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From: cy@dbase.a-t.com (Cy Shuster)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.apps
Subject: Re: All Commercial Software Developers or Companies (pls read)
Message-ID: <1991Jun24.171522.10741@dbase.a-t.com>
Date: 24 Jun 91 17:15:22 GMT
References: <5336@ryn.mro4.dec.com>
Sender: news@tate.a-t.com
Organization: Ashton-Tate, Inc.
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Originator: cy@dbase
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I always love it when I can post an Actual Fact on the net!
We are, of course, members of SPA. We just finished an internal
audit on our own software use, on both our Macs and PCs,
which resulted in our purchasing a few stray copies of both
commercial and shareware software, to match our actual usage.
Both of these groups are benefiting directly from the dollars
we spent.

I sympathize, however, with the original poster who feels the
need to try software hands-on before buying. I don't even like
demo software, as it's usually restricted in record count,
which prevents performance testing on more typical file sizes.
My solution is to find someone who has the software in question,
and try it on their machine. I find it equally as useful to
talk directly with someone who has used the particular package
in the real world, as to try it myself.

We've moved away from copy protection, which was mostly a
pain for legal users, and a trivial challenge for crackers.
We're trying to come back to honesty and accountability.
Many corporate assests and activities are audited, for good
reasons, including hardware, furniture, annual reports, and
customer service levels.

--Cy--
cy@dbase.a-t.com
dBASE IV RunTime PLUS Developer