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"