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From: robertj@yale.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Help!  Excel 1.00 vs. 1.05? (really MS v. everyone)
Message-ID: <19851@yale-celray.yale.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 3-Dec-87 21:28:40 EST
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Posted: Thu Dec  3 21:28:40 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 6-Dec-87 20:27:14 EST
References: <870049@hpcilzb.HP.COM> <1211@uhccux.UUCP> <2799@sphinx.uchicago.edu> <3777@uwmcsd1.UUCP> <3078@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>
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Organization: Yale University Computer Science Dept, New Haven CT
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Summary: I hardly think Microsoft's invulnerable to criticism...

In article <3078@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> Christopher Chow writes:
>Actually, Excel works fine on my 2Mb Mac II so you can use Excel under
>MultiFinder.  I heard that Apple actually put hooks into Multifinder so that
>Microsoft products wouldn't be broken.  What I don't understand is *why* ?
...
>Looking back, Microsoft has been the other giant in the Macintosh software
>field, and its my feeling that they have taken advantage of their size in
>the Macintosh field to produce bad software.  In particular, their

I don't understand why Microsoft would deliberately produce bad software
simply because they are the only company big enough to possibly survive the
ensuing firestorm of criticism.  How would such a move help them?  All it
brought them with Word 3.00 was a lot of bad feeling.

>So why did Apple put hooks into Multifinder for Microsoft?  Granted the
>Excel and Word are important products, but they will still continue to
>function under System 4.1 and Finder 6.0.  Thus, people can still work with
>Excel and Word so they wouldn't get mad at Apple.  But now suppose that Apple
>didn't put in Multifinder hooks for MS products.  Then people would have
>observed that while most programs worked with Multifinder, and that
>Multifinder is nice environment, Excel and Word don't work.  If most things
>worked and a few things didn't then something is wrong with the few things.
>This would either force Microsoft to immediately clean up its act, or help
>foster an environment where someone else can write "correctly written"
>programs of similar power.  In the end, the user community wins.  Condoning
>Microsoft's mistakes dosen't help the user community.

Releasing a Microsoft-unfriendly Multifinder doesn't really help the user
community either.  Most business users (the kind who 
RELY on Microsoft's business products) would not be able to analyze the
situation and conclude that Microsoft was at fault for Excel's inability to run
under Multifinder.  Instead, they would see "The application Excel has unexpect-
edly quit (ID=01)", and wonder why the files they used every day in their
business were suddenly unusable under Apple's new System, which was supposed to
make their Macs so much *more* useful.  They would wind up blaming Apple.  And
most people are not willing to say "Oh, it still works without Multifinder.
I'll use it that way."  If it doesn't work with the latest and most modern
system software, they get nervous.  Witness the current Hypercard/Multifinder
flame war.

>Before anyone flames me, think on this for a moment:  Word 3.01 is a very
>sucessfull program, yet it comes directly from Word 3.00 which had over 475
>documented bugs.  Yet Microsoft thought that 3.00 was correct enough to
>release.  What other third party vendor could have survived and have a very
>sucessful product after a start like Word 3.00?  Does a company that can do
>something like this stifle competition?

As I remember, Microsoft got MASSIVELY flamed for the release of Word 3.00.
They even recalled it a couple of months after its release.  I agree that
Microsoft should have been better on its beta testing, and I agree that
they are possibly the only company that could have survived such a debacle,
but I believe that their response to the situation was adequate:  admit
the problems, recall the software, and release a (bug-free?) update.

The other reason why Microsoft survived the Word 3.00 mess is because Word
3 is simply a superior product, and users recognized that.  Users were
willing to put up with the initial buggy release because they recognized that
a bug-free Word would be worth waiting for.  Word 3.01 is, right now, the
most powerful word processor available for the Macintosh.  (No flames, please;
e-mail with dissenting opinions.)  As for stifling competition...?  MS Word
3.01 HAS no competition in the high-end Mac WP market.  The only package with
a CHANCE against it is Fullwrite "Vaporware of the Decade" Professional.  If
anything, I would say that the Word 3.00 debacle was actually a window of
opportunity for some other WP company to blow Microsoft away.  "Word 3.00?
Don't buy buggy, overloaded software?  Instead buy OUR package!"  The sad
fact is that no other company had a product that was anything LIKE Word for
power word processing.

Getting back briefly to Multifinder compatibility:  As I understand it,
Microsoft isn't the only company with products that have the 1MB bug.  Who
knows what else might be breaking under Multifinder if not for those patches?
But in any case, I have heard that Microsoft is working (hard) to fix this
bug in their current products.  There is no shortage of flames about this
bug, even though the current versions *do* run under Multifinder.  In fact,
one might even say that Multifinder's release has made the bug MORE visible:
it enables one to visually see (in the Finder's "About..." box) how memory-
inefficient Microsoft's products are.  I would say that Microsoft has made
several mistakes in the past, but they have had a fairly good track record
on fixing them.  And I don't see that they have crushed all the competition;
new eager Fullwrite rumors appear almost every day....

>Christopher Chow
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Thanks for a thought-provoking posting.

Rob Jellinghaus                | "Lemme graze in your veldt,
jellinghaus@yale.edu.UUCP      |  Lemme trample your albino,
ROBERTJ@{yalecs,yalevm}.BITNET |  Lemme nibble on your buds,
!..!ihnp4!hsi!yale!jellinghaus |  I'm your... Love Rhino" -- Bloom County