Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!hacgate!ashtate!dbase!cy
From: cy@dbase.UUCP (Cy Shuster)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Apple OS 7.0 - Cost?
Summary: Support ain't cheap!
Message-ID: <348@dbase.UUCP>
Date: 4 Jan 90 18:56:51 GMT
References: <35036.2598DF8A@cmhgate.FIDONET.ORG> <37516@apple.Apple.COM> <23943@brunix.UUCP> <1701@esquire.UUCP>
Reply-To: cy@dbase.UUCP (Cy Shuster)
Organization: Ashton Tate Development Center Glendale, Calif.
Lines: 20

In article <1701@esquire.UUCP> baumgart@esquire.dpw.com (Steve Baumgarten) writes:
[arguing for free customer support]
>It really doesn't cost that much; ...  [most omitted]

I beg to differ on this point.  Good support is quite costly, labor-
intensive as it is, and particularly when a wide variety of hardware
and software configurations are supported (moreso for our PC products,
but rapidly expanding on the Mac side as well). This is one of the
chief reasons for limiting support to registered owners.

Furthermore, support people, along with testers, are some of the most
unsung heroes of the industry.  Most developers don't know the externals
of the products nearly as well as the internals; we'd be in deep puckey
without 'em.  Plus, they have to represent the whole company to end
users every day, and defend products that they can only indirectly change.
My hat's off to them.

This has been an unpaid, unpolitical announcement.

--Cy--    cy@dbase.a-t.com