Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!apollo!oj
From: oj@apollo.COM (Ellis Oliver Jones)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: Re: Hey Apollo folks...Listen up
Message-ID: <40154c81.d5b2@apollo.COM>
Date: 6 Dec 88 01:09:00 GMT
References: <8811160706.AA01866@umix.cc.umich.edu> <40147143.d5b2@apollo.COM>
Reply-To: oj@canyon.UUCP (Ellis Oliver Jones)
Organization: Apollo Computer, Chelmsford, MA
Lines: 37

One of my colleagues (who prefers not 
to post this himself) had these
remarks when he read my first reply to
Scott Ferguson's posting.

>       I'll bet you're about to pull one of those IBM/Microsoft moves                     
>       and make the current GPR calls incompatible with the next                          
>       version like you did with GMR2D, so that we'll absolutely                          
>       have to buy it.                                                                    
                                                                                           
The decision to change GMR2D was not made to force people to pay for it!                   
It came about after _much_ deliberation only after we had decided that                     
there was no way to fix certain deficiencies without introducing                           
incompatibilities. We were hearing enough about these deficiencies to                      
convince us that we had to respond to them, that their overall cost was                    
hurting our customers more than what it would cost to fix them. It's                       
always painful to impose a transition cost; it's an admission that the                     
original product was not perfect in design, and it's an imposition on                      
the customers. We took this step only after convincing ourselves that                      
it was the right thing to do and taking care that the transition problems                  
would be minimized.                                                                        
      
   >          A note to you Apollo R&D folks responsible for the development            
   >      of GPR, GMR2D and GMR3D: I would like to hear from you on this net            
   >      to explain whose brilliant idea this is, and whether you agree or             
   >      not.                                                                          
                                                                                           
The folks in R&D worked closely with Marketing and Customer Support to agree               
on a sane approach to the unbundling issue. EVERY Apollo customer was contacted            
and warned that this would be happening with a letter dated 12/8/87 which                
outlined the reasons for the changes and the steps we were taking to ease the              
process. We followed with a telephone campaign this past summer and fall.                  
What we found was that most sites had not managed to transmit the 12/8/87                  
letter to the people most interested, so that, despite our efforts, there was              
a lot of surprise and anger out there. We certainly didn't want that.

/Ollie Jones  Graphics Software Engineer, Apollo Computer, Inc.