Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!um-math!sharkey!cfctech!teemc!hpftc!zardoz!henry.jpl.nasa.gov!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!apple!rutgers!phri!roy
From: roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Upgrade Policies (was Re: Comments on S.U.M. (long)) (VERY Long)
Keywords: Symantec, SUM, S.U.M.
Message-ID: <3962@phri.UUCP>
Date: 28 Aug 89 18:48:45 GMT
References: <11238@burdvax.PRC.Unisys.COM> <3986@csd4.csd.uwm.edu> <925@mrsvr.UUCP>
Reply-To: roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith)
Organization: Public Health Research Inst. (NY, NY)
Lines: 36


	In <925@mrsvr.UUCP> hallett@shoreland.UUCP (Jeff Hallett x4-6328)
rants (perhaps with some justification) about software upgrade policies.
Here's something that's been bugging me for a while.  We've used IDD's
MacDraft for a long time and like it.  It has a few quirks, and some
serious drawbacks, but for the money it was a pretty reasonable program
when it came out.  The only serious feature it was lacking was the ability
to do rotated text (other than N*90 degress), which we use a lot around
here.  When we got a big-screen mac, we discovered it had some bugs which
made it crash on a big screen, but IDD sent us a bugfix upgrade for some
reasonable amount of money ($25, or something like that).

	Then, Dreams came out and IDD wanted something like $200 for it if
you were a registered MacDraft owner.  Note that they didn't call it an
upgrade, but rather the $200 deal was a discount on the new program.
Granted, it is changed a lot, but it's not really a new program.  The file
structure is changed (I suspect a lot of the limitations of MacDraft were
due to poorly designed file structure) and there are a bunch of new
features (many of them quite nice), and some bug fixes, but it sure feels
more like MacDraft-II than a new program, complete with a new (higher)
pricetag.  I think list is something like $400 and you can get it for about
$260 from software discounters.  Anyway, we bought the program, if only to
get the rotated text feature, but it still gnaws at me that we got ripped
off.

	Now, before anybody flames me, let me point out that I have said
many times in the past that if you know what the program does, and you know
how much it cost, and you agree to pay that price for it, and it does whey
they advertize it to do, you havn't really gotten ripped off.  You could
have decided it wasn't worth what they were asking for it and declined to
buy it.  But it *still* bothers me. :-)
-- 
Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute
455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
{att,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy -or- roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu
"The connector is the network"