From: leue@galen.crd.ge.com (Bill Leue)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Subject: Re: HyperCard sellout
Message-ID: <12108@crdgw1.crd.ge.com>
Date: 24 Sep 90 15:48:44 GMT
References: <1990Sep22.224859.20395@hayes.fai.alaska.edu>
Sender: news@crdgw1.crd.ge.com
Organization: General Electric Research & Development
Lines: 46

In article <1990Sep22.224859.20395@hayes.fai.alaska.edu> ftdkl@acad3.fai.alaska.edu writes:
>The mood here in Fairbanks amongst HyperCard developers is generally
>depressive.  Its true that we don't know the whole story about the new
>distribution of HyperCard but we do have a real sick feeling about it.
>Maybe I should cross post to alt.angst 

I also got an immediate feeling of gloom when reading the press release.
Gee whiz, Apple!  Couldn't you have considered the timing of this one
a little better?  Consider:

	-- HC 2.0 is already quite late.  I think that most people of
		good will were assuming that the delay was for valid
		technical reasons;  something quite understandable, and
		for which we were all willing to give Apple as much time
		as needed to straighten things out.  Now, however, a
		"reasonable observer" might very well wonder how much
		of the delay is attributable to the political decision
		to transfer the product to Claris

	-- Claris has been making itself unpopular lately by the
		unprecedented (for them) delay in shipping Filemaker Pro;
		and it looks as if Claris CAD 2.0 will be late as well.
		Now they can a chance to add months to HC 2.0, too.

	-- The press release is totally unclear as to whether Claris
		is adding any value of its own to HC 2.0.  Since all
		the news has said that HC 2.0 had already "gone golden"
		while still an in-house Apple product, outsiders may
		well assume that this first release from Claris will
		change only the splash screen and the box color -- and,
		of course, add another 1-2 months delay.

	-- The single largest virtue of HC was its universality.
		Now, however, it's just another development system,
		with some strengths but also major weaknesses compared
		to competing systems.  

Wouldn't it have been better to ship HC 2.0 as an Apple product and THEN
announce the transition to Claris while we were all happily playing
with our new toys?  My feeling is that Apple has tossed away tremendous
amounts of good will by timing this decision they way it did.

The usual disclaimers apply.  Return flames cheerfully accepted.

-Bill Leue
leue@crd.ge.com