Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!modcomp!srp From: srp@modcomp.UUCP (Steve Pietrowicz) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: WordPerfect dumps Amiga Keywords: WordPerfect Message-ID: <155@modcomp.UUCP> Date: 2 May 89 01:00:25 GMT Lines: 103 WordPerfect has decided to stop further development work for the Amiga. The following message was posted to CompuServe's AmigaTech Forum on Saturday morning, and is reposted here with permission. I'm sure that's it's started to make it's rounds on various BBS systems, but for those of you who haven't seen it yet, here is the original posting. Since the posting, Mr. Peterson has been answering people's questions about this on CIS. (He's on the board of directors of WP). If you wish to send him e-mail or post a notice to him, his ID is listed below. If you wish to send a letter to WordPerfect, the address is: WordPerfect Corporation 1555 N. Technology Way Orem, UT 84057 ----------------------------- #: 45802 S3/Hot News and Rumors 29-Apr-89 00:20:43 Sb: #WPCorp Backs Off Fm: Pete Peterson WPCorp 72067,3552 To: All I spent some time on the phone today with an Amiga user who wanted to tell me how upset he was to learn that we have cancelled PlanPerfect for the Amiga and put on hold any plans for a major revision to WordPerfect. The person was especially upset to learn that the decision was based largely on monetary considerations. All of this is true. This week we took five programmers from the Amiga group and moved them to OS/2 or Unix. That left two programmerto maintain (fix the bugs) in the current versions of WordPerfect and Library. We will continue to sell these versions, and we will from time to time issue minor releases to fix bugs. For those of you who are unhappy or upset about the decision, I offer the following explanation. I know it may not help much to understand the reasons, but I will offer hem to you so you at least know what happened. As has been discussed on this forum, we have a few problems in the Amiga market. I would suggest our problems are as follows: 1--We do not show fonts on screen; 2--We do not support any graphics on screen or in a document; 3--Our price is too high for the market; and 4--Some people feel our software has too many bugs. 4 is, of course, something we can do something about (and there is an interim release coming in a couple of weeks). 1, 2 and 3 are touvher. We don't have an easy way of getting fonts and graphics on screen. 5.0 for the PC handles fonts and graphics well, but not on screen. We probably won't have a WYSIWYG DOS version that can be ported for another year, and a port of a DOS version would take 18 months after that. The Amiga programmers had been planning on porting the next Mac version, but the big problem with using the Mac code (which is 68000 assembly) is that we rely completely on the Macintosh facilities for printing. That means the Amiga group would have to write all the printing code themselves, in addition to the code translation. Such a product could not be ready until mid-1990 at the earliest--and probably longer. We thought of using our printing code from the C (Unix) version, but the codes is just too big to be used effectively on the Amiga. The third alternative is to write a word processor rom scratch. Such a project would take 6 n 7 programmers about 18 months (an optimistic guess). So whatever we do, we arrive very late to the market--probably the end of 1990 at the earliest. And once we arrive, we probably have to enter with a price closer to $195. At that price (distributor price of $80-$100) given the salaries we pay our programmers and the support we offer, we don't feel we can make money. Most of our Amiga programmers are very discouraged with the decision. They love the machine and they like working together. They have worked hard without much commercial success. But Bruce, Alan and I (the Board of Directors) cannot fund the new products without some hope that the products will be successful. Given the timing, the price point, and the costs of development, it just doesn't make sense. We had hoped the German market would generate enough money to pay for the projects, but unfortunately we are not selling in Germany. While sales of the Amiga are strong, mostof the sales are for 500s, and we don't run well at all on the 500. We're sorry. We kno a lot of ustomers will be unhappy with these decisions. We entered the market because a few of our programmers loved the machine. It was a decision of the heart, not:he head. We tried to pull back last summer when our WordPerfect sales fell off badly, but the programmers pleaded for more time. We reconsidered the decision in January, and again (with our hearts) decided to give it a little more time. Since then sales have fallen off even more, and now we don't see any way to justify the new products. WordPerfect is a great word processor and the Amiga is a great machine. Our 4.1, 4.2 or 5.0 versions, however, are not the right versions for the Amiga. We need 6.0, and 6.0 isn't ready yet. Once it's ready, we may change our decision, but in the meantime, we can make better use of the programmers on other machines. Pete --------------END OF MESSAGE------------------- Steve Pietrowicz uucp: ...!uunet!modcomp!srp CIS: 73047,2313