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From: stew@endor.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Help!  Excel 1.00 vs. 1.05? (really MS v. everyone)
Message-ID: <3468@husc6.harvard.edu>
Date: Sat, 5-Dec-87 00:03:20 EST
Article-I.D.: husc6.3468
Posted: Sat Dec  5 00:03:20 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 9-Dec-87 01:50:17 EST
References: <870049@hpcilzb.HP.COM> <1211@uhccux.UUCP>
Sender: news@husc6.harvard.edu
Reply-To: stew@endor.UUCP (Stew Rubenstein)
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Organization: Aiken Computation Lab Harvard, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 46

In article <19851@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> robertj@yale.UUCP writes:
>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
>unexpectedly 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.

I've had the opposite experience.

I'm a Macintosh software developer.  I released ChemDraw 1.0 in July,
1987, not too long after System 3.2 was released.  It was developed
using Megamax C, so when System 4.1 came out, ChemDraw was among the
applications which died.

So who did my customers blame, me or Apple?  Who did they expect to
supply them with an immediate fix?  Without exception, the attitude
of my customers was that ChemDraw was broken and that I was to blame.

When I developed a new version, using the new Styled TextEdit, and
sent it out to Beta testers, it bombed frequently, due to bugs in
Styled TextEdit in System 4.1.  Who did the beta testers blame?  Me,
of course.  So I couldn't even speed the release of the new version
in order to provide a version that worked with System 4.1 - it was
way too fragile.  Luckily, the Megamax bug was such that I could
apply a binary patch to the application using FEdit, and create a
version 1.01 which ran under System 4.1.

Now System 4.2 and MultiFinder are here, and I'm heavily into long-
delayed beta testing, trying to get the new version out.  In the last
month, I've reported something like seven bugs in System 4.2 and
LaserWriter 5.0 to Macintosh Technical support.  I've spent the
better part of a month finding workarounds to Apple's bugs.

Sigh...

Stew Rubenstein
Cambridge Scientific Computing, Inc.
UUCPnet:    seismo!harvard!rubenstein            CompuServe: 76525,421
Internet:   rubenstein@harvard.harvard.edu       MCIMail:    CSC